How do reporters deal with Coffman’s abortion stance?
Republican gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Coffman told Peter Jones of the South Metro Villager last month that she backs abortion rights. Jones reported:
Coffman is likewise supportive of abortion rights.
“I want abortion to be rare. I want it to be safe, and I want us to be doing things as a society that diminish the need for there to be abortion,” she said.
That’s a pretty straight-forward articulation of a pro-choice position.
So you wonder why Coffman said previously that she was “surprised” that Channel 4 political specialist Shaun Boyd had characterized her as “pro-choice.”
“No! No, I didn’t. I refused to accept a label. And I still do,” Coffman said on air in response to a question about whether she’d describes herself as pro-choice.
Yet, Boyd reported that the Coffman campaign did not want Channel 4 to correct its story labeling Coffman as “pro-choice.”
So Coffman’s words say she’s pro-choice, but that’s not what she wants to be called? What to do with that, if you’re a reporter? You have to call her pro-choice, because that’s what she appears to be, but maybe there’s more to the story.