[guest post by Dana]

Not if history is any indicator…

The annual March for Life will take place in Washington D.C. tomorrow. Typically the event is downplayed, or altogether ignored by the MSM. This in spite of the numbers historically being similar to those of last weekend’s Women’s March in D.C. But if it is reported on, expect attendance numbers to be given the short-shrift, the negative “anti-abortion” descriptor to be used repeatedly instead of the positive “pro-life” term, and on top of that, it’s guaranteed that none of the reporting will come with a media-expressed optimism and hopefulness about the pro-life movement at large. Yet whether reporters cover the march or not, for the marchers themselves, this year brings reason to cheer: President Trump just reinstated the Mexico City policy, effectively defunding the International Planned Parenthood Federation and cutting off $100 million they receive annually from the U.S. taxpayers.

With that,President Trump was interviewed by David Muir of ABC News yesterday, and in a portion of the interview, Muir, obviously hoping to put the president on the defensive, asked him about the Women’s March last weekend. In response, President Trump brought up the the March for Life. Now, while while I firmly believe the president needs to develop some discernment and self-control with regard to spouting off about the size of, well, anything, kudos to him for bringing up the issue when confronting Muir about the lopsided media coverage between previous March for Life events and last weekend’s Women’s March:

DAVID MUIR: Let me just ask you while we’re standing outside, could you hear the voices from the Women’s March here in Washington? We know more than a million people turned out, and you are their president too.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I couldn’t hear them. The crowds were large, but you will have a large crowd on Friday, too, which is mostly pro-life people.

You’re going to have a lot of people coming on Friday. And I will say this, and I didn’t realize this. But I was told. You will have a very large crowd of people. I don’t know as large or larger. Some people said it will be larger. Pro-life people and they say the press doesn’t cover them.

DAVID MUIR: I don’t want to compare crowd sizes again. I – I—I…

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, no, you should.

Was President Trump correctly informed about the lack of coverage for the previous March for Life events? Absolutely:

During their morning and evening news shows, the three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) covered the women’s march 129 times more than they did the 2016 March for Life last year.

…

ABC, CBS and NBC spent at least one hour, 15 minutes and 18 seconds on the women’s march. But for the 2016 March for Life, they devoted an embarrassing 35 seconds (22 seconds following the march, 13 before).

And note the excitement from the Big Three networks when reporting about the Women’s March:

By Jan. 19, all three networks had covered the women’s march, with NBC correspondent Stephanie Gosk predicting a “sea of pink” (a reference to women marchers planning to wear pink “pussy hats” to protest President Donald Trump) at the march during Nightly News.

Even up until Tuesday morning, CBS covered the march by playing clips of late-night hosts talking about the protest during This Morning’s “eye openers.”

On Jan. 23, following the march, CBS This Morning still touted the event, with co-anchor Norah O’Donnell commenting that “Organizers of the women’s marches are taking steps to transform the energy from the weekend protest into action.” Her colleague, Charlie Rose added, “Could it take – begin there and become something larger in terms of the empowerment of women in terms of the whole range of issues that are crucial for women and their place and their opportunity to participate in the world that we live in?”

That same day, during Evening News, CBS anchor Scott Pelley called the marches “extraordinary” and wanted to know, “So, what happens next?”

Echoing CBS, ABC anchor David Muir asked about the march during World News Tonight “Can they sustain the momentum turning those marches into a movement?”

Here is a breakdown of the coverage for previous March for Life rallies:

In 2015, only CBS mentioned the march, allotting just 15 seconds. That was only one second for every 13,000 people who put work, school and other obligations aside to travel from as far away as the West Coast. That was only one second for every 3.8 million babies aborted in the last four decades.

In 2014, the networks devoted 46 seconds to the hundreds of thousands marching in Washington, D.C. Yet, ABC, NBC and CBS spent six times that on the National Zoo’s new panda cub and four-and-a-half times that on the Climate March.

Since 2013, the networks have devoted just 100 seconds to the March for Life in following news shows – slightly more than they might have spent broadcasting a couple of burger ads.

Brutally killing a defenseless baby in the womb? Who cares. MY BODY, MYSELF!!

But, THE EARTH IS BURNING!? Now that’s a Big. Fucking. Deal.

As one young woman who is planning to march tomorrow, eloquently said:

I don’t think it’s fair that there is an option to kill somebody before they even have a chance to live.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back)

–Dana

Good Lord. Is this guy never going to let this go? Obama’s is bigger, Trump. Get over it.

This is from Trump’s interview with David Muir of ABC News:

MUIR: And just before we leave, the President tells us he wants to show us just one more image.

TRUMP: One thing this shows is how far they go over here. Look. Look how far this is. This goes all the way down here. All the way down. Nobody sees that. You don’t see that in the pictures. But when you look at this tremendous sea of love — I call it a sea of love. It’s really something special, that all these people traveled here from all parts of the country, maybe the world, but all parts of the country. Hard for them to get here. Many of these people were the forgotten men and women, many of them. And they loved what I had to say. More importantly, they’re going to love the result.

You can see the order of how he thinks: first his ego, and then the people. First the crowd size, which is about how great he is, and then the observation about the people who traveled to see it. First the fact that people loved what he had to say, and then the assertion that the policies will benefit the people.

This is the same picture, by the way, that he has chosen to hang in the White House press hall, and that he tweeted out two days ago.

A photo delivered yesterday that will be displayed in the upper/lower press hall. Thank you Abbas! pic.twitter.com/Uzp0ivvRp0

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 24, 2017

As Susan Wright observed, the date on the picture is from the day after the inauguration, but the picture is probably from the inauguration, because (as Susan noted) the banners are still hanging. The perspective of the picture is pleasing to Trump because it does not show the empty areas between the Capitol and the Washington Monument.

The transcript of the ABC News interview is here. It’s chock-full of obsession about how many people voted for him and other pointless nonsense.

Ah, well. Every president is an egomaniac. It’s just that they usually hide it better.

He seems to be doing OK on the policy front. If that continues, the clown show is the price of admission, I guess.

[Cross-posted at RedState and The Jury Talks Back.]