Look Back in Wonder

Most of the time, we flit. But every once in a while, the news business has a moment of blinding clarity about itself and comes away truly changed.

One of those moments happened 15 years ago this month, when the Los Angeles Times published an astonishing series about the media's coverage of the abortion debate. That series—famous inside the profession, largely unknown outside—dramatically shifted the paradigm of abortion coverage, overnight. And it's worth a good look-back now.

Washington is rolling merrily toward the confirmation hearings on Judge John G. Roberts Jr., and if any issue is likely to get hot in those proceedings, it's abortion. The coverage will look, read, and sound the way it does partly because 15 years ago a single news outlet, and one tenacious reporter, decided to step back for a moment and ask their own business some tough questions.

It was July 1, 1990, and the headline over the first story was chary, as if the paper knew it was about to lob a 5,665-word grenade into the collegial tent and was terrified: "Abortion Bias Seeps Into News: A Comprehensive Times Study Finds That the Press Often Favors Abortion Rights in Its Coverage, Even Though Journalists Say They Make Every Effort to Be Fair."

But the story itself was anything but tentative. It began by noting that abortion opponents believed that media coverage of the issue was biased against their side. The author of the series, Times reporter David Shaw, wasted no time telling readers that he'd found this to be true.

"A comprehensive Times study of major newspaper, television, and newsmagazine coverage over the last 18 months, including more than 100 interviews with journalists and with activists on both sides of the abortion debate, confirms that this bias often exists," he wrote. "Responsible journalists do try to be fair, and many charges of bias in abortion coverage are not valid. But careful examination of stories published and broadcast reveals scores of examples, large and small, that can only be characterized as unfair to the opponents of abortion, either in content, tone, choice of language, or prominence of play."

If you had any doubts about this claim, the rest of the piece, and the three stories that followed, demolished them. Shaw built a breathtaking mountain of evidence. He quoted reporters, editors, and producers on their own work. He talked about abortion as a class issue, and the fact that mainstream journalists tend to be members of a class that favors abortion rights. He examined whether women reporters tend to have a harder time than men giving both sides of the abortion debate a fair shake (his answer: yes). He let those on all sides (for there are more than two) of the debate—which had just ramped up again, thanks to the Supreme Court's 1989 Webster ruling—weigh in with their thoughts on the coverage.

Most impressive of all, he got down into the weeds of word choice and showed how particular phrases frequently (and often unconsciously) tilted abortion news in the abortion-rights direction. His bullet points felt like real bullets, rat-a-tat-tat. A few examples give the flavor:

1) "The Associated Press, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Time magazine, among others, have referred to those who oppose abortion 'even in cases of rape and incest' (circumstances under which most people approve of abortion). But the media almost never refer to those who favor abortion rights 'even in the final weeks of pregnancy' (circumstances under which most people oppose abortion)."

2) "United Press International reported last year on a poll that showed a minority of all Americans take absolutist positions on abortion. The story said 'only' 18 percent believed abortion should always be illegal. But there was no 'only' before the 27 percent who said abortion should always be legal."

Shaw never argued that journalists shouldn't have opinions, or shouldn't do bold, aggressive reporting on abortion. Rather, he was saying that the stories they write and produce should be faithful to reality, acknowledge the enormous complexities of the debate, and give all sides their due.

For American journalism, it was a giant head slap, as in: My God, he's right. And the series quietly resonates today. Mainstream coverage of abortion is far more careful and fair. The sloppiness and unconscious arrogance Shaw found to be so common in 1990 are now uncommon.

"David forced everyone to do basic journalism again, and the first thing you do in basic journalism is check your preconceptions at the door," says Karen Tumulty, Time magazine's national political correspondent, who was on the abortion beat for the Los Angeles Times when the series came out.

Last week, word raced around the profession that Shaw is gravely ill with brain cancer. I've never met the man, but this sad news instantly sent me back to the series, which I read start to finish. Though the abortion story has changed, the work that did the changing holds up incredibly well.

Another Shaw, playwright George Bernard, has his own adjective, "Shavian," that is used almost exclusively by literary scholars. I say it's time we added a second definition. "Shavian: of, relating to, or characteristic of David Shaw. Said especially of brave, transformative journalism about journalism. Rare."