Slanting the Debate

Amy Welborn notes how political television shows work:

I was once interviewed at length for an article profiling pro-life and abortions rights advocates for a 1/22 piece. My section of the article was cut in favor of an imprisoned direct-action protestor because, I was told, "They wanted someone who was more intensly committed." I once heard...I can't remember her name off the top of my head, but she's an African-American woman who was for several years the main PR person for National Right to Life. It got to the point, she said, at which the networks (this was really before cable) stopped asking her to represent the pro-life position - why? Because once they heard that she would be there, folks like Faye Wattleton and Kate Michelman would routinely cancel their end of the appearances, not wanting to argue their point with a young African-American woman, but preferring, as they ended up getting, to do so in opposition to a middle-aged white man.