Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In 1996, veteran CBS News reporter and producer Bernie Goldberg committed the unpardonable sin of publicly mentioning the issue of liberal bias in the media. For that he became persona non grata at CBS. Goldberg tells how friends and colleagues turned on him, from junior CBS reporters all the way to Dan Rather. But much more than that, he exposes a bias so uniform and overwhelming that it permeates every news story we hear and read- and so entrenched and deep rooted that the networks themselves don't even recognize it.

From the Publisher
IN HIS NEARLY thirty years at CBS News, Emmy Award- winner Bernard Goldberg earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: objective, disinterested reporting. Again and again he saw that they slanted the news to the left. For years Goldberg appealed to reporters, producers, and network executives for more balanced reporting, but no one listened. The liberal bias continued. Now, in Bias, he blows the whistle on the news business, showing exactly how the media slant their coverage while insisting that they're just reporting the facts.

Reviewer:
Subtitle: BLUNT -- no-holds-barred & fact-filled!!!

Former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg's BIAS became politicized even before it was out on the market. And it's a shame.

This is a WONDERFUL, important, thought-provoking book and a GREAT READ...no matter WHAT your political stance is. Before this book was even in the general public's hands conservative talk-show hosts glorified it while some liberals (and news figures) badmouthed or down played it. But the bottom line is: Goldberg is a gifted writer who writes with incredible bluntness and supports most allegations with specific names, facts and quotations.

Goldberg, the modern media's most high-profile whistleblower, became a non-person and was marginalized until he left CBS due to his sin: he wrote a blunt and thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal questioning the objectivity of CBS Evening News reporter Eric Engberg's Reality Check segment in which Engberg ridiculed presidential candidate Steve Forbe's flat-tax idea's "Number One Wackiest Flat Tax Promise."

There are two levels to this book. One, woven throughout, is the story of how due to his sin the CBS hierarchy, particularly his one-time friend Dan Rather, shunned him, kept him off the air, and was furious at him. He says one CBS bigwig warned him that the corporation would use "all the big guns in its arsenal against him" if he became too sympathetic. Rather was quoted as suggesting Goldberg, who was NOT a Republican, was trying to intimidate him and, Goldberg alleges, took a "take-no-prisoners" behind-the-scenes stance to undermine him. Even media types outside CBS were not happy with him leading him to conclude that media "elites", which want to report on everyone, don't want anyone to report on them.

The other level is more important: he gives specifics examples (names, quotes, specific stories) of deeply ingrained media bias. Some key ones:
--A CBS reporter in a conference call labelling former presidential candidate Gary Bauer "that little nut from the Christian Group." And no editors listening objected.
--How a CBS producer didn't want images of black prisoners on a chain gang story since it might make viewers think many prisoners were black (which they were)...and similar problems on showing black looters in the Virgin Islands.
--How news producers generally don't like to feature blacks in news stories since it means lower ratings.
--How homeless activists bloated statistics and downplayed the role of the mentally ill, alcoholic and drug-users among that population. How the homeless story is heavily reported when Republicans are in power, then suddenly dropped once a Demcrat takes office. He makes a persuasive case.
--How the news media went along with early contentions by AIDS activists that the horrorific disease put the entire heterosexual population at risk versus specific segments (homosexuals, drug users and those that have sex with them).
--How the word "controversial" often means the reporter/show does not agree with the person or issue to which it refers.
--How conservatives are labelled as such but liberals aren't.

This book has a wealth of SPECIFIC, FACTUAL information...all peppered with Goldberg's blunt reporting, hilarious zingers (too many to count here!), and searing sarcasm.

This should be required reading for anyone who is in or thinking about going into journalism. Ironically, the book's basic set-up is its FLAW. By being so blunt and taking on the issue head-on Goldberg runs the risk (as his appearances on talk shows prove) of being defined by others as being a disgruntled employee and conservative ideologue. He is truly NEITHER: due to his "crime" he ran into a buzz saw of office politics, sometimes subtle corporate retaliation, blatant efforts to discredit him and his motives -- and is clearly angry. But his ALLEGATIONS here are BACKED UP with SPECIFICS.

If nothing else, Goldberg shows how news organizations operate from a ground-level assumption -- a conventional political wisdom. ALL news outlets do (take it from a former reporter, like me): CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox. In staking out his ground here, Goldberg does too. But unlike others Goldberg's message is "let's THINK about this and let's do SOMETHING to apply the same rules to everyone and be MORE objective." For that he became personna non grata in circles he criticizes, a hero to those who hate those circles -- but his message is a solid one and delivered with all the writing skill of a topflight pro.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0895261901/theradicalacademA/

CovOps wrote:: --A CBS reporter in a conference call labelling former presidential candidate Gary Bauer "that little nut from the Christian Group." And no editors listening objected.

On that one, ANCAPS also would have no objections...

Hear, hear...

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

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