Just in case you needed any more proof that the press deserves to be called the “activist media,” the Associated Press issued new guidance in November 2022 to journalists related to how they frame issues surrounding abortion. The AP’s style guide was updated to direct journalists to put the term “crisis pregnancy center” in quotation marks and to refer to them as “anti-abortion” centers.
The Daily Signal reported:
The AP added this entry between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, 2022, according to The Daily Signal’s search of the Wayback Machine. The guide describes the centers as “set up to divert or discourage women from having abortions” and warns writers against “potentially misleading terms” like “pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers.”
“If using the term anti-abortion center, explain later that these often are known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ (with quotation marks) and that their aim is to dissuade people from getting an abortion,” the style guide entry states.
Thomas Glessner, president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, told the news outlet that journalists adhering to these guidelines are “disgraceful” and argued that “if they actually cared about integrity, they would know that pregnancy centers seek to help women who are facing unplanned pregnancies with material and emotional support.”
The Associated Press’ stylebook is the most commonly used among journalists and news outlets. Its guidance tends to be followed across the board, with some exceptions.
Naturally, the pro-abortion lobby was ecstatic by the new guidance. Planned Parenthood advocates of Nebraska celebrated the style change.
“Please see a recent update in AP style, which avoids the use of ‘fetal heartbeat’ bill since this legislation addresses neither a fetus (it’s still an embryo) nor a heartbeat (it hasn’t yet developed a heart),” the organization said in a blog post on Thursday.
The Daily Signal continued, noting that the AP also prohibits use of the term “pro-life” and advises writers to use “anti-abortion or abortion-rights” instead.
The report continued:
The “Abortion Topical Guide” instructs journalists to refer to fetal heartbeats as “cardiac activity,” avoid crediting the “abortion pill reversal process,” and never use the term “late-term” abortion or refer to unborn babies as “pain-capable” until after 24 weeks, despite evidence that the unborn can feel pain at 15 weeks or earlier.
This is only one of several attacks pro-abortion organizations and politicians have launched against crisis pregnancy centers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been on a years-long crusade to minimize the impact these organizations have on decreasing abortions. Indeed, the spate of firebombings and other acts of vandalism perpetrated against these groups shows that those who support abortion are terrified at the idea that more mothers would choose to give birth instead of killing their babies.
But the fact that the AP would use its guidance to direct journalists to engage in blatant pro-abortion activism only shows that the group has no intention to be objective. Indeed, they are part of the reason why I refer to these outlets as the “activist media.” The AP’s guidance is designed more to direct journalists influence rather than inform.
Needless to say, RedState and other sane media outlets won’t be adopting this particular part of the AP’s guidance. Nevertheless, left-leaning activist media organizations will happily take up the new approach because, as I state frequently, these people are not practicing journalism. They are acting as propaganda disseminators working to advance a far-leftist agenda, which means they have to wield language in a way that manipulates rather than educates.
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