How my newspaper covered the March for Life

By Tom Quiner

Two parents screamed bloody murder when Roosevelt High School agreed to let Martin Luther King’s niece speak.
The principal caved and disinvited Dr. Alveda King from speaking, denying students at my alma mater from hearing a pro life message. This all took place a few years ago.
The Des Moines Register gave it huge coverage. All it took was two liberal parents to suppress the free speech of one side of a debate and garner huge news coverage.
I’ve seen the Des Moines Register cover protests where there are only five or ten people protesting some liberal cause.
In fairness, the Register has published a number of my essays on a variety of pro life subjects, which I sincerely appreciate. However, their news reporting on pro life events is usually pretty sketchy.
I was pleasantly surprised by the coverage they gave the March for Life in the morning’s paper. They ran a piece written by the U.S. Today which  covered the top third of page four. The coverage was by and large good, except for two things.
First, they described the crowd as “thousands.” It should have been hundreds of thousands.
Secondly, rather than using a photograph that shows the true size of the vast crowd, they used a close up photo with a human abortion agitator as the focal point. The photo suggests equal representation between the opposing group, which there was not. I have posted the photo above.
The media is hardwired to slant coverage of pro life events, even if it is subtle.