Following the January 23 March for Life in Washington DC, which included a telecom with the President, speeches by numerous Congressmen and Senators, an appearance by the Schindler family and at least 100,000 participants, the Republic printed an obscure article totaling two inches of text.
On January 26, an article appeared on the front page of Section B (Valley and State), reporting an 100 person protest at the State Capitol. The participants were Senior Citizens who were "rallying" in support of legislation that would legalize assisted suicide.
The pro-suicide coverage included an 8 by 5 color picture of three protesters and 22 inches of text. Taking into account both the picture, titles and the text, the assisted suicide article received 18 times more area than the March for Life Article.
Update: in a city dominated by retired snow birds it is revealing that assisted suicide proponents found only 100 Seniors to promote their cause.
The selectivity and bias of the Arizona Republic is far worse than I reported above. Shane Wikfors, Executive Director of Arizona Right to Life, writes about the paper's failure to report about the Jan. 23 local pro-life rally involing several thousand Arizonians:
Imagine my great disappointment when I finally sat down to read the Arizona Republic this evening and saw the story, "Group rallies for right to die." Here's a story in which the Republic gives a lot of ink to a very extreme group of about 100 people who wanted to advocate for their own destruction.Read the rest here.After I read the story I quickly checked the Republic's archive for Monday, January 23rd, to see if they had covered the January 22nd Annual March and Rally for Life in which about 2,000 Arizonans gathered to hear from such esteemed speakers as Congressman Trent Franks and Senator Jon Kyl. After all, the most newsworthy item at this time is the Samuel Alito hearings. Of course, Senator Kyl, a ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had enough to say about the nomination process and the Republic was nowhere to be found.
Needless to say, the pro-life movement and its thousands of citizens got snubbed again by the Arizona Republic. There was no story for Monday, January 23rd.
I immediately picked up the phone and called the reporter for the story, Casey Newton, at (602) 444-8155. I expressed my great disappointment that the Republic failed to cover the 33rd Annual March and Rally and that it also failed to seek any comment from the pro-life perspective. I suggest you also send him an email or give him a call. Hopefully, the Republic's liaison will return my call. And yes, we did send out several rounds of press releases to all media outlets days before the event.
Just wondering... how come your image says the right to life protest was 100,000 people, and Shane Wikfors said 2,000? That's a difference of 98,000 people -- kinda striking. It doesn't seem like there's a need to exaggerate, since 2,000 is significantly more than 100 and deserves at least equal coverage.
Michelle - I was referring to the National March for Life in Washington DC which had AT LEAST 100,000 people - no exaggeration. Shane was commented on the Arizona gathering in Phoenix.
Best to you...