"Now": Forceful, Accurate and Timely
Ken A. Bode
June 12, 2009
During my tenure as Ombudsman for CPB, one of the programs I have grown to admire for its reporting quality and consistency is "NOW," hosted on Friday evenings by David Brancaccio.
Among the recent offerings, the health care calamity exacerbated by the economic collapse, sexual harassment of teenagers and inside secrets of food production were, I think, among their best. I have found that the producers and reporters at "NOW" regularly deliver strong journalistic efforts and do so within the boundaries of fairness and balance mandated by PBS standards.
The program broadcast Friday, June 12, entitled, "Abortion Providers Under Siege," was one of the best "NOW" has delivered. Right on the cusp of breaking news, senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa targeted the essential question behind the shooting death of Wichita doctor George Tiller: Should violence against doctors who perform abortions be viewed as domestic terrorism?
The two principal interviews in the program were with Dr. Warren Hern, whose clinic is in Boulder, Colorado, and Dr. LeRoy Carhart, George Tiller's partner in Wichita. Both doctors described in vivid detail the constant threats to their security and that of their families along with the endless harassment of their potential clients. Each recounted the kind of security precautions they must take to provide adequate safety -- four sets of bullet proof doors, traveling in secure vehicles separate from their families, protection by federal marshals.
The "NOW" team illustrated threats posted on websites sponsored by radical pro-life groups, including photographs of abortion providers' clinics, homes and automobiles, making them targets of what the doctors term "domestic terrorists." For example, the American Coalition of Life Activists publishes a "hit list" of abortion doctors.
"NOW" revisited the constant drumbeat about "George Tiller, the baby killer" on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor." On 27 episodes of his program, Bill O'Reilly repeated his charge that Dr. Tiller was a mass murderer, including that Tiller was available to kill a baby "for $5000 up front." On two of the clips shown by "NOW," I was embarrassed to notice that Juan Williams, political correspondent for NPR, appeared on O'Reilly's panel.
Dr. George Tiller was one of the few doctors to perform abortions in the third trimester. This means he was operating on the hardest of the hard cases, women facing life-threatening complications or women whose children would be born dead or dying. Such late term surgeries constitute roughly one-percent of all abortions performed in America.
The "NOW" program featured a woman who previously had been an opponent of abortion, even participating in pro-life demonstrations. When she learned she was carrying a baby that would be born with no brain and would never survive outside the womb, she sought a late-term abortion. "It was condemning me to a death watch," she said.
The kind of abortions George Tiller performed made him a special target of the most radical of the anti-abortion activists. His clinic previously had been firebombed and Tiller had been shot in both arms in an earlier attack. His friend, Warren Hern, says, "This is domestic terrorism. It is not a debate. It is a civil war. The anti-abortion movement has been using bombs and bullets and have been doing it for 30 years."
Overall, the program was strong and convincing on this point: radical, anti-abortion opponents, including Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, are guilty of promoting domestic terrorism. They always deny that their rhetoric promotes and condones the violence directed at doctors who are performing services protected under the law. However, little question remains from the reporting on "NOW" that they are guilty of inspiring the murderous outcomes they encourage. There were 3,291 acts of violence against abortion providers in the US and Canada between 2000 and 2008, including bombings, shootings and letters threatening Anthrax contamination.
I would offer a few additional comments.
First, I would direct those interested in more information on this subject to a dialogue provided on the "NOW" website between Troy Newman, the Director of Operation Rescue West and Christina Page, a reproductive rights advocate.
Newman, who has organized demonstrations against George Tiller's "abortion mill" in Wichita, says flatly that there is never a reason for a third trimester abortion, regardless of the condition of the fetus or the health of the mother. At this late stage, he argues, all pregnancies must be carried to term, babies delivered and the consequences dealt with later. I would have liked to see Mr. Newman respond, on screen, to the anti-abortion activist who discovered she needed to terminate her pregnancy in the third trimester. Or hear her answer to him.
I also would have liked to see Newman, on screen, make his case about the ethics of the anti-abortion groups he defends, in contrast to the views of doctors Hern and Carhart. Ignoring the shootings, bombings, stalkings and other violence perpetrated by radical anti-abortion activists, Troy Newman asserts, "The pro-life movement is the most peaceful social movement in our nation's history."
In other words I think the "NOW" broadcast would have been stronger and more balanced if Newman, or someone representing his views, were presented on screen for the viewers to evaluate in contrast to those of doctors Hern and Carhart.
I also would have liked to see a different point of view from the pro-life movement, one where the consequences of the "free speech" they exercise are acknowledged and accepted. For example, Frank Schaeffer, who was a long time anti-abortion activist and author of the book, "Crazy For God," discussed the Tiller murder and the activities from his own past in an op-ed on "The Huffington Post."
Schaeffer says he was "part of the Republican Party's hate machine for many years," and now believes he helped to create the climate that made the murder of George Tiller more likely to happen. "Words are spoken that lead directly to violence by the unhinged or the truly committed," says Schaeffer. The "NOW" program would have been even stronger with Frank Schaeffer on screen, in person.
There are things that a president can do -- or not do -- that affect the climate of violence in America. For example, Daphne Eviatar reports in "The Washington Independent," that during the presidency of George W. Bush criminal enforcement of the federal law designed to protect abortion providers declined by more than 75% from similar statistics during the Clinton administration.
And, finally, each time a clip appeared on the "NOW" program from "The O'Reilly Factor" with Juan Williams on screen, I cringed. I admire Mr. Williams for his scholarly writing and his reporting on NPR. Fox News president Roger Ailes knows he is exploiting the credibility that Mr. Williams has built at NPR and carries with him to Fox. I wonder if Williams ever thinks that he is squandering a measure of that credibility by his continued appearances with Bill O'Reilly.
