With emotions running high, the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade marked a cataclysmic shift in the ongoing culture wars. What it means for the upcoming midterm elections and beyond has been the topic of much speculation since the ruling was handed down.
The decision was marked by joy on one side and anger on the other, with many reporters wearing their emotions on their faces and under their bylines. However, many people I know reacted with mixed emotions. Even conservatives were uneasy about the decision, mostly because they feared the violence that could be a part of the fallout. Indeed, the National Catholic Reporter’s news account put it best in its headline: “As Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Catholics react with joy, anger, trepidation.”
We do live in a time when political decisions often inspire violence.
Lose an election? Storm the Capitol Building.
Unhappy with police misconduct? Burn down stores.
Both sides are guilty of this, although the mainstream press — which has grown ever-partisan in the Internet age — hasn’t always been good about calling out both sides for such intimidation.
The fallout from the Dobbs decision? It’s only been a few days, but there has been violence in some parts of the country from Rhode Island to Iowa to Arizona. The rhetoric was vile on Twitter, quickly aimed at Christians, and that was soon on display in the streets in a variety of forms.
Again, national legacy media have not always been good about giving proper background and context to the events of the recent past, especially in terms of coverage of violence against churches and crisis-pregnancy centers.
The fissures in American public life are real. So are the distorted realities partisan news organizations like to perpetuate these days.
Just two weeks ago, Gannett, the nation’s largest newspaper chain, argued that opinion pages are alienating readers and becoming obsolete. They doubled down by warning their reporters to refrain from using social media platforms to comment on the decision. However, take a look at this morning’s news summary from USA Today. Spot any patterns?
While those on the anti-abortion side of the debate may have come out victorious, it’s the pro-abortion rights activists who won the public-relations war after the decision.
Churches and pro-life centers were targeted over the past month after a draft of the decision was leaked in May. They continue to be a target over the coming days and weeks. It remains very much a story.
I outlined the lack of news coverage and the reasons why in my most recent GetReligion post on this topic. Here’s what I argued only two weeks ago:
As we await a final Supreme Court ruling, we could be in for a long summer of violence and vandalism.
My criticism here is not in the news coverage this issue has received. Instead, it’s the lack of coverage. The vandalism of the past few weeks and the lack of news coverage could very well be a template of what’s to come once the Supreme Court makes public a final decision.
Why such a lack of news coverage?
The answers, in one form or another, have been woven into GetReligion posts over the past 18 years whenever today’s mainstream press is put under the microscope. It’s also the reason why so many polls and survey over the past few years have shown shocking levels of distrust in the news media.
That the attacks on churches and pro-life centers have become a right-wing talking point is both a shame and the latest example of news organizations ignoring trends because they conflict with political ideology.
That’s not to say there wasn’t some very good reporting done this weekend.
I want to highlight the feature in The New York Times on how abortion impacted men, and the religion angles in that story, along with the Wall Street Journal piece on how various clergy are now calling for calm following the decision. As the story’s subhead notes: “Sunday sermons address Supreme Court ruling; ‘It’s not a time to spike the football,’ said one priest ahead of celebrating Mass.”
But it was social media and numerous blogs and websites that provided news and information that major newsrooms choose to ignore. Social media helped put a spotlight on the violence at churches and crisis-pregnancy centers during the last few weeks.
Since my last GetReligion post, the FBI said it was investigating violence committed against churches and pro-life centers. The Department of Homeland Security has now even warned about this violence. It’s also why President Joe Biden addressed it when he spoke soon after the decision, calling for all protests to “be kept peaceful.” This comes after pro-abortion rights groups such as Jane’s Revenge and Ruth Sent Us have made threats on social media.
Once the decision was handed down, my inbox was flooded with statements both pro and con. Any journalist in the country who wrote a story about abortion over the past few months likely got the same tidal wave of emails I received over the weekend.
The statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops read, in part, this way:
“Our first thoughts are with the little ones whose lives have been taken since 1973. We mourn their loss, and we entrust their souls to God, who loved them from before all ages and who will love them for all eternity. Our hearts are also with every woman and man who has suffered grievously from abortion; we pray for their healing, and we pledge our continued compassion and support. As a Church, we need to serve those who face difficult pregnancies and surround them with love.
There was zero mention of violence — either the fear of or what had already transpired — against houses of worship.
Contrast that to Planned Parenthood, who along with NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Liberate Abortion Campaign, a coalition of more than 150 “reproductive justice and rights organizations, groups and abortion providers” said this in a statement:
We reject the tactics and threats of groups that use destruction and violence as a means to an end. They do not speak for us, our supporters, our communities, or our movement. We are committed to protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive freedoms through peaceful, non-violent organizing and activism.
People deserve to both provide and access abortion care in a safe and supportive environment. Abortion providers, health center staff, patients, and supporters of reproductive freedom have long faced daily threats and violence. Anti-abortion activists have harassed, intimidated, and bullied patients for simply seeking abortion and other essential sexual and reproductive health care with little or no accountability for decades. Abortion providers and reproductive freedom advocates have been threatened, stalked, and even murdered for doing their jobs. Health centers have been regularly vandalized and targeted by arsonists, including a Knoxville health center that was burned to the ground less than six months ago.
Reporters on deadline often cut-and-paste such statements into news stories, helping to shape them along with headlines. It’s easy and efficient, especially when filing for the web.
The USCCB’s inability to highlight violence, or the possibility of violence, was a big mistake. The pro-abortion rights groups did not miss that opportunity, even though they were reeling from a decision that went against them.
Many headlines talked about how the “constitutional right to abortion” had been rolled back, as opposed to stating that the decision overturned a previous SCOTUS decision arguing that such a right existed. The dissent from the Supreme Court’s three liberal justices might as well have been a template for the framing used in the mainstream press when reporting on the 5-4 decision that overturned the 49-year-old case.
The public-relations battle that was evident in news coverage came by way of the National Abortion Federation. Using data from 2021, the advocacy group put out a report Friday, timed to the decision, that showed increases in stalking, bomb threats and assault/battery against abortion providers. The stats came on the heels of an Associated Press story that reiterated the same thing.
The report was picked up by an array of national news organizations — many of which had ignored the violence against Catholic churches of the last few weeks.
This is what ABC News reported:
The report, which measures a variety of acts of violence and disruption, found the most significant increases were in stalking, blockades, hoax devices/suspicious packages, invasions and assault and battery, compared to 2020’s findings.
Vandalism and assault and battery continue to be the most common offenses, but other acts have seen major jumps, with stalking increasing 600% from 2020, according to the report.
Overall, the new data has found increased reported incidents of anti-abortion individuals “pushing, shoving, using pepper spray against, slapping, kicking, and physically fighting clinic escorts, staff and others outside of clinics.”
The news story made no mention of the vandalism suffered by churches and pro-life centers. Both of these stories are valid, but which one has been trending in recent weeks — in terms of actual police reports?
Vice News, meanwhile, dismissed those attacks against Catholic churches, focusing instead on “right-wing influencers and agitators are hyping a so-called ‘night of rage’ and calling on the far-right to go ‘defend churches’ from fantasized marauders.”
This is what they reported:
“It's a good thing the Supreme Court affirmed our right to conceal carry right before this ‘night of rage’ you guys are planning,” wrote right-wing commentator Matt Walsh. White nationalist internet celebrity Nicholas Fuentes simply wrote “DEFEND YOUR CHURCHES TONIGHT!” on his Telegram page. Right-wing and church-affiliated YouTubers have been creating videos for several days in regards to this idea, some even giving step-by-step instructions on “how to protect your church from the pro-abortion 'Night of Rage.”
Kristofer Goldsmith, a senior fellow for the Innovation Lab at Human Rights First, told VICE News that he’s seen extremists messaging about the “night of rage” for weeks and that it’s now being filtered into the mainstream by far-right influencers. Goldsmith said that “outside of vandalism” there is “no evidence of a far-left conspiracy to commit violence.”
“No one needs to go out and protect churches,” said Goldsmith. “That's what we have police for. These folks are looking to take advantage of what they perceive to be a politically permissive environment to engage in political violence.”
This is a narrative that not only ignores the events of the last few weeks, but it also selectively picks quotes from people on the extreme right that fit this newsroom’s pre-conceived notions of reality. It fails to mention the FBI investigation and the aforementioned Biden comments.
Why not mention that the Department of Homeland Security, earlier this month, warned Catholic churches about the possibility of violence? Instead, Vice News framed it this way:
"A lot of this messaging in reaction to the Dobbs decision so far reminds me of how conservatives online reacted to Black Lives Matter protests: hyping the possibility of riots, seeding the idea that ‘infiltrators’ will be the ones on their side who commit violence, and suggesting the police response will be — willing or unwillingly — inadequate,” Jared Holt, a domestic extremism researcher at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told VICE News.
Much of the reaction derives from a report in Newsweek based on an “urgent memo” reportedly sent to Catholic dioceses by the Department of Homeland Security that claimed it discovered a “manifesto” and says groups with “cells” are “casing” locations.
The existence of such a memo has not been confirmed by any other media outlet, and the DHS would not clarify if the document was real or not when responding to VICE News’ questions.
This framing is a distortion of reality that borders on PR for one side of the abortion debate. Indeed, many news accounts appeared to mimic pro-abortion rights talking points.
The bottom line: There’s nothing wrong with opinions and publishing a wide array of commentary.
It’s something else altogether to take press releases and tweets, then dress them up as news stories. As we enter a post-Dobbs America, there’s the potential for these bad journalistic practices to get worse in the coming months and years.
FIRST IMAGE: Pro-abortion rights activists gather at a 2019 protest. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.