Politics
Sunday May 1, 2005
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National Post Corrects Erroneous Reporting of Crowd Size at Marriage Rally
TORONTO, May 2, 2005, (LifeSiteNews.com) - It would appear that not all media outlets are intrinsically biased against pro-marriage events. While the official estimate of the crowd given by March for Marriage organizers at the huge rally before parliament on Saturday, April 9 was 15-20,000 most media outlets reported the number to be 4000.
As a result of pressure being placed by various groups, corrections were made at both the National Post and Canadian Press. In conversations with Mr. Doug Kelly of the National Post and Mr. Scott White of Canadian Press, the organizers for March4Marriage were impressed by the fact that both admitted that an error had been made and had promptly issued a correction. The National Post even published a photo of the rally in a later edition, as well as a letter to the editor from Janet Buckingham of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
John Pacheco, the principal organizer of the March told LifeSiteNews.com "I talked to Mr. Doug Kelly, Editor-in-Chief of the National Post, and he was kind enough to point out to me that the National Post corrected our Rally numbers on Thurs. April 21 - page A2 and published a letter to the editor with a picture of the Rally on Friday April 22. - page A19. He was quite a gentleman about it, and apologized for the missed coverage. Mr. Scott White of the Canadian Press told me that he spoke to Mr. James Bronskill, the reporter who first broke the grossly underestimated number of 4,000 which was subsequently picked up by many news outlets, and reminded him of his journalistic responsibilities not to report rally numbers unless they had been confirmed by objective sources like the police or RCMP."
Media bias is a large concern for organizations that are trying to educate and influence debate in Canadian society. LifeSiteNews learned from third party sources that John Pacheco blasted James Bronskill in a telephone conversation shortly after his negligent reporting of the 4,000 number.
Within 30 minutes, Mr. Bronskill had removed "4,000 protesters" and simply reported "Protesters". Asked about the success of holding the media to account, Pacheco remarked, "The politicians are not the only ones who need to be accountable to the people. I encourage all Canadians to be vigilant and relentless in punishing any false and distorted media coverage."
See previous coverage:
15-20,000 Attend March for Traditional Marriage on Parliament Hill - Media Claim Only 4,000
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041102.html
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