Selectively Reducing the Facts: Abortion and Bias in the New York Times

I guess I can agree that it is an odd fact to leave out, however I don't think it will change anyone's mind one way or the other. The remarkable part of the story is that this lady can so causually make "Sophie's choice"

I think even Kerry says life begins at conception.

Kevin - I disagree still more with your implication that her having had a previous abortion somehow reflects on the validity of her choice in a different case.

Really? Prior decisions are not part of a valid understanding of current decisions? That is patently rediculous.

The story illustrates the death of a baby.

I think the fact that she is an abortion-rights activist is relevant and should have been disclosed. That said, I don't think it tells us anything at all about abortion rights activists in general, as Joe seems to imply. It tells us about just one woman. As KTK points out, it's hardly shocking that someone who has an abortion is also an abortion rights supporter.

The question is about disclosure.

The article purported to present a story of one woman's decision to abort two of the three children that she was carrying. It discussed various issues that she considered in making that decision. By not disclosing that she was an abortion rights advocate, certain other considerations may not have been disclosed to the reader. There is, at the very least, the apperance that other motivations that may have "shed light on her mind set" were concealed from the reader.

This failure to properly disclose imporatant background happened at the editing stage. This does not reflect badly on the writer, nor on the subject of the article. (Although, to many of us, the article itself revealed her to be self-centered and rather cold-blooded.)

The failure reflects badly on the New York Times, which deliberately choose to omit this important piece of information. The Times' actions in this instance do not surprise me in the least. The NYT is a liberal newspaper. My source? The New York Times.

"Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is." -Daniel Okrent, New York Times Public Editor, July 25, 2004

Here's a link to the first 50 words of the article. The rest of the article will cost you $2.95.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20B16F93C590C768EDDAE0894DC404482

Dave S:

I was able to read the entire article here, without paying. Interestingly enough, the gist I got was that the bias is more of a New York bias than a "liberal" bias, per se. He closes by asking the paper to be more mindful of the New York-centrism:

You can take the paper out of the city, but without an effort to take the city and all its attendant provocations, experiments and attitudes out of the paper, readers with a different worldview will find The Times an alien beast.

Taking the New York out of The New York Times would be a really bad idea. But a determination by the editors to be mindful of the weight of its hometown's presence would not.

I remember hearing once that a New York Republican would be considered a Democrat virtually anywhere else, and I think there's some truth to that. So to a non-New Yorker, the Times would indeed appear to be a liberal-slanted paper.

(Then again, the idea of an informed populace is a liberal idea -- indeed, America is a liberal idea -- so you would almost expect to see some liberal influence in just about any non-propagandist news source, by virtue of its mere existence.)

It should also be noted that the story did not appear in the New York Times (implying the newspaper), as Joe indicated. It ran in the "Lives" section of the New York Times Magazine.

The “Lives” column features diarystyle essays typically written in the first-person “as told to” a New York Times Magazine writer.

In this case, Ms. Richards told her story to Amy Barrett, a frequent contributor to the magazine.

Same overall organization, but it's not the same thing as running the story in the daily paper.

Joe:

Most of our disagreements are over subjective questions of what information is relevant in responding to Richards's article. There's probably no point in going back and forth on them.

I do think, however, that you are seeing much more in this than is reasonable. Your reaction in many cases of other people's decisions of which you disapprove is to seize on other aspects of their life of which you also disapprove and see some kind of sinister pattern. Richards has an abortion - that's bad . . . but wait!: she also had an abortion 15 years ago! . . . she's had (your words) "serial abortions"! And she works for an abortion-rights group! She's obviously . . . um . . . accepting of the idea of abortion!!! Quelle scandale!

I don't think the other aspects of her life have much to do with the substance of the Times article. Obviously they're linked in some way - the fact that she works for abortion rights, and that she has had abortions at two different points in her life, no doubt are related to her underlying feelings about abortion. But that wasn't the focus of the article.

You seem to think it was some sort of "discovery" that she had had an abortion at 18; you say outright that the Times's "editors choose to leave . . . out" her advocacy experience. You put her at the center of a conspiracy that, I suspect, looms larger in your mind than anyone else's. To most people it's not a "shocking revelation" that someone had an abortion, favors abortion rights, or works for an abortion rights group - those are just fairly ordinary facts. They clearly stem from the same beliefs that would influence a decision to have an abortion at a later date, but they're not particularly informative about that decision. (Note that the article did not say "I had a selective reduction because I once had an abortion at 18 and I wanted to maintain a consistent pattern" - it said she had a selective reduction because she was pregnant with unplanned triplets and didn't want to spend her life raising triplets, an issue that has little to do with whatever else had happened in her past.)

Where you see a deliberate plot to obscure condemnatory facts, I think most people - certain most who were sympathetic to the intention of the article - just saw some fairly unremarkable facts that were only distantly related to the current situation, and didn't really need discussion.

Leaving that aside, however, you say this:

Of course you mean [women are free in] choosing the risks and burdens they will take on after they become pregnant, don’t you? What about the woman’s responsibilities? Doesn’t she bear some responsibility for her actions?

There's a weird, and rather offensive, strain in anti-choice activism that sees pregnancy as some sort of "responsibility" of women. Whatever other freedoms they have, once they get knocked up they are obligated to relinquish control of their bodies because they're "responsible" (in the sense either of guilt, or of duty) for putting up with it. Just the language of "bearing responsibility for her actions" makes the underlying meaning of this belief clear enough. We talk about "taking responsibility for your actions" in the sense of enduring punishment or ill consequences as some sort of moral obligation following from bad behavior. Pregnancy is the punishment women must endure for the crime of being sexually active. But this is a very strange way to look at a question of bodily autonomy.

Women are not required to "take responsibility for" (i.e., endure against their will) any other condition of their bodies - they are free to choose whether and how to respond to any condition that affects them other than sexually-related ones, and especially pregnancy. Weight, appearance, fitness, health - all are open to the full range of health and medical technologies . . . except for sex. Organized campaigns barrage the government to prohibit women from obtaining emergency contraception - contrary to the government's own scientific advice. Terrorists bomb, shoot, poison, and harrass abortion providers, and badger their patients, to prevent control over pregnancy. Reactionaries lobby the government into violation of its own UN treaty obligations in order to cripple sexual-health programs around world. Doctors are prohibited from discussing or even mentioning accurate information about birth control and abortion with their own patients. Pregnant women are jailed, and lately prosecuted, for not following someone else's notion of a proper prenatal health regimen. And all this because it is their "responsibility" to live out their sexual lives - and even more so their pregnancies - according to someone else's standards.

This is nonsense. No woman has a "responsibility" to be pregnant - nor to remain pregnant if she does not so desire. She has no more responsibility to let someone else dictate her reproductive choices than she has to let others decide whether she will lose weight, exercise, get a tattoo, or seek treatment for any other bodily condition. Pregnancy is not a moral obligation or a punishment for the crime of independence - it is a condition of the body that women may choose to accept or reject like any other, and may act on according to their choice in light of their own values.

tgirsh,

There seems to be an implicit generalization there, and one I'm not sure is valid.

I have to agree with Rob on this one. My claim wasn’t directed at all abortion rights activists (which is why I used the word “some” rather than all) but I think my underlying point is correct. I think that, as a group, they are probably more accepting of serial abortions than the general public would be.

So to a non-New Yorker, the Times would indeed appear to be a liberal-slanted paper.

Okrunt has a point about the paper being shaped by a “New York” bias. And I think that would be a valid excuse except for two facts. First, the NYT’s aspires to be more than just a regional publication. If they are going to be “the paper of record” for the entire country then they should, to some extent, reflect the country as a whole. Second, the excuse might apply to the lifestyle or metro sections but the front page? Why would a “New Yorker” mentality have any bearing on how national and world news is reported?

(Then again, the idea of an informed populace is a liberal idea -- indeed, America is a liberal idea -- so you would almost expect to see some liberal influence in just about any non-propagandist news source, by virtue of its mere existence.)

You’re confusing “liberal” for “Liberal.” ; )

Prior to running the editors' note, the editors claimed they were unaware of Richards' background when they ran the piece.

I’m glad you pointed that out. It makes the paper look even worse. Take, for example, their original claim:

“The editors of our magazine did not know about [Amy] Richards’s activist background,” a Times spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, told The New York Sun by e-mail after the Sun had inquired about the piece.“We plan to run an editors’ note.”

But when the actual “editor’s note” came out the story had changed:

The column… should have also disclosed that she is an abortion rights advocate…That background, which would have shed light on her mind-set, was incorporated in an early draft, but it was omitted when an editor condensed the article.

So the spokesperson says that the editors didn’t know the information but they admit that they omitted it themselves. How can they be the “paper of record” when they can’t get there own story straight?

Same overall organization, but it's not the same thing as running the story in the daily paper.

Is the magazine no longer included in the paper itself?

Gawd, this argument about the NYT being a "liberal" newspaper because "they say it is" is really really weak. I dont give a rat's ass what Okrent thinks about his paper. It's got good crosswords and a decent Arts section occasionally but that's about it. It's reporting is hardly "liberal" in my book and that was plainly evident in their reporting of the 2000 Presidential Campaigns and their coverage leading up to the Iraq War. Rather, the NYT is annoyingly "fair and balanced" in the Fox News sense of the phrase, where it feels the need to provide some sort of equal time for bogus positions that are often poorly articulated, false or meaningless. I guess there's no denying that the NYT is a hell of a lot more "fair and balanced" than Fox, so if that makes it "liberal," so be it.

Moreover, it completely escapes me what any of this has to do with the NYT story at issue. That story, with or without the omitted "background" info, is the last thing I'd expect to see in an entertainment or lifestyle section of a *liberal* newspaper. Rather, it is exactly what I'd expect to see on the Evangelical Outpost or some other conservative publication.

So much for the "liberal NYTimes."

For a good take on the Okrent piece, I recommend (as always) Bob Somerby's reasoned dissection:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh072604.shtml

which ends with this paragraph:

HOPELESS: “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” That’s the headline on Okrent’s piece, and he answers quickly: “Of course it is.” But in recent weeks, Okrent has written a long complaint about the paper’s “credulous” coverage of Bush Iraq policy, and he criticized a front-page review of Bill Clinton’s new book—a review which “featured a vocabulary of critical invective that might have knocked the breath out of even a Clinton hater,” he said. Does Okrent know his paper’s 15-year history of trashing all things Clinton and Gore, even on the editorial page he claims to be ultra-liberal? There is no reason to think he does. Okrent’s analysis is lighter-than-air, like much of the Times’ greatest work.

As the details kept coming out about this story, one thing just didn't ring true to me. This is it:

"I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more."

So here is a writer, feminist, abortion activist, and she has never heard of a selective reduction? Please. Omitting her resume isn't the only less-than-totally-truthful aspect of the article. If she truly did not know about selective reductions, then she is woefully unprepared to be an activist and writer in the area of women's reproductive health.

As a woman in the first wave of girls who grew up under Roe v Wade, let me make clear to the men in this group so greatly 'protecting' women's 'right to choose'. As far as I'm concerned, men decided that they needed to be allowed to have sex at any time with anyone, without any responsibility - ala the sexual revolution. After all, the "intelligentsia" told everyone that it was just Christian repression that was the problem with the world after all. And to make it all come out alright, abortion was massively promoted as the cure-all (after all, we have a few billion people to eliminate anyway). And believe me, that was what the media and culture propagandized. And so I and my generation of girls grew up in an age of total exploitation by selfish and narcissistic men, who use women only for their own purposes, and if necessary they can "convince" (or coerce) women to kill their own children so the men won't be inconvenienced in their own lives. Only sex, thank you, we're not ready for the responsibility of marriage. And how fun, they convinced women it was for their own 'freedom'. Bah!

Gratefully, my generation of women are realizing the brainwashing that went on and realize the devastation that this eploitive culture for women and children has wrought. It has only been Christianity that has provided protection for women from the exploitation of men throughout history, which explains a lot of the animosity towards Christianity.

By the way, when you talk about a woman's right to choose, realize that these are for the most part young girls, easily manipulated, and actually need protection by caring, mature responsible adults, and should have been protected by the courts. Instead we now have a culture that victimizes women more and more, and tells them all to be whores more and more, and hatred of women blasted on the airwaves constantly, and women who have been betrayed by men think they must become a lesbian so they won't be victimized again. Even prostitution and pornography, which are not victimless crimes, are promoted now as a solution for women instead of marriage. The babyboomers ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I would suggest you look at your innermost reasons for wanting abortion to be legal, and then repent from spouting the propaganda that innocent girls are growing up in and believing. We ALL will be judged - including the media. Believe me.

Joe:

I think that, as a group, they are probably more accepting of serial abortions than the general public would be.

Setting aside the intentionally inflammatory "serial abortions" rhetoric for a moment, there's nothing particularly insightful about saying that abortion activists would be more accepting of abortion than the general public. You treat it as though it were some sort of stunning revelation, but I don't really believe it is.

Why would a “New Yorker” mentality have any bearing on how national and world news is reported?

Because, frankly, "liberal" and "conservative" are relative terms, not absolute ones. What counts as a mainstream idea in New York may seem downright Communistic elsewhere. Meanwhile, what seems mainstream in Midland, Texas would seem pretty dictatorial by New York standards.

You’re confusing “liberal” for “Liberal.”

No, the capital-L Liberals are in Canada and Australia, and mystifyingly, the Canadian Liberal Party is the more conservative (by American standards) of the prominent Canadian parties. :)

Dave S.:

The NYT does not claim it is perception; they acknowledge it as fact.

Well, actually one sort-of "editor" does this. Okrunt's role at the newspaper is odd, if I'm not mistaken: "Editor" in title only, not in function. Unless I'm confusing him with a different quasi-editor.

Anon:

Apparently, you've had some pretty bad life experiences that have inclined you toward misandry, but I don't think that's productive. In the vast majority of cases, it takes two to tango, and to claim that all these unwanted pregnancies are "all men's fault," or even mostly so, is ignorant or disingenuous at best.

The irony is, in attempting to call out against male opression, you're portraying women as helpless victims with little or no say, essentially reducing women to subordinates to men. (Which, depending on your particular flavor of Christianity, you might think is accurate.)

By the way, when you talk about a woman's right to choose, realize that these are for the most part young girls, easily manipulated, and actually need protection by caring, mature responsible adults, and should have been protected by the courts.

The statistics do not bear this out. Fewer than one in five abortions are obtained by "teenagers," and that includes 18- and 19-year-olds, legally adults who cannot expect to be afforded any special protection by the courts. Further, 70% of women who obtain abortions self-identify as Christian, so it would seem that Christianity is not an indicator of one's willingness to obtain an abortion.

Instead we now have a culture that victimizes women more and more, and tells them all to be whores more and more, and hatred of women blasted on the airwaves constantly, and women who have been betrayed by men think they must become a lesbian so they won't be victimized again.

Huh? Seek counseling. Seriously.

I would suggest you look at your innermost reasons for wanting abortion to be legal...

Umm, because the alternative -- illegal abortion -- would be even worse?

and then repent from spouting the propaganda that innocent girls are growing up in and believing.

As far as I know, you can't repent from anything, you can simply repent. Perhaps you mean "refrain?" Anyway, you again disparage the ability of "innocent girls" to think for themselves. It's not like there's any shortage of anti-abortion information out there...

We ALL will be judged

Then perhaps you ought to take the advice of, umm, err, what'shisname, oh yeah, Jesus, and "Judge not."

tgirsch:

Do you remember a few years ago (maybe 6 or 7) when the septuplets were born? It was a huge story and the reason they were born was because their mother refused to have any selective reductions. It is fairly common for women who become pregnant by IVF to have a selective reduction because multiple embryos are implanted in the uterus to ensure the survival of at least one or two. So selection reductions are not even rare procedures, and have been part of at least one big media story in recent years.

It just seems, well, a little funny for a woman whose life and livelihood are centered on women's reproductive health to ask if such a thing is possible. That's all.

Mistake #1: Looking for facts in the NYT.

Smart Move #1: Looking for facts not found in the NYT.

Anon, well said!! Glad you tied prostitution and pornography to it as well. Bottomline, organizations like planned parenthood ARE exploitive on behalf of a higher lower calling--that of human self-hate-- and founded by warped elitist and aryan racists.

http://blackgenocide.org/negro.html
http://www.klannedparenthood.com/
http://www.abortionno.org/

Personally, I think legal abortion is a genie out of its bottle. But since Clinton and Kerry claim that they want to keep it legal, yet rare, then why didn't/don/'t they get proactive with the meme?

Here's a start, mandate that every year of sex-ed in schools include start-to-finish videos of every type of abortion, including the disposal of "garbage".

That alone will give plenty of girls the necessary backbone to tell any boy with raging hormones to shove it. Not to mention making a significant number of boys to think twice about recklessly sowing their oats.

If after all that, a girl still decides she wants an abortion, so be it. Methinks after 10 -20 years of reality-augmented sex ed we will see abortions becoming a rare thing.

As pointed out by OpinionJournal.com, the pendulum is moving in the other direction. On a high-level view, the US population as a whole is becoming conservative since liberals aborted 10s of million voters who would otherwise grow up with imbued liberal values.

tg, larry l is there ever a time that you will not slander Christians. Do you have to be so obvious with your disdain for them? It seeps out of every bitter sentence you write on the topic. Why even be here? Does it make you feel better to belittle people?

I wouldn't (and didn't) waste my time dealing with people "lesser than me" that believed in Christ.