Posted on 03/08/2004 2:39:50 PM PST by FlyLow
Rote revulsion toward the term “pro-life” by the journalism community led to an embarrassing gaffe a couple of weeks ago by the Los Angeles Times. As reported by the LA Observed Web site, when LA Times theater reviewer “Mark Swed filed a review of the opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Music Center,” he “wrote that the Richard Strauss epic is 'an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean...’ But when it ran in the paper, 'pro-life’ had been changed to 'anti-abortion.’”
(On Thursday night last week Dan Rather also illustrated well how the media frame the abortion issue to put those in favor of it in the best light by making them the ones for “rights” and those on the other side against “rights.” On the March 4 CBS Evening News, Rather teased a story about the release of the late Justice Harry Blackmun’s papers: “U.S. Supreme Court secrets revealed. The inside story of how close the court came to taking away abortion rights and a woman’s right to choose.”)
Romenesko ( www.poynter.org ) last week highlighted the posting by LA Observed about how the obsession by the LA Times with never allowing the term “pro-life” to see print led to the embarrassing alteration of the reviewer’s submission.
This latest instance occurred less than a year after John Carroll, the Editor of the Los Angeles Times, rebuked his staff for its biased approach on the abortion issue. As recounted in the May 29, 2003 CyberAlert, Carroll sent to his staff a memo about a story he thought demonstrated the “occasional reality” that the LA Times is a “liberal, 'politically correct’ newspaper.” Carroll chastised: “The apparent bias of the writer and/or the desk reveals itself in the third paragraph, which characterizes such bills in Texas and elsewhere as requiring 'so-called counseling of patients.' I don't think people on the anti-abortion side would consider it 'so-called,' a phrase that is loaded with derision.” Carroll insisted: “We are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times.” See: www.mediaresearch.org
It looks like it’s an up hill battle for Carroll.
Now, an excerpt from the LA observed posting from last week:
Here's why reporters want newspaper corrections to make clear that an editor is at fault for an error introduced to their copy. Last week, the L.A. Times' Mark Swed filed a review of the opera "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" at the Music Center. He wrote that the Richard Strauss epic is "an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean..." But when it ran in the paper, pro-life had been changed to anti-abortion.
Swed was reportedly mortified, since the opera is not remotely about abortion. On Feb. 25, the Times ran this correction:
“Opera review -- A review of Los Angeles Opera's Die Frau Ohne Schatten in Tuesday's Calendar section incorrectly characterized the work as 'anti-abortion.’ In fact, there is no issue of abortion in the opera, which extols procreation.”
Swed was again not amused, since his name was on the piece -- he had been made to look stupid to his readers and to the opera community. If they thought he had misread the work, it might affect how opera fans, players and producers regard him in the future. He apparently demanded a second correction, which ran the following day:
“Opera review -- A correction in Wednesday's paper about the review of Los Angeles Opera's Die Frau Ohne Schatten incorrectly implied that it was the reviewer who characterized the work as 'anti-abortion’ in Tuesday's Calendar. As the correction should have made clear, the lead paragraph submitted by the reviewer was incorrectly changed to include the term 'anti-abortion.’ There is no issue of abortion in the opera, which extols procreation.” ....
END of Excerpt
For the LA Observed item in full: www.laobserved.com
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