NPR ON ABORTION: Astute media critics often note that the problem with the tone of mainstream media isn't that they favor liberals or conservatives, but that they put an irrational premium on slippery values like moderation, compromise, or reasonableness. The most despicable example would be the way coverage of the 2000 election controversy presumed that ending the divisive court battle was more important than ensuring an accurate outcome. But it crops up all the time, and not just in every David Broder column. This morning, I heard a report on NPR about abortion. I came in just at the end, as the reporter noted that abortion does not lend itself to finding a middle ground because abortion moderates are much less invested in the issue than partisans of either side -- the implication being that this is a bad thing, because strong political disagreements are always a bad thing in MSM world. The kicker was a sad note that "abortion remains mostly legal, even though many Americans are uncomfortable with it." Well, this strikes me as a lot of silliness. Why should compromise be so prized on an issue like this one? The two sides are so intensely at odds because it is a question, literally, of life and death. If opponents of reproductive freedom are right that abortion is murder, should the media really encourage them to find a broadly acceptable middle ground? Or, if they're wrong, and what's at stake are women's control over their own bodies and lives, why should reproductive freedom advocates compromise the liberty and safety of women to mollify others' queasiness? The conclusion, though, certainly skewed anti-choice. One could just as easily conclude the same story by saying that access to abortion grows more restricted each year, despite solid majorities of Americans continuing to support reproductive freedom and the fact that its status as a fundamental constitutional right remains unchanged. The important thing to note here is that the media ought not to report every story with the presupposition that the healthiest democracy is one with no intense political debates, where moderates are always happy. Strong (but peaceful) arguments about competing values are a sign of a healthy democracy, not an endangered one.
--Ben Adler
