Hey Newsweek — Look at This!
I’m starting out with that line — and this great picture — because the stupidity and bias of the mainstream secular news media is the reason we have blogs. This Newsweek article would have us believe that “young women were missing” from last year’s anniversary of the Roe v. Wade commemorations in D.C. (I was there and the majority of the march was composed of young people both male and female). The author, Krista Gesaman, took the words of one of the police coordinators of the event to the effect that the original organizers of the March for Life were getting old and twisted it to try and imply that the young weren’t attending, and that, in fact, the majority of the participants in the march were over 60. Indeed, Nellie Gray, one of the original organizers of the March, has been there every year since 1974, and she and the other founders are certainly up there in years. But that means nothing in regard to the rest of the participants. You only need to take a look at the picture to see that young women were out in full force at this year’s march. (Photo source)
The rest of the article centered around a supposed lack of activism among young women on both sides of the abortion issue. To be fair, the author predicted a “surge” of young women this year because of the Mass for Life and Youth Rally sponsored by the Washington Archdiocese — though the same Mass and Rally were held last year and if I’m not mistaken, in previous years as well.
This nonsense is very typical of the MSM reporting on the March for Life and it’s repeated every year. This year, I was marching, and once again there were some 250,000 to 300,000 people surging up Constitution Ave singing and praying for life. I never saw a single pro-choice sign. As usual there were undoubtedly a handful of pro-choice demonstrators up around the Supreme Court building at the end of the march, but I didn’t see any of them, either this year or last year.
As usual, the media tried to pretend the march didn’t exist, and whenever the news even bothered to mention it, there was little to no reporting of the actual numbers on either side. Most MSM sources either were silent, or implied there might have been equal numbers on both sides. CNN as usual, was particularly bad. Steven Greydanus takes down the media coverage here.
Catholic and other religious news services were out full force (I went right past the EWTN cameraman). C-SPAN covered the march in some detail. I’m also told that Fox News was there. Other than that, the only people getting the news out there are the new media. Most people would not be able to see how big the march was if it weren’t for blogs and YouTube videos.
I hope to publish my account and video very shortly. I had a hard trip back from D.C. Friday because the bus was delayed, and because the pressure of work marches on, I’m having to make up some lost work time yesterday and today. But I’ll have the full story very soon.
Update, same day: Here’s a commentary from the Washington Post, by someone who — gasp! — actually went out and did some reporting on the march and who shows who really attended and what they think.
