Today, thousands are marching upon Washington against pro-abortion policies. This march, the March For Life, has taken place every year since 1974. The march typically draws in crowds of hundreds of thousands. Though the march draws so many people, mainstream media gives it little-to-no coverage. As of writing this, CNN has a short clip on their website of President Trump addressing the crowd, while MSNBC/NBC News has nothing about the march itself. Fox News has a few articles on the march on their webpage. On the contrary, CNN and MSNBC are both giving coverage to the Women's March on Washington, a similar march with similar numbers, that took place a year ago. CNN and MSNBC are not showing bias by HOW they cover stories, but by WHAT stories they cover. It's entirely acceptable to reflect on the Women's March, which was an important milestone in the anti-Trump "Resistance" movement, but it's fundamentally unethical to cover history when not covering current news, which is almost exactly the same, but from a politically different viewpoint.
It seems to me that as both parties move farther to the left or right, their unofficial mouthpieces move in the same direction. CNN and MSNBC's non-coverage of the March for Life shows this. In a truly unbiased news scope, both marches would be covered equally, but they are not. Even mainly centrist news organizations such as the Christian Science Monitor and Reuters are mostly ignoring the March for Life. It's almost as if media as a whole, except for a few right-wing sources, collectively decided to only cover news from a liberal viewpoint, and if any left-leaning news organization did cover it, it was because President Trump gave a speech. If Trump had not spoken, I highly doubt organizations like the Washington Post and NPR (I do have to note that the coverage NPR did give due to Trump's speech was actually pretty fair and balanced) would have cared. It's a sad day when Fox News has some of the least biased coverage.
I'm just a college freshman journalism student, and I'm not claiming to know everything, but one thing that you're taught almost right off the bat is to cover both sides of a story. If hundreds of thousands of people are marching on Washington today to fight against abortion, and it's not covered, while a march on Washington of hundreds of thousands of people fighting for abortion rights, among other things, that took place a year ago, IS being covered, then both sides of the story are not being covered. CNN, MSNBC, and others are breaking one of the fundamental rules of journalism. Again, I'm not claiming to be a professional journalist. Heck, I've used the Oxford comma multiple times in this rant, but it doesn't take a professional to be able to call out blatant bias and ignorance of fundamental rules of journalism.
The argument could be made that there is a government shutdown looming and news organizations need to give their coverage to that. This is a fair argument, but the news cycle last 24 hours, 7 days a week. There is absolutely time to give to the March For Life, ESPECIALLY if coverage is already being given to a march that took place a year ago. I tweeted about this earlier and someone replied that "the two movements are hardly comparable considering size and scope." This would be a fair argument to make if it were true. The Women's March on Washington took place once and had hundreds of thousands attend. The March For Life has similar numbers, but on an annual basis, having taken place since 1974. Millions of people total fighting the same fight for generations versus a few hundred thousand women in (now-deemed offensive) hats that marched once. The numbers don't lie. The March For Life has a significantly larger size and scope. Yet no one takes the time to cover it.
This is why we the media is attacked on a constant basis by the President and his base. They show extreme bias in their coverage of events, then go on to claim they're doing nothing wrong and it's the President's fault. They couldn't care less about an annual march with numbers in the hundreds of thousands, but they complain when a truck parks in front of their camera. It's a speck-log situation, to reference the Bible. Until the media figures out they're own wrong, they will never gain the trust of the American people. This is why people believe fake news. This is why there are fake news awards. Nobody trusts the media, and they bring it upon themselves. The media needs to go back to the basics and cover the news fairly if they ever want to be trusted again.
At least that's what I think. I apologize for any errors or lack of AP style or whatever. It's a rant, not an op-ed. Again, I'm just a freshman journalism student. End of rant.
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