Editorial Review for "bias"

Don't Let the Facts Stand in the Way of a Good Story!(Editorial Review for Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News)

After twenty-eight years working for CBS, Bernard Goldberg decided that he no longer wanted to work for a news station he didn't admire. Thus, he resigned and began work on his book Bias; a book in which he merely draws attention to the media for reporting from a leftist perspective, preventing the audience from receiving an objective, unbiased view of what really goes on in our world. As an "old-fashioned liberal," as he calls himself, he does not attempt to gain conservative support for accusing liberals of bias. Rather, he would prefer liberal support for acknowledging this problem in hopes of changing the face of news. He bases his book on his personal experience as a former news anchor for CBS. Despite popular belief, he meant no harm in his book (or in his editorials) to his previous employees. His only hope was to point out an alarmingly, already well-known fact; that reporters, even if unintentionally, at news stations like CBS, NBC, and ABC report the news from their liberal viewpoint, inhibiting their audiences's right to an accurate portrayal of our news.

It all started out with an opinion editorial Goldberg wrote for the Wall Street Journal. After a man named Eric Engberg (and a once close friend to Goldberg) discussed upcoming presidential candidate Steven Forbes' flat tax proposal from a painfully, liberal view, attacking Forbes' proposal by using "tendentious terms like Ð''scheme' and Ð''elixir'" (Blowing the Whistle on CBS News, 1996) instead of just giving the straight facts, Goldberg wrote an op-ed in which he discreetly and politely discussed the bias that is so apparent in news stories such as Engberg's. Goldberg mentioned in his book several times the crap he got from all of CBS and other news anchors for writing that article. Since then, his career at CBS went further and further down the drain until its eventual collapse. Goldberg makes several references of reporters like Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw, showing them in a not-so-flattering light as anti-conservative anchors who not only attack anyone who dares differ in opinion from them, but who are also so close-minded in their views and beliefs that any critic who has something to say about their methods (such as Bernard Goldberg himself) better prepare themselves for these men's wrath.

Goldberg does a great job of integrating all perspectives and sides when writing his book. As well, he has surely done his share of research. He cites numerous newspaper and magazine articles, as well as quote upon quote upon quote from CBS insiders and fellow reporters. He refers to the constant refusal to have a single left-winger be labeled as "liberal" anywhere in the news, while always labeling those on the right as "conservative." He laughs at how the news has introduced Catherine MacKinnon (who once implied that all sexual intercourse was rape) as a "noted law professor" while Phyllis Schlafly is a "conservative spokeswoman" (CBS This Morning, 1981). By the same token, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page is conservative, but the equivalent editorial page in the New York Times is simply "middle of the road," as the Dan (CBS's nickname for Dan Rather) so elequently puts it.

But the fascinating reason why this book is so compelling is not just what is being said, but by whose mouth it is spewing from. A former CBS news correspondent for nearly three decades, Goldberg is surely not conservative. His motive is not to gain conservatives' approval. In fact, his own political views, being that he's pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and he has never voted for Ronald Reagan (a fact he mentions quite frequently), make it rather difficult to label him a "right-winger." All he wanted was his voice to be heard. He repeatedly voiced his concerns about the one-sided nature of coverage to the network executives over at CBS, only to have them either dismissed or completely ignored. Finally, after numerous attempts in all his twenty-eight years, he was left with no choice but to "blow the whistle" on his own industry. The result is Bias.

To further make his point about liberal bias in the news, Goldberg shows us who decided to discuss and print commentary on his first editorial. After its release in the Wall Street Journal, it was a very widely-talked about piece, bringing about lots of controversy from all sides. And while he was getting interviewed by so many news stations and newspapers, CBS, NBC, ABC, and the New York Times (all which happened to be liberal-oriented) left out any mention of his piece. The New York Times printed absolutely nothing about his op-ed, when all other papers couldn't get enough of it, only lending credence to the belief that anything anti-liberal that might challenge these papers' and shows' credibility gets no coverage, whatsoever. Had they been credible and unbiased sources, as Goldberg points out, then surely they'd have no problem bringing Goldberg on their news shows to interview him and discuss his op-ed, or printing an article which bears at least a slight mention to the popular piece that no one could get enough of.

For the few people who did make some mention of Goldberg's piece, they ended up looking rather stupid. Johnny Apple, of CNN, says "There's no suggestion that Goldberg went to CBS over a period of time and said, Ð''Our stuff is all one-sided, we've got to do something about this'..." (Reliable Sources, 1996). In response, Goldberg adamantly wonders how the hell Johnny knew that he didn't go to CBS. Not only was Johnny unjustified in making such a claim for he lacked any evidence to back himself up, but in fact, Goldberg had gone to CBS several times throughout his years and had Johnny taken the time to make the slightest effort and call him, then he'd have known. Not only that, but Howard Kurtz, of the Washington Post wrote that "Goldberg has told friends he feels bad about hurting Engberg, but that he has complained to CBS management about a liberal tilt for several years and been consistently ignored" (Washington Post, 1996). Had Johnny picked up the Washington Post (which he surely reads, for he lives in Washington), then he'd retract his previous comment with an apology for his ignorance. And there goes another ignorant example of the media's bias and lack of competence in portraying all sides of the story.

Throughout his book, Goldberg uses the art of examples