[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 82 (Thursday, June 6, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1007]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE MEDIA'S VETO

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                          HON. PHILIP M. CRANE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 5, 1996

  Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, a recent study revealed that the members of 
the Washington press corps are predominantly liberal. In fact, over 90 
percent of them voted Democrat in the last election. Despite these 
leanings, the media have defended themselves by claiming to be able to 
separate those opinions from their news coverage.
  Quite to the contrary, U.S. News & World Report, of June 10, 1996, 
takes issue with that argument and provides a case study of how the 
media's left-leaning perspective often colors the manner in which 
stories are covered or not covered. The article explains how the Boston 
Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington 
Post all overlooked Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's statement that 
the procedure of partial birth abortions was too close to infanticide, 
and would vote to override the President's veto. I would like to submit 
this article for the Record and note that it ends by challenging 
reporters and the media to do some hard investigating. I also challenge 
the media to do so and hope that the American public recognizes the 
liberal filter through which they receive their news.

             [From U.S. News & World Report, June 10, 1996]

                   All the News That Fits Our Biases

                             (By John Leo)

       In a videotaped interview on May 2, Billy Graham told 
     columnist Cal Thomas that he had privately met with President 
     Clinton and criticized him for vetoing the Partial-Birth 
     Abortion Ban Act. This story poked into a few newspapers. The 
     Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times gave it a line or 
     two deep in round-up articles. A computer search failed to 
     turn up any mention of it in the New York Times and the 
     Boston Glove.
       The same day, Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of 
     New York told New York Post reporter Deborah Orin he would 
     vote to override the abortion veto because partial-birth 
     abortions are ``too close to infanticide.'' All four of the 
     above-mentioned newspapers skipped this story. Three weeks 
     later, the New York Times quoted Bob Dole as agreeing with 
     Moynihan--which must have mystified Times readers who don't 
     also read the New York Post, since they hadn't yet been 
     informed about Moynihan's stance. Even an editorial barb in 
     the Wall Street Journal about the nonreporting of Moynihan's 
     comment had no effect.
       It's particularly strange for the Times to ignore an anti-
     veto stance by a hometown senator who has a prominent 
     abortion-rights record. This is like Jesse Helms attacking 
     the tobacco industry and getting no ink in North Carolina 
     papers.
       Of course, in the daily rush of breaking news, many stories 
     fall by the wayside. But some stories are stronger candidates 
     for the wayside than others. Among the sure-fire wayside 
     candidates are reports that some hospitals have limited 
     second-trimester abortions because nurses refused to attend 
     the procedures; all stories about health violations at 
     abortion clinics or the large number of antiabortion 
     Democrats; and most stories about savage treatment of 
     abortion protesters.


                            Deep sentiments

       Elizabeth Fox-Genovese of Emory University charges that the 
     American press has underrepresented the depth of antiabortion 
     sentiment in America. This is happening again with the 
     partial-birth issue. Though the media keep representing 
     opposition as essentially religious and Republican, a Gallup 
     Poll shows that a majority of Americans support the ban (57 
     percent for it, 39 percent against). A more partisan poll 
     conducted by the Tarrance Group for the National Conference 
     of Catholic Bishops found that 55 percent of Democrats and 65 
     percent of those identifying themselves as pro choice 
     supported the ban.
       On the broader issue of abortion, Mary Ann Glendon of 
     Harvard Law School has charged that by misrepresenting the 
     sweeping character of Roe v. Wade for so long (despite its 
     famous trimester divisions, it actually allows women to abort 
     at any time during the nine months of gestation), the media 
     have effectively drained away a lot of potential reform 
     sentiment.
       And David Shaw, the Pulitzer-winning media critic of the 
     Los Angeles Times, in his long, four-part 1990 series on 
     media coverage of the abortion issue, concluded that 
     reportage on this touchy subject has been uniquely biased 
     across the board toward abortion rights. This was a very 
     serious indictment, one that the media should have felt some 
     obligation to address but didn't. Shaw's series was 
     photocopied and passed around widely, but the media 
     essentially gave it the silent treatment. Neither of the 
     nation's two leading journalism reviews has ever written 
     about Shaw's findings or taken up the bias issue on its own.
       If he wished to return to the subject, Shaw would have a 
     field day with coverage of the partial-birth issue. Much of 
     it has stayed remarkably close to the arguments and position 
     papers put out by the National Abortion and Reproductive 
     Rights Action League. Many have accepted at face value Kate 
     Michelman's claim that anesthesia kills the fetus before the 
     procedure begins. Few reporters bothered to add that the head 
     of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Norig Ellison, 
     says it isn't so--``very little of the anesthetic given the 
     mother ever reaches the fetus.''
       Honest reporting would also say flatly that abortion 
     opponents are right to say that a ban on partial-birth 
     abortions with an exception for ``health'' of the mother is 
     no ban at all. The language is right there in Doe v. Bolton 
     (1973), the case in which the Supreme Court defined health as 
     any physical or emotional problem.
       Is this procedure confined to serious genetic defects or 
     cases of serious risk to the mother, as Clinton thinks? Well, 
     no. Some news reports seem to take Michelman's argument at 
     face value (``it's a lie'' that the procedure is used when a 
     mother's ``depression'' or an infant's potential cleft palate 
     is cited as justification). The rest leave Michelman's claim 
     unexamined and add a line like, ``Foes of the procedure argue 
     it is used to perform elective abortions.''
       But two leading practitioners of this procedure have said 
     elective use is not unusual. Dr. Martin Haskell told an 
     interviewer from American Medical News: ``I'll be quite 
     frank: Most of my abortions are elective in that 20-to-24-
     week range. . . . 80 percent are purely elective.'' And James 
     McMahon said he had performed partial-birth abortions for an 
     array of reasons, including depression and cleft palate. If 
     antiabortion activists were making the sort of dubious and 
     clearly false claims that are coming out of NARAL, the media 
     would do some hard investigating. Why can't more reporters 
     bring themselves to do it now?

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