Bennett Was Citing 'Freakonomics'

October 1st, 2005 12:19 AM

The print media is set to have a field day with William Bennett's comments regarding an outlandish book. (Touched on earlier on Newsbusters by Brent Baker and Dave Pierre.)

Reuters leads off with: "The White House on Friday criticized as 'not appropriate' a comment from former Education Secretary William Bennett that aborting black babies would reduce the U.S. crime rate."

ABC News (running an AP article), leads off with the title: Bennett: Black Abortions Would Lower Crime."

This leaves the impression that this is not only Bennett's idea, but that he even supports the claim.

Meanwhile, Brian Faler writing for The Washington Post led with "Democratic lawmakers and civil rights leaders denounced conservative commentator William Bennett on Thursday for suggesting on his syndicated radio show that aborting black children would reduce the U.S. crime rate" once again leaving the same impression that these are both his claims and his beliefs.

VIBE Magazine chimed in with "Education Secretary vilified for racist comments." The first sentence, again called his comments "racist" stating: Education Secretary William Bennett is facing some serious backlash regarding the racist content of his radio talk show this week, when he said, on air, that aborting 'every black baby in this country' would help reduce crime."

A book makes a claim, a conservative restates essentially the same claim, calls the claim "morally reprehensible" and "ridiculous" and he gets accused of holding the idea. It's a cycle of violence. Meanwhile, the Media is constantly portraying in its lead titles and summaries that Bennett both is the founder of such a claim and a believer in it.