Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com normally does the best job in the ConWeb of at least keeping up the appearance of fairness and balance (even though it really isn't). Editor Terry Jeffrey, though, has tossed all pretense out the window with his "news" articles on President Obama's speech at Notre Dame's graduation.
Jeffrey's bias starts with the headline of his main article: "Obama Legitimizes Killing of Unborn Babies in Speech at Notre Dame's Graduation." Jeffrey continues:
After receiving an honorary doctorate in law at the University of Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a speech to the school's graduating seniors that sought to legitimize his position in favor of the legal killing of unborn children.
Obama told the graduates of the nation’s most well-known Catholic university that abortion “has both moral and spiritual dimensions”--although he did not explain why he had made this conclusion—and made it quite clear that, even so, he has no intention of moving from his position that it ought to be legal for a pregnant mother to have a doctor kill her unborn child for literally any reason at any stage of pregnancy.
The president also did not take back his declaration made in 2007 to Planned Parenthood that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would eliminate all the state and federal limitations on abortion that have been achieved by the pro-life movement in the 26 years since the Supreme Court legalized abortion on demand in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Nor did Obama rescind his vow to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act that currently protects states that do not recognize same-sex marriages from being compelled by the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the Constitution to recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other states.Nor did he reverse his executive order allowing federal tax dollars to be used for research that kills human embryos in order to extract their stem cells.
Nor did he reverse his order to allow U.S. foreign aid dollars to be used to perform and promote abortion in foreign countries.
It's not until the ninth paragraph that Jeffrey gets around to highlighting something Obama did say, as opposed to what he didn't.
Jeffrey's subjective language on abortion-related terminology -- a longtime CNS bias -- permeates the article, rerfusing to use the accepted term "pro-choice" in favor of the misleading term "pro-abortion" as well as the needlessly inflammatory term "people who favor the legal killing of unborn children." Needless to say, he uses the euphemestic term "pro-life" instead of the more accurate "anti-abortion."
What less biased news organizations led with in their reports on Obama's speech -- Obama's call to both sides of the debate to make their case with "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words" and "without reducing those with differing views to caricature" -- Jeffrey buries in the final paragraph of his article. Jeffrey clearly isn't interested in approaching this issue with "fair-minded words," even though he purports to be a journalist.
A secondary article by Jeffrey also announces its bias in the headline: "At Notre Dame, Pro-Abortion Obama Wears Prayer Symbolizing Dedication of all Notre Dame's Activities to Virgin Mary." Jeffrey doesn't explain his obsession with this -- CNS published an article in April stating the Notre Dame expected Obama to wear the prayer. Given that it's inscribed in the school's traditional doctrinal robe, that fact that Obama not only was expected to wear it but did is not newsworthy.
