Jack Cashill is editor of a Kansas City business magazine, but also writes with considerable insight about politics. His book "What's the Matter with California" was incisive, and he may be onto something here, too: The reporting by our national media is so far off the mark that we can no longer attribute it to blind spots or inadvertent bias. It has crossed the threshold into fraud, sheer legerdemain. The national media appear to be corrupt.
But as a former small-market print newsman myself, let me suggest an alternative explanation in the case of Newsweek: I think it's possible the reporter just took the day off and made up quotes, defrauding not only her readers but her editors and her employer. She obviously didn't watch even 20 seconds of the march, and I don't think she talked to any police officer who would have said such a dumb thing, either. Seriously, Newsweek, you've been had.
LifeSiteNews.com
Group Exposes Media "Fraud" at March for Life
By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, DC (LifeSiteNews.com) - Anyone who attended the March for Life in the nation's capital January 22 - or was anywhere near Capitol Hill that day or the day before - was well aware of the size of the group that came to make its voice heard. District residents could only stand aside as the annual Starbucks-equipped army of young pro-life men and women descended upon the streets surrounding the Capitol. Hordes of March for Life participants filled sidewalks, and clogged crosswalks; while the noise of countless group leaders struggling to keep their contingents together competed with the din of colorfully-dressed gaggles of teenagers.
Such has come to be the late-January tradition in Washington. But from the news reports from the major networks and newspapers, one would never know it. The rest of the country was only shown misleading footage or pictures depicting the endless column of pro-lifers receding into the distance behind the looming presence of, at most, a couple dozen pro-abortion demonstrators.
Fed up with what they call the "mind-boggling corruption" of media coverage of the march, a small production team has released a YouTube video revealing the truth about the enormous event and the skewed media reports that referenced it. The same group released a documentary last year entitled "Thine Eyes," which reveals the sheer size of the 2009 March for Life and the pro-life stories behind it.
"We had hoped to set the media straight, but we did not succeed," says narrator Jack Cashill. "Their performance in 2010 convinced us that the issue at hand is not ignorance or incompetence, not even bias, but outright fraud. "More than any other event, the march reveals the truly eye-popping, mind-boggling corruption of the mainstream media."
Cashill responds to two particularly egregious media misrepresentations: one by CNN anchorman Rick Sanchez, who strongly implied that the number of pro-life marchers and pro-abortion demonstrators at the event were comparable. "Well Rick, we counted at least 300,000 pro-life marchers to 5 pro-choice protestors. In the real world, that qualifies as most," says Cashill.
[Note: I marched toward the end of the procession, and I think I saw 3-4 pro-abortion demonstrators. They were preppy, normal-looking women, and one effeminate young man. They were subdued, not raucous, and they stood at a distance from the marchers. I suspect they were doing it for extra credit in a freshman Women's Studies class. One held a sign that said "keep your Rosaries off my ovaries." How profound.
Near the end of the route, in front of the Supreme Court, there were not more than 10 of them. I heard there had been perhaps 100 earlier. These were older, shabbier and appeared to be old-school traumatized feminist man-haters, plus one sexually ambiguous man in his 50s with a condescending manner and a slight lisp, who struck me as a suburban Unitarian, perhaps a grantwriter or a liaison officer of some kind. I think most of us will always remember Rick Sanchez for his feigned uncertainty whether there were more pro-abortion (105, tops) or more anti-abortion (300,000 minimum) marching. I don't know how we can ever look him in the eye again without stifling a chuckle. B.James Stinson]
The video also skewers a Newsweek article by Krista Gesaman, in which she claimed that young women were "missing" from the March for Life 2010. Gesaman's article quoted a Washington police officer who said, in the reporter's words, that "a majority of the participants are in their 60s and were the original pioneers either for or against the case."
The YouTube video responds with copious imagery documenting the large percentage of youth at the March, a great deal of whom were women. "Pro-lifers will not soon be too old to stage an actual march, do not worry. In truth, young women of every race, color and creed are the single largest demographic in any march. They number in the scores of thousands," Cashill notes.
"The media will have only themselves to blame if next year the marchers come back to Washington, not just in record numbers, but in righteous anger."
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
CNN Gaffe: Anchor Wonders on Air Whether More Pro-Lifers or Pro-Aborts at March for Life
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012806.html
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