May 29, 2003
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Memo on abortion and liberal bias by Los Angeles Times Editor John Carroll, May 22, 2003 (LA Observed)To: SectionEds
Subject: Credibility/abortion
I'm concerned about the perception---and the occasional reality---that the Times is a liberal, "politically correct" newspaper. Generally speaking, this is an inaccurate view, but occasionally we prove our critics right. We did so today with the front-page story on the bill in Texas that would require abortion doctors to counsel patients that they may be risking breast cancer....
I wondered as I read it whether somewhere there might exist some credible scientist who believes in [the link between abortion and breast cancer].
Such a person makes no appearance in the story's lengthy passage about the scientific issue. We do quote one of the sponsors of the bill, noting that he "has a professional background in property management." Seldom will you read a cheaper shot than this. Why, if this is germane, wouldn't we point to legislators on the other side who are similarly bereft of scientific credentials?...
Apparently the scientific argument for the anti-abortion side is so absurd that we don't need to waste our readers' time with it.
The reason I'm sending this note to all section editors is that I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage. We may happen to live in a political atmosphere that is suffused with liberal values (and is unreflective of the nation as a whole), but we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.
The offending story is here.
Now a brief perusal of the medical journals could have found studies showing a link. But if that's too hard, the LA Times could have consulted a liberal friend of the BrothersJudd, Charles Murtaugh, who on March 9 wrote:
Gee, I wonder why the abortion-breast cancer studies don't make the front page of the Washington Post?
(Actually, a quick LEXIS-NEXIS search finds that they do, when those studies come to the opposite conclusion. On Jan. 9, 1997, the Post ran a front-page story on a Danish study that "disputes breast cancer, abortion link." However, this finding was only relevant to first trimester abortions, which wouldn't be predicted to lead to increased risk anyway -- the hypothesized risk depends on growth of mammary tissue during pregnancy, which doesn't kick in until after the first trimester. In fact, the Danish study confirmed an increased breast cancer risk associated with second- and third-trimester abortions, but the Post buried this inconvenient fact in the second-to-last paragraph.)
Carroll's memo to his editors is nice, but it would be even nicer if the LA Times did a new front-page story explaining the evidence for a abortion-breast-cancer link.
My question is: what must conservatives do before newspapers actually start publishing news that makes liberals uncomfortable -- and hiring to create a more diverse "political atmosphere" so that their paper will not be "suffused with liberal values"? Complain vigorously? Or start competing news sources, a la Fox News, and steal away customers from the liberals?