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March for Life gets another national media blackout in Canada

Apart from a few second audio remark on Mike Duffy's show on CTV there was absolutely no national coverage of the 8000-strong March for Life which took place in the national capital on May 8. The national broadcaster CBC ignored the March despite having given extensive coverage to abortionist Henry Morgentaler earlier this year as he celebrated his Supreme Court victory which struck down any limit on abortion in Canada, reports John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews.com.

Moreover, CBC has failed to cover the finding of a 1973 private letter from Morgentaler to then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau which suggests blackmail which was reported by Macleans magazine.

The silence of the state-controlled CBC was compared to that of the Chinese government media in failing to report on Tiananmen Square. "I guess we should expect that the state media not to want to report on the state-sanctioned holocaust, it was the same in Tiananmen Square" said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Coordinator for Campaign Life Coalition - the group which organized the march.

The National Post and the Globe and Mail carried nothing on the March, and even the local Ottawa Citizen had nothing to say.

One local paper, The Ottawa Sun carried a photo of the march on the front page and contained a very short story.

"A massive anti-abortion march wound its way from Parliament Hill to the Human Rights Monument on Elgin St. Thursday, creating some major traffic headaches in the downtown core," reported the Sun in its first line. The rest of the coverage on the March dealt with a police officer who was struck by a car while re-directing traffic from the route of the March. Of note, the Ottawa Citizen covered the fact that the police officer was hurt without mentioning the March.

The CTV local Ottawa station CJOH did do a short one minute slot on the March for Life for the 6pm news on May 9. The local Christian radio station CHRI promoted the March and covered it. Ottawa talk radio CFRA also covered the demonstration as did two local free daily papers.

Surprisingly, the French-language media in Quebec gave the March for Life coverage. La Presse, the main news wire service and LCN (the French News channel) gave the March full coverage. Radio-Canada Ottawa also provided French-language coverage.

[05/15/2008]

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