Conquering Bias, Including Our Own.(press relations)(Brief Article)

Let's try a thought experiment. Let's say you've just met a woman who is an accomplished professional in her field and very pro-abortion in her politics.

Your/our first impulse, perhaps, would be less than charitable. But what if we discovered she was post-abortive?

Would we not suspect that her pro-abortion position is, in least in part, a way of "managing" her post-abortion experience? Wouldn't our first thought be that her position on abortion reflects her desire to defend her own abortion years earlier?

But what if this woman was a reporter? It may be much more common than we think.

It is easy to think of members of the media as adversaries. After all, media bias is so prevalent, it's hard to think of a reporter as anything but part of the pro-abortion media machine, right?

But let's rethink this all-too-common impression among pro-lifers. Besides getting us off on the wrong foot with reporters, this attitude must be "fact-checked" to make sure we understand (a) how often it's true, (b) that when it is true, why it is true, and (c) what we can do about it.

By no means, of course, am I suggesting that Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS) explains why the vast majority of reporters are pro-abortion. Repeated surveys have shown that most reporters' opinions and lifestyles do not mirror those of the general public.