CROOKSTON - Bias in news media exists.
Identifying the extent and level of partisanship often includes the source, established editorial position and the focus or “framing” of an issue. Bias can run deep.
Generally, the pro-life movement is viewed with disdain or indifference by national and regional secular media, a claim often denied by those sources. The mission and activities of the movement - either ignored or afforded token coverage - often is portrayed as irrelevant and futile.
ADVERTISEMENT
The framing of news establishes its direction in coverage.
Case in point; the author of a Reuters story (which the Herald printed), who inaccurately paraphrased Pope Francis as having suggested that “the Roman Catholic Church must shake off an obsession with teachings on abortion.”
Really?
For those who don’t appreciate manipulation of message through partisan media spin, Pope Francis stated the following on Sept. 20, 2013, to a gathering of Catholic health professionals in Vatican City:
- “In all its phases and at every age, human life is always sacred and always of quality - not as a matter of faith, but of reason and science.”
- “Abortion is a widespread mentality of profit as a throwaway culture, enslaving the hearts and minds of so many.”
- “Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world.”
- “Cultural disorientation and rising individualism parallels a growing disrespect for life.”
- “Even as persons are accorded new rights, at times only presumed rights, life is the primacy value and primordial right.”
Th pontiff’s statements are core, clear and consistent. Journalistic credibility takes another hit.
R.J. Ogaard
