Washington Post Admits Bias for Obama, Calls Pro-Life Policies "Offensive"
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 10, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In a weekend article, the ombudsman for the Washington Post admitted that the liberal newspaper had a bias for pro-abortion candidate Barack Obama during the elections. The paper followed the article with a report on how the President-elect would overturn "ideologically offensive" pro-life policies.
On Sunday, Deborah Howell admitted that readers of her paper "have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama."
"My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts," she admitted.
Howell’s internal examination of the Post’s coverage found the "op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13."
"There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement," Howell added. "Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain."
So how does one of the most biased newspapers in the nation follow up its election coverage of Obama? According to Kristen Fyfe of Newsbusters, it runs news articles on President-elect Obama with a heavy pro-abortion bias.
She noted the paper’s coverage of the news that Obama would overturn pro-life policies of President Bush that stopped taxpayer-funding of abortion and embryonic stem cell research — policies the Post described as "controversial," "onerous," and "ideologically offensive."
"These are the words used by Washington Post reporters Ceci Connolly and R. Jeffrey Smith to describe the pro-life policies of President George W. Bush," Fyfe writes. "The liberal slam came in an article about some of the early actions President-elect Obama will take when he is inaugurated next year."
The story revealed that Obama is "now consulting with liberal advocacy groups" in order to create a hit list of "the most onerous or ideologically offensive" regulatory and policy initiatives of the Bush administration.
"The Post also quoted Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards who said the country’s leading abortion-provider is in near-daily communication with Obama’s transition team and ‘expects to see real change,’" Fyfe noted. "In other words, Planned Parenthood got the president they wanted."
"The Post story left no doubt as to the reporters’ feelings on pro-life initiatives," she writes, pointing out how the paper said regulations "imposed" by President Bush include his "controversial" limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.
Post reporters used the word "reimposed" to describe Bush’s action of bringing back the common-sense limits on public funding of groups that promote or perform abortions in other countries.
"And for them it is only President Bush who operates from a partisan agenda," she said, noting that the Post did not said Obama’s new policies would be liberal or Democratic in nature while Bush’s were labeled conservative or Republican or pleasing to "religious conservatives."
ACTION: Write the Washington Post at [email protected].
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