LifeNet

Catholic League writes MSNBC over presenting Catholics for Choice as representing the Catholic church

Here's the link and text below -

OPEN LETTER TO MSNBC

November 22, 2013 by Bill  
Filed under Latest News Releases

On November 19, NewsBusters ran a story on the MSNBC segment with Thomas Roberts on abortion. This occasioned Bill Donohue to write the following letter to MSNBC today:

Ms. Kathy Kelly-Brown
Senior Vice President, Communications
NBCUniversal News Group
MSNBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10112

Dear Ms. Kelly-Brown:

If MSNBC wants to invite someone from Catholics for Choice to discuss abortion, that’s fine. But truth in advertising standards demand that the spokesperson not be identified as representing the position of the Catholic Church. That is exactly what happened on November 19 when Thomas Roberts introduced Sara Hutchinson, a spokesperson for Catholics for Choice. After MSNBC contributor and abortion-rights advocate Irin Carmon expressed her position on the Albuquerque, New Mexico proposed law banning abortions after 20 weeks, Roberts said, “Okay, so let’s talk to the Church side.”

There is nothing “Catholic” about Catholics for Choice, and everyone knows it. Would MSNBC allow someone from Jews for Jesus to speak for Jews? If you want to present two pro-abortion sides as part of your discussion, that is your business. But please refrain from lying to your viewers about “the Church side.”

Contact: [email protected]

Pro-Life America and the media: "When will our media reflect America on abortion?"

William McGurn's June 1st column in the Wall Street Journal -

Gallup's Pro-Life America

Some object to the term pro-life on the grounds that it gives the anti-abortion movement an unfair advantage. Accordingly, a number of news organizations no longer use pro-life or pro-choice, the latest being National Public Radio. The thought here is that the word pro-life is fooling people.

Now, if this were 1973, that might be an argument. But isn't it just a wee condescending to suggest, after more than a generation of contentious moral and political debate, that the American people really haven't figured out what pro-life and pro-choice mean?

Americans have done so, moreover, without a great deal of help from the press. In news reporting, it's not unusual to encounter constructions such as this AP dispatch from the presidential campaign about Sarah Palin: "She has worshipped at a nondenominational Bible church since 2002, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest and supports classroom discussions about creationism."

That's fair as far as it goes. Just once, however, wouldn't it be interesting to see a leading newspaper write something like, "Nancy Pelosi, who opposes any restrictions on abortion, even in cases where a pregnant minor is taken across state lines without a parent's permission or where the fetus is halfway out the mother"?