Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Daily Progress puts Media Bias on Front Page

Today's Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Virginia) displayed their "drive-by media" bias right on the front page, above the fold, in the Associated Press article entitled, "Study: 1 in 4 girls has an STD." This article concerning research presented at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National STD Prevention conference on March 11, implies that all of the subjects in this new government study were the victims of abstinence-only sex education.

The true intention of the article becomes apparent In the second paragraph as the attack on abstinence-only sex education begins.

In this paragraph, "some doctors" are reported to be claiming that abstinence-only sex education is to blame for the results of this study and, by the 4th paragraph, an actual quote from one doctor appears, blaming an increase in sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in teenage American girls on abstinence education.

This is followed about half-way through the article with a quote from the president of Planned Parenthood (PP), also claiming that the abstinence-only programs are a failure that has endangered teenage girls. It omits the fact that 75 percent of U.S. schools offer a contraceptive-based education approach.

Tony Perkins of Family Research Council did address the findings from the studies which were cited in the AP story:

"While the proponents of comprehensive or contraceptive-based sex education and much of the medical and public health community continue to pay lip service to prevention for our young people, these CDC results offer fresh evidence that the focus is on facilitating high-risk behavior rather than true primary and even secondary prevention. The risk-avoidance or sexual abstinence-until-marriage strategy must be adopted to reverse the STD epidemic. It's an evidence-based approach with proven results for reversing the HIV/AIDS trends in several African countries--let's give it a chance in this country."

Perkins also noted that "findings from two studies presented demonstrate that of the 15-to-24-year-old women receiving contraceptives, over half are not receiving appropriate counseling, screening, and treatment for STIs [sexually transmitted infections]."

However, neither Mr. Perkins or anyone else who might have an opposing view was interviewed for this article.

All of this shilling for PP was balanced by (drum roll, please) absolutely nothing.

This whole article is just a left-wing scare-monger, anti-Christian hit piece to promote the services of a taxpayer-funded abortion provider. One which has recently been exposed agreeing to accept money for racially motivated minority abortions, and accused of ripping off taxpayers to the tune of almost $200 million.

Incredibly, this biased article is considered front page news by the editors of this liberal agenda-driven newspaper. Then again, it's not incredible, unfortunately, it's standard procedure in today's media.