Most media observers have recognized for year that the New York Times’ slogan “All the News that’s Fit to Print” should read, “All the News that Fits.” The Times’ reportage on the March 20 Illinois Primary is a case in point.
The Times’ four-column headline read, “ABORTION RIGHT BACKERS CLAIM A VICTORY IN ILLINOIS.” The lead two paragraphs read as follows:
“CHICAGO, March 21 – The outcome of a little-noticed suburban legislative race overshadowed other results in Tuesday’s statewide primary here, and it may have cost a prominent conservative and ardent abortion foe her seat in the Illinois General Assembly.
“With all the votes counted in Illinois’ 55th House district, Representative Penny L. Pullen, the House minority leader, apparently lost by 31 votes – 7,431 to 7,400 – to Rosemary Mulligan, a political unknown whose campaign in the Republican primary received strong financial and political support from national abortion rights groups.”
The Times was so enthusiastic about reporting Representative Pullen’s defeat that it promoted her so that pro-abortionists could savor her defeat more fully. Contrary to the Times account, Pullen is not the House minority leader (his name is Lee Daniels). Miss Pullen is one of four assistant minority leaders.
The Times’ news account included eleven additional paragraphs about the Pull defeat, plus much lesser mention of several statewide and Chicago races more newsworthy than the Pullen election. No other state legislative contest was mentioned.
The Times was happy to quote Kate Michelman, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, for her gloating comment. A non-Illinoisian, Michelman and her group had financed out-of-state phone banks to defeat Pullen.
Now let’s see how the news could have been reported if the Times had really given “all the news that’s fit to print” and reported the rest of the story. The account of the Illinois Primary should have been headlined “ABORTION RIGHT BACKER SUFFERS STUNNING DEFEAT IN ILLINOIS” and then reported as follows:
“The outcome of a little-noticed suburban legislative race overshadowed other results in Tuesday’s statewide primary here, and it cost a prominent senior Republican and ardent abortion advocate his seat in the Illinois General Assembly.
“With all the votes counted in Illinois’ 40th House district, Representative Gene Hoffman, the senior House assistant minority leader, as soundly defeated (11,690 to 8,466) by Dan Cronin, a political unknown who campaigned on a pro-life platform with the political support of Illinois pro-lifers.
“A 23-year veteran legislator, Hoffman is one of the most powerful Republicans in the Illinois General Assembly. As a member of the House Rules Committee, he was the deciding vote last year to prevent a pro-life bill from going to the House floor, where all admit it would have passed. Pro-lifers held Hoffman responsible for denying the House the opportunity to vote on pro-life legislation.
“The director of an Illinois pro-life organization said in a statement, ‘Gene Hoffman was our number-one target for defeat in the Legislature this year. We begged him to let the House vote on a moderate bill which we knew was constitutional because it copied the Missouri law upheld in the Webster decision last year. But he used his power on the Rules Committee to prevent a vote.’
“As a longtime incumbent, Hoffman enjoyed the full support in his campaign of the Illinois Republican Party organization. He has been a longtime favorite of the abortion rights advocates as well as of the teachers’ unions, since he always supported bills giving more money and more power to the education establishment.”
But not a word of these true events appeared in the New York Times because it didn’t “fit” the Times’ editorial position. In order to create political momentum FOR abortion, the liberal media stridently and redundantly report pro-abortion victories, but ignore or minimize pro-life victories.
“Know your enemy” is a famous piece of advice important in any military or political campaign. The pro-life movement might just as well face up to the fact that the national media have made themselves the public relations departments of the pro-abortion lobby.
