Abortion Bias in the Irish Times: The curious story of the abortion that never happened.
3 year forensic review shows overwhelming pro-abortion bias in Irish Times – both in news and opinion articles
#biaskillsdebate #irishtimespromotesabortion
91% of Irish Times articles showed pro-abortion bias, forensic 3 year analysis finds.
An extensive forensic analysis of every article published by the Irish Times (in the years 2013 - 2015) on abortion has shown overwhelming and persistent bias in favour of abortion, both in the paper’s news reporting and opinion pieces.
Amongst the key findings from the forensic review of the period from January 2013 to December 2015 were:
• Of the 312 articles published by the paper that showed a bias on the issue, 91% were found to have exhibited a pro-abortion bias. (284 of 312 articles)
• For news reporting the bias was most evident, with 98% of news reports which were biased showing a bias in favour of abortion. (205 of 209 articles)
• Almost 77% of opinion pieces for the period showed a bias in favour of abortion with just over 23% taking a pro-life position. (79 against 24 articles)
• The Irish Times published an average of 2 articles per week in favour of abortion (review of 3 years: 2013, 2014 and 2015), making the newspaper more of a campaigner than a news agency.
A review of every article published on abortion during a 3 year period
Every Irish Times article that dealt explicitly and primarily with abortion between January 2013 and December 2015 was examined, an undertaking that saw 766 articles being analysed.
These articles fell into numerous categories including news, opinion, social affairs, health, politics, and the courts - reflecting how the abortion issue touches so many aspects of public and private life.
In order to determine if an article was balanced or biased, we examined each article to see if they contained bias in any of the following 5 categories which are commonly used in assessing media bias.
Only articles that showed bias in two or more of the categories were considered to be a biased article.
1. BIAS THROUGH SELECTION AND / OR OMISSION
2. BIAS THROUGH PLACEMENT
3. BIAS THROUGH HEADLINE
4. BIAS THROUGH TONE AND/OR LANGUAGE
5. BIAS THROUGH SOURCES
DETERMINING BIAS
In order for an article to be considered biased, we decided that the article would have to show bias on at least two of the above criteria.
In total, it was determined that of 766 Irish Times articles on abortion published during 2013-2015, a total of 312 articles showed bias on abortion.
THE RESULTS
91% of those articles were biased in favour of abortion. Just 9% of the articles showed a bias against abortion.
The bias was most evident in news reporting with an overwhelming 98% of the biased articles showing a bias in favour of abortion.
On average, the Irish Times published two articles biased in favour of abortion every week. Articles taking a pro-life position appeared less than 10 times a year.
The records of three journalists who wrote most often on abortion were examined. Kitty Holland mostly showed a pro-abortion bias, Mary Minihan mostly remained neutral, while Marie O’Halloran’s articles showed a neutral or pro-abortion bias almost equally. None of the three published an article biased against abortion in the period.
Results per year
In 2013, 215 articles took a stance on the abortion issue or showed a bias one way or the other. 91.6%, or 197 articles, showed a bias towards the pro-abortion position. Only 8.4%, or 18 articles, showed bias against abortion.
2014, saw a significant decrease in the number of articles published regarding abortion. However of the 42 articles that took a stance on the issue, 92.9%, or 39 articles, were found to lean pro-abortion while only 3 articles, or 7.1%, were pro-life.
In 2015, 89.1% (or 49 articles) of the 55 articles were determined to have a pro-abortion bias while 10.9%, or 6 articles, took a pro-life stance.
CONCLUSION
The findings in this review demonstrate clearly that the Irish Times has an overwhelming and persistent bias in favour of legalised abortion.
It is particularly egregious that such overwhelming bias was shown in news reporting, and the results of this analysis can lead to the conclusion that the Irish Times abortion reporting is often opinion disguised as news.
The issue of abortion is both contentious and vitally important in modern day Ireland and it is essential that the Irish people are allowed to engage in an honest and straightforward discussion on the subject, especially as efforts are made to open Ireland’s doors to legalised abortion.
It is the duty of the press to report the news in a fair and balanced manner. Non-biased reporting and greater diversity of opinion are necessary if the people are to engage in a legitimate national discussion on abortion.
Without an end to media bias on this important and sensitive issue, there can be no trust between the people and the press.
See FULL FINDINGS at www.thelifeinstitute.net
This is very informative. Many very dedicated professionals have worked tirelessly to keep abortion out of Ireland. When these sort of corrupt schemes unfold, it becomes impossible to counter them without people willing to take great risks to expose the truth. And if even this can be accomplished, who is going to get the, "average person" to care? Power, corruption, evil schemes... It still comes back to us, every day people, willing to go the extra mile for the innocent, most vulnerable.