It has been revealed that Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll sent a memo to all section editors of his paper calling upon them to ensure that the pro-abortion and liberal bias evident in a recent Times story would not be repeated.

The May 22 memo, which was leaked and posted on several websites including LA Observed, National Review and WorldNetDaily, was described by L.A. radio host Hugh Hewitt as an “extraordinary document,” because it admitted the paper had a bias that needed to be rectified.

Carroll said that stories such as the Times’ coverage of a bill in Texas that would require abortionists to counsel patients about the risks of breast cancer proved the paper’s critics correct when they complain of a liberal or politically correct bias.

The story in question included only one quote from a supporter of the proposed Texas law, endocrinologist Joel Brind, and then only in the final three paragraphs of what Carroll called a “lengthy” story (as well as a brief mention of the bill’s sponsor). Furthermore, the article focussed on Brind’s politics, not the scientific facts about the abortion-breast cancer link. On the other hand, five pro-abortion sources were cited denying such the ABC link and opposing the bill.

Carroll said “The story makes a strong case that the link between abortion and breast cancer is widely discounted among researchers, but I wondered as I read it whether somewhere there might exist some credible scientist who believes in it.”

The treatment of Brind, relating his political position but not his scientific concerns, led Carroll to the conclusion that “Apparently the scientific argument for the anti-abortion side is so absurd that we don’t need to waste our reader’s time with it.”

Carroll said the biased abortion story convinced him of the need to purge “all politic bias from our coverage” so that the paper will no longer “push a liberal agenda in (its) news pages.”

While not admitting to which side of the issue he stands, Carroll said that abortion “presents a profound philosophical, religious and scientific question, and I respect people on both sides of the debate. A newspaper that is intelligent and fair-minded will do the same.”

Jan Carroll, a spokesman for the California Pro-Life Council (and no relation to the Times editor), told The Interim that she was “stunned” when she first saw the memo. She said that while the Times was “not the worst pro-abortion paper, it was a big one,” whose “editorial perspective and reporting bias” was blatant. She added that the paper’s bias was most often seen by what it did not report, citing the paper’s failure to cover pro-life legislative initiatives, the truth about RU-486’s health risks or the fact that California taxpayers fund 100,000 abortions annually to the tune of 30-40 million dollars each year. So she is hopeful that the paper will re-examine the way it covers life issues.

Yet, she noted the Times ran a three-part series 10 years ago examining how the media in general covered the abortion issue. “There was no discernable change in the Times’ coverage of abortion in the last decade,” she said.