Press downplays March for Life crowds

Busloads of demonstrators from across the country descended on the nation’s capital last Friday to partake in what is now a 42-year-old tradition of protesting the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

As Washington locals scrambled Friday to prepare for winter storm Jonas, a crowd comprised largely of out-of-towners assembled to march on the city. The march itself went without a hitch Friday, having begun before the worst of the blizzard, and there appeared to be a sizable showing (though estimates put attendance numbers at lower than usual because of Jonas).

As expected, coverage for the 2016 march was meager this weekend, as cable and network television focused on 2016 primary news and the blizzard itself.

Though certain national media outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times and USA Today, dedicated time to covering the demonstration, they’ve been criticized for allegedly downplaying the size of the crowd.

The Post reported that the march drew “thousands,” while the Times said that it attracted only “hundreds.” Both accounts have been challenged as inaccurate by LifeSiteNews, which reported that attendance numbers far exceeded what was claimed by national media.

“Given this year’s historic winter weather threat, organizers were delighted that at least 40 or more thousands of pro-life supporters still stayed to march the full length of the march route before rushing home,” the pro-life news site reported. “Mainstream media, however, took advantage of the adverse circumstances to manufacture the lowest numbers yet of their usual far-too-low estimates of participants in the annual march this year.”

Following the conclusion of the march, demonstrators continued to make news as their journey home devolved into chaos brought on by Jonas. Highways become cluttered with buses, and “marchers” were left stranded for hours in traffic as the blizzard quickly increased in intensity.

“On Friday after the March for Life, I hitched a ride with the University of Mary, two buses headed back to North Dakota. Their president, Msgr. James Patrick Shea (a friend since our student days at the Catholic University of America) and I were headed to the same Denver destination and thought we’d ride the bus to Pittsburgh, planning to disembark around dinnertime on Friday,” wrote conservative columnist and National Review editor Kathyrn Jean Lopez.

“But then it became midnight, in about the same spot we had been in until 7:20 or so. And then it became 3 a.m. And then it was 8 o’clock, about when our flight was scheduled to lift off. We read on the Internet that the National Guard was on call to help us,” she added.

Her experience was not unique, as many who traveled back from the march encountered similarly miserable blizzard conditions along the way. One report indicated that some Midwest-based demonstrators were stranded on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for up to 21 hours.

One Iowan, Mandie DeVries, told LifeSiteNews that she estimated roughly 2,200 stranded demonstrators in single mile-long starch of the turnpike.

“There are over 2,200 Marchers stuck on just our little section of the turnpike. I counted 24 buses among the dozens and dozens of semis who are still stuck. I walked about a half mile up the turnpike and talked to every charter bus on the road,” she said.

The demonstrators eventually broke free from the gridlock and continued their respective journeys home.

However, despite the scope of the ordeal, there was very little coverage from major media over weekend. The majority of coverage for the highway nightmare came from local news stations. Major television networks, including CNN, focused instead on how Jonas affected certain parts of New York City.

The paucity of press coverage for the march is not exactly new, as the Washington Examiner’s media desk has reported in previous years.