The broadcast networks were far more interested in covering the Covington Catholic High School controversy than the annual March for Life, says a study of the coverage that followed.
“Between Saturday evening and Monday morning, NBC, ABC and CBS devoted a stunning 19 minutes 5 seconds to falsely accusing teenagers who participated in the March for Life of racism following a confrontation with left-wing activists. That was after the broadcast networks only managed to provide a pathetic 58 seconds of coverage to Friday’s annual demonstration protesting the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion,” wrote Kyle Drennen, a senior analyst for Newsbusters.org, a conservative press watchdog.
He found that the networks spent 19 times more airtime on the encounter between the students and Native American activist Nathan Phillips than on the march, which drew hundreds of thousands of participants to the nation’s capital.
ABC provided nine minutes of coverage on the attacks of the pro-life students but only six seconds to the March for Life. NBC devoted more than five minutes to the attacks and 44 seconds for the march. CBS aired four minutes of stories on the students’ confrontation with Mr. Phillips — and eight seconds to the march.
“By Monday morning, all three networks began to acknowledge that there was a lot more to the story, citing additional video footage of vile taunts being hurled at the Covington students before the confrontation with Phillips,” Mr. Drennen said.
“When it comes to a conservative protest against abortion, year after year, the media have no interest in the story. However, when reporters see a chance to paint teenage participants of the demonstration as ’racist,’ they are eager to seize on the narrative without actually having solid facts about what happened,” he wrote.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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