By John-Henry Westen
TORONTO, May 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canada’s National Post has shown again evidence of being the only national paper in the country to bring fair and balanced reporting back to its pages regarding the contentious abortion issue. While by no means a pro-life newspaper, it has nonetheless at least permitted pro-life issues to have prominence and permitted consistent pro-life and pro-abortion commentary from its varied roster of columnists.
Dominating the front-page of the newspaper Saturday, the National Post covered “The A Word” a reference to the fact that, as the subheading says: “How did abortion, that most contentious of issues, become one that is simply not discussed publicly?”
National Post writer Anne Marie Owens opens her piece drawing attention to the tenth annual March for Life which is to take place this Thursday.
“When several thousand anti-abortion demonstrators gather on Parliament Hill next week, as they do every year at this time, their protest is likely to be largely ignored, as it is every year, by most politicians and the media,” reports Owens.
That statement resonates with the thousands of Canadians who attend the March every year. “It’s difficult to ignore a march that’s been going on every year for ten years drawing more than 5,000 each time, especially with the vast majority being young people,” said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition, which organizes the March for Life.
Owens writes, “The annual silent treatment could be explained away by the frequency of protest marches on Parliament, if the reaction was not such an apt reflection of the state of the abortion debate, such as it is, in Canada.”
This year some pro-life activists are encouraging a more active role for march participants in generating media coverage. In a move being suggested by pro-life blogger Suzanne Fortin (https://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com/ ) and backed by Campaign Life Coalition, pro-life Canadians are being asked to contact the major media outlets in Canada to demand coverage of the March for Life.
E-mail the following media outlets and ask them to feature coverage of the March.
CBC [email protected]
CTV [email protected]
Global [email protected]
The Globe and Mail [email protected]
The Toronto Star [email protected]
Canadian Press [email protected]
The National Post
https://www.canada.com/nationalpost/info/contactus/mailto.html?name=queries&SUBJECT=News%20Tip
Commenting on the suggestion, Hughes told LifeSiteNews.com, “The media apparently won’t pay attention to our press releases and phone calls about the march, maybe they’ll listen to the voices of hundreds of Canadians demanding coverage.”
Another pro-life blogger, John Pacheco is suggesting a by-pass on the mainstream media by “youtube-ing” the March for Life. “Bring your video cameras and video everything and anything about the March. Record the speakers. Record the crowd . . . get a good shot of the crowd. Interview the marchers. Have some questions prepared. Interview the media people there. Swarm the reporters and ask them why they refuse to cover abortion in Canada,” suggests Pacheco.
“THEN UPLOAD YOUR VIDEOS TO YOUTUBE.”
See the official March for Life website for all the details on the March here:
https://www.marchforlife.ca
See the full National Post article by Anne Marie Owens here:
https://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=c9fb6309-0a11-4951-b859-f1f5135915b8&k=52768