archived-news

It's official: in case you missed it, the Irish Times has confirmed what we all knew to be true - the paper has banned the use of the term pro-life as a news description.

In an editorial on free speech and robust debate (the irony), the paper wrote:

"And while this paper, for example, does not allow the use by our reporters in the context of reporting the abortion debate of the loaded term “pro-life” as a news description, the expression may be quoted from others or used by opinion writers."

The term 'pro-choice' obviously isn't loaded at all then, even though it's clearly a marketing ruse which attempts to conceal the real nature of what's actually under discussion. The Irish Times appears to be perfectly happy with the pretence that ending a baby's life is something to be discussed in terms of 'choices' as if we were discussing shampoo options rather than the gruesome and deadly act of abortion.

It doesn't matter much: the Irish Times has lost all credibility http://www.thelifeinstitute.net/blog/2014/02/02/another-epic-fail-irish-times-abortion/ on the abortion issue at any rate. But it's useful to have conformation of the bias officially sanctioned in the paper's reporting.