Rating: 
Summary: This is actually Mr. goldstein's poor revange,
Review: I was teriblly disapointed, since the cover did not clearly indicate what type of bias I was going to be reading about. I expected to read conservative bias, and was forced to spend my time reading how MR. Goldstein felt about Mr.Dan Rather for the best part of the book, and finally a few poor examples of what the writer found to be evidence of conservative bias. Who cares about the relations between CBS and Mr. Goldstein? why do we have to pay for the pension he is not getting from CBS by buying this half baked book? we have all had had disapointing bosses as well, that does not mean I should write a book with an attractive yet deceiving title to earn money and get back at the people I hate. Finally, I totally disagree with his view of liberalist broadcasting to be an obstruction of truth. If truth means being extreem right is a fact and thus should be accepted and even celebrated, I am sorry, I cant agree .This book is the only book I ever read that made me angry for having baught it .
Rating: 
Summary: No Kidding! Nothing new! The lefts have it!
Review: First off there is nothing new here. The news media is overrun with left wing dribble. That's why I rather listen to NPR or BBC and kind of get the mainstream "real story".The book is an easy read. Far to easy. Most of the book is wining, complaining, and self-justification. Sure Tom and Dan are as tainted as curbside one week old New York City snow but anyone with a clue knows this. Also, the tidbit about opinions of newscasters to "let you know" how you should think about a subject. Just in case you are too ignorant to form your own opinion. I've known some "news" people. Their intelligence is little more than a pet rock. The media is a joke and this guy is just the beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: Polemic Insiders Account of Liberal Bias
Review: Bernard Goldberg's book is well written, with an albiet polemic style that exposes the liberal bias in the broadcast news centers such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. In this paperback version, Goldberg adds a new introduction discussing some of the aftermath after the books's release. He takes great pains to be accurate in proving the liberal media bias by citing statistics by independent reserach groups. Except on a few accounts, he cites names to build his case and gives many anedotal stories to demonstrate the bias for a liberal worldview and what happens to one who opposes the newsanchor TV stars like Dan Rather. His refering to Rather as The Dan (like the mafia The Don) is a little over the top and may have been a little cute if done once or twice, but Goldberg does it to often and this and a couple of other stylistics choices make this book a four star read instead of a five star read. This book is refreshing in that it is honest, factual, and it is done by someone who is hardly a conservative, which shows some people are willing to engage in the dialogue regardless of idealogies. Goldberg's chapters on "Identity Politics" and "Epidemic of Fear" are especially important and well written.
Rating: 
Summary: Confirms what we have suspected all along.
Review: Although the charge of the media being "biased" is not a new one, still, this book is shocking. If the issue were simply "liberals vs. conservatives" this book may not have been all that necessary. But what Mr. Goldberg keenly points out, the story within the story if you will, is how de facto censorship is practiced by the mainstream/elite press. Among other egregious examples are: (1) News magazine shows kill stories that portray minorities in a bad light. (2) News magazine shows seek out whites because whites make up the majority of the audience, hence, "its all about ratings. (3)Reporters are notorious for asking "softball" questions to those with whom they share the same (leftist) political ideology. (4) The label "conservative," "conservative-extremist," and/or "right-wing conservative," are always used in conjunction with someone whose views are right-of-center. A Lexis-Nexus search reveals that similiar labels for "liberals" are virtually never used. Contrary to what some reviewers have opined, I don't think Mr. Goldberg is at all guilty of "sour grapes" or "disloyalty" to his former boss, "The Dan" Rather. Goldberg simply tells it like it is, and, unfortunately for "The Dan" the picture that is portrayed is of an anchorman who is venal, petty, thin-skinned, and a lot like the old Ted Baxter character on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, i.e. he has a massive, to-a-fault, ego. I say "BRAVO" to Mr. Goldberg for having the guts to tell it like it is. For the sake of sane, honest, and rational debate in the public forum of ideas something like this needed to be done. For too long the "Dans, Toms, and Peters" hegemony has gone unchallenged, and their contempt for anything and anyone outside the "New York-Washington Axis" has been ignored. Bias is a great read. Truly, the emperors at the networks have no clothes.
Rating:
Summary: Good.
Review: Good book. Worth reading, if you're interested in insights (and insides) on how the press edits your thought.
Rating:
Summary: Mindblowing
Review: A must read for anyone who wants to know why our American newsmedia is dominated with left wing bias. I was shocked to learn that the major news groups such as NBC, CBS, ABC all distort statistics and figures to further the left's agenda. This book isn't written by a right wing radical, its written by one of the left's own. One thing is for certain, you will never look at the evening news the same.
Rating:
Summary: "So true it's hardly worth discussing anymore..."
Review:
Bernard Goldberg has written a good, truthful book from the standpoint of an insider--a well-known insider to all of us, with nearly 30 years in front of the camera--telling us, as he says himself, that the TV network news has a "liberal bias [that] is so blatantly true that it's hardly worth discussing anymore."
So, why is he discussing it? Well, for one thing he wrote a 'whistle-blower' Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal back in 1996 admitting to that well-known bias, that cost him his job at CBS News and that incurred the undying hatred of Dan Rather, of whose own bias, Goldberg says, Rather is not even aware. The obvious bias of the media elite, and the reason behind it, is a subject that I have wondered about in my own book, "Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance." Why are the vast majority of the elite media icons so liberal? Is it because it is the political disease of all urbanites, or because of their liberal professors in the journalism schools? Goldberg has perhaps hit the nail on the head. He thinks it is because everyone with whom they associate think alike, and they are not even aware of their bias, but think that they are simply "middle of the road," because they simply do not meet any other view in their circle of friends and acquaintances, and because they see everyone who is conservative as "right-wing nuts," a term that includes everyone who does not agree with their leftist world-view. Goldberg gives an example of such provincialism--he quotes New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who in 1972 couldn't figure how Richard Nixon had won the presidency. "I can't believe it!" she said. "I don't know a single person who voted for him!" Nixon carried forty-nine of the fifty states to McGovern's one. Goldberg's point, and I think it is accurate, is that--as New Yorker's tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe, and everyplace else as 'flyover country,' and as John Podhoretz has said, they "can easily go through life never meeting anybody who has a thought different from their own," so it is with The Mighty Journalism Elite. There is no plot, no conscious conspiracy, they simply think alike. As several polls have shown, 98-percent of them consistently vote for the most liberal candidate in every election. They are even more liberal than their constituency. His point is well taken. All this from a man who, as Goldberg says of himself, "I have never voted for a Republican candidate for president in my entire life!" As for Goldberg's book, BIAS, if it has a flaw it is probably that it is, perhaps understandably, too polemical. He paints an ugly picture of Rather, not only as a biased liberal, but also as an intolerant, mean-spirited, arrogant bully whom even the network executives fear. His treatment of Connie Chung (because she got more air-time than Rather during the Oklahoma City bombing incident, during which time he was on vacation) was indefensible if accurately portrayed, and caused her to be fired--all due to his jealous egotism. So, much of this book--particularly the first part--comes off as primarily a personal defense and an apparent attempt to justify what many of his co-workers characterize as disloyalty. But, as the book develops, and he expands on his thesis--that the elite media is biased toward the liberal view, on the social and cultural issues as well as politically, the case he builds is pretty much inarguable. But then, it has been so obvious that, as Bernie Goldberg says, "it's hardly worth discussing anymore." Joseph (Joe) Pierre
author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
Rating:
Summary: Good read--balances many 'liberal' books.
Review: I agree with most of what Goldberg says, although some things are anecdotal or purposefully 'uncited' to protect people (I assume he means to protect those still working for CBS who want to speak but are afraid of repercussions, which is quite silly in the face of what he wants this book to do). It's a quick read, and an enjoyable balance to 'liberal' expose's like last years Blinded By The Right, even though that dealt with politics and Bias deals with news media.
I didn't like the constant use of exclamation points and italics throughout the book. It felt like Goldberg was shouting too much, and that makes things suspicious when one does that. I also kept wondering why this book focused so much on Dan Rather. Goldberg wholly admits that "The Dan" had him fired for speaking out, but it's petty to slam "The Dan" out of sour grapes.
Also, the constant attempt to 'label' everyone either liberal or conservative gets a little old. I'm sure there are quite a number of one-dimensional people in the news media who can be labeled as such, but I'm not sold that it's a majority and there's some pervasive clear-cut agenda by them.
Nonetheless, the 'liberal' slant to the newsmedia is obvious to anyone with a tv and it's interesting to see that someone from the 'inside', a journalist, is not allowed to report facts of industry self-investigation.
Rating:
Summary: Insider's view of CBS News
Review: Bias starts with a single incident. Bernard Goldberg is told by a friend that a report done on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather was a hatchet job. When he looks into the report, he finds that yes, the story was deliberately slanted against Steve Forbes' flat tax plan, which the reporter referred to as "wacky." The reporter dissected the idea behind the plan with the help of three economic experts, all of whom agreed it was a terrible idea. The experts weren't identified as liberals, and no mention was made of the fact that some economists (Milton Friedman for one) think the flat tax is a good idea, and workable. When Goldberg brought this up with people at CBS News, he was given the cold shoulder, so he wrote an editorial, and to compound his sin, published it on the Wall Street Journal's notoriously conservative editorial page. So far so good.
The abovementioned incident, and the firestorm the editorial created at his job, take up the first third of this book. We learn much about the author's dispute with Dan Rather, all of it gossip column style, with amusing anecdotes and quotes. Goldberg seems rather puzzled by the animosity that accompanies such arrogance and unrestricted power in one such as Dan Rather, as if he hasn't heard the old absolute-power-corrupts-absolutely quote. In spite of this, it is entertaining to read, if a bit of a tempest in a teapot. The author then goes ahead and tells us what he saw in 28 years of media coverage of events, with emphasis on bias. Unfortunately, the answer is not that much, at least not that he can say. He does say he had to leave out several incidents because people could get fired if he were to repeat the occurrences or the things people said in response to them. He does have *some* substance, though. He recounts several incidents and telling instances of pervasive bias that are illuminating, if hardly news to a conservative. He's not the first person to note that homelessness was exaggerated to make Ronald Reagan look bad, and certainly not the first to wonder where all those homeless people went when Clinton was elected. He also has a series of quotes from people in the media (or at least on TV) saying nasty things about Conservatives, and wonders out loud whether anyone could say any of that about a Liberal and remain on the air. The book does have flaws, however. It has an insider's point of view, and perhaps takes too long making its point that Dan Rather is intolerant of criticism and dissent. The anecdote about Rather thinking that the New York Times editorial page is middle of the road is funny though. Goldberg says he didn't notice the bias in much of the time he was reporting, though, so the stories he tells give you the impression that this all happened recently. No mention, for instance, of the Checkers speech, and that era. There is a tendency in many of the other reviews here to pan the book if you're a liberal, and praise it if you're a conservative. I don't think there's a single reviewer who identified him/herself as a liberal who had anything good to say about the book. To my mind, this means if you pick this book up, you've probably already made your mind up. That's a shame.
Rating:
Summary: Critical Thinking and Logic needs to be required for ALL!!!
Review: While this book, in part, may be true the bias is not always from those in the media themselves - especially rescently! Our media lately has fallen to not following up with questions we want answers to, has taken the government feed and spews whatever they want us to hear... Sound familiar? (If you ever studied histiry or lived in Nazi Germany, it should!) I recall when reporters were reporters and they asked questions, and would not let up until they got answers... when this was their job! As of late, however, the media has fallen to laziness, and not only flipped sides from leaning towards the left, now the right, but has been since the late 1990's read the wire feed, and regurgitate it... Reporters USED TO look at what it was those around the world were saying and doing and they would go there. IF a president didn;t answer a question, they got the answer, and would force a president to answer, even if by forcung it out by pressure from the press. Our reporters have become lazy, do not follow up, thus we are fed whatever the government and others in control and with enough money want us to think (unless we are wise enough to know better) Sure, there has always been bias in the news, but this has been both ways... In the 1970's, reporters did not let up on WaterGate! They reported and showed the war in Viet Nam (something that was totalyl missing in the Gulf War, along with the fact that many, many people came back very ill from that war, apparently from our own bioweapons, and yet it took a movie (that BTW was not very well publicized) called, "Thanks for a Grateful Nation" to get this fact out past C-SPAN viewers (sure it was on the news, but by and large was swept under the rug, and here we go again??? How many of our kids are going to get hurt or die from our own bioweapons this time???) Both those on the left and right need to wake up and see what is really going on! I have never seen so much propaganda in my life taken for so-called "truth" han with the Bush administration... Remember his ratings before and after 9/11??? Remember his dad's war, in which our men and women came home sick, but then they were denied treatment, told they were crazy, etc. even when many of them died? Come on America!!! WAKE UP!!! Critical Thinking and Logic classes (as well as perhaps comarative religion) need to be required of all reporters, and all Americans, least we be an integral part of another Hiltner-like regime. (Hitler - Europe, the Bush family - the Middle East & war contract companies, in the mean time destroying America & our freedoms - remember Politically Incorrect??? It was taken off the air because of a comment about cowardice in dropping bombs on baby formula factories... What ever happened to the 1st Ammendment? or are ALL our reporters afraid to tell the truth about anything anymore???) God help us if they are, and we don't do anything about it! Bias? Sure there is bias! There was in the McCarthy Era, through Water-Gate, Iran Contra, Panty-Gate and there has been from the Gulf War, and now more than ever! (and smoke screens like going after Martha Stewart - boy that was convenient huh? Made a nice distraction, not to mention aboput destroyed her life, but as long as it made Enron and such not look as bad, now who cares??? Well, I do!)
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