Thursday, July 14, 2011

So much for "neutrality" within the media...

There was a terrible article posted in the Sudbury Star about a rally yesterday, linked here. The biggest issue I have with it is that they only interviewed the people who were part of the pro-"life" demonstration and didn't interview a single pro-choice activist.

I will write more about the rally itself later, but for now, this article. A group called Show the 'Truth' (I can't write it without putting truth in quotes or something because what they show is far from the truth) sent a bus full of people here to display graphic pictures on the side of a busy road about what they think abortion looks like. We got a small group of pro-choice activists to protest their event. Here are some quotes from the article...

At first, Connell said she thought the pro-choice demonstrators were aggressive, but said they eventually stood quietly.

This quote is entirely misinformed and should never have been published. At first, there was me and one other person there (a third had gone to get coffee). Two of us were holding a pro-choice banner when a busload of anti-choice activists pulled up with their signs and set up around us. We felt somewhat threatened by their presence as they kept closing in on us and squishing us into one particular street corner.

By the time there were about five of us there, they sent a few people to engage us in a debate in which they told us that we were supporting genocide and that by being pro-abortion we were also (obviously) pro-holocaust and we must support apartheid in South Africa as well. They had video cameras in our faces and would not stop recording us, even when we asked them to. We asked them to move away from us and we entirely stopped talking to them, and they just stood in front of us, blocking our sign and saying that they had every right to be there too.

One of the event organizers called the police afterwards, and we were told that if we wanted to protest a rally, we should do so far away from them or not complain about them getting in our personal space or filming us... but we were there first, so that makes no sense.

I'm sorry, but how does a bus load of people feel intimidated by 2 young women?

"There was a girl who got quite worked up," Connell said.

I'm not sure if they are referring to me here when I told them off after they said I supported nazi Germany, or if they are referring to my friend A, who started yelling at a man who was trying to engage one of our protesters in a physical fight, but I can assure you, they were as "worked up" as we were.


Also, can someone explain this one to me please... on the megaphone, they said (and I am paraphrasing... If you knew my glass of water was poisoned, and you let me drink it, would you not be an accomplice to my murder? Well, supporting abortion is like letting someone drink that water......

2 comments:

  1. The kind of bias that you describe is typical of today's media which is controlled by Conservative interests. They have embraced all forms of information media to promote their agendas. Fortunately, they are not yet able to silence all of the voices such as yours as long as the internet remains a place to express opinions and to document events as witnessed from different vantage points.

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  2. I might be a bit late responding to this comment, but I think I should also point out that the number of people reading the newspaper compared to this blog hardly puts the different vantage points out there... at least not on a remotely level playing field. It is better than nothing, which is why I do it, but this post cannot be compared to that newspaper article, in my opinion.

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