The Other Side of the Story -- Part Two of Two

By Maria Vitale, Education Director

Editor’s note. The following is reproduced with permission from Lifelines,  the newsletter of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation.

When I was a girl, my all-time favorite television program was The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Even though it was a comedy, I took this show very seriously. I didn't just like the main character, Mary Richards. I wanted to be her. I wanted to grow up to work in a newsroom, complete with a flower on my desk, and apologizing whenever I ran into a filing cabinet. By the time I was 26 years old, I was a television producer, just like Mary, trading wisecracks with my fellow news writers, living the journalistic life.

It may sound quaint, given public opinion polls showing widespread distrust of the news media, but I always considered it an honorable profession. I received wonderful training in writing and reporting in college and graduate school, and I feel I was given the tools to succeed in communicating facts to a large audience.

One important part of my training was "getting the other side of the story." In class, it was drummed into me, day in and day out, that I always had to look for the other side of the story and report it as best I could. In other words, if someone was for something, I needed to try to find someone who was against it, in the hope of achieving balance. My professors stressed to me that this was particularly the case when it came to hot-button issues such as abortion.

Looking back, I feel I failed at times to adequately report the pro-life side of the story. Deadline pressure was sometimes so great that I missed getting the pro-life soundbite into my piece. All too often, I accepted the pro-abortion side at face-value, failing to ask insightful questions such as: Just how many late-term abortions are being done in our state? And--Does the baby feel pain during an abortion? And--Why does Planned Parenthood do so many abortions, or rather, why does the organization do abortions at all?

I realize that deadlines can be killers, and it can be tough for a reporter with little knowledge of the life issues to write coherently about them after about two hours' worth of study--if not less. Yet, I'm always amazed when I see stories in print that present only the pro-abortion side.

Recently, I found such a story in the newspaper of my alma mater, Northwestern University. A pro-abortion activist presented her case, but, aside from a reference to anti-abortionists chipping away at Roe, there really was nothing of the pro-life side in the article. I decided to e-mail the reporter, and I was pleasantly surprised at her response.

Rather than defending the exclusion of a pro-life voice, she said she thought it would be "very interesting" to present both sides of the issue to both Northwestern students and the community of Evansville, Illinois. She added, "I'm sure my editor will look into finding a pro-life activist that we may interview in the future."

Sending that reporter an e-mail took only a few minutes--yet, it may have had at least a small impact on the way that the newspaper covers the abortion issue in the future. This is why I encourage all pro-lifers to actively engage members of the news media. While there is evidence of pro-abortion bias in the media, there is also evidence of reporters--especially young reporters--who are interested in learning about the pro-life side and presenting it fairly.

So, don't give up on the news media--reach out to them! It is only through our silence that the truth about abortion will be concealed.

Part One