Rating: Summary: Greed: How a former reporter makes money after being fired. Review: If you are even mildly intrigued by the title, you already know more than Mr. Goldberg has to say. If by a chance you never heard about the problem, read any conservative columnist ( I would suggest jewishworldreview.com).The book is mostly about getting even with the former boss. Why does the author think that somebody has to pay to learn about this is beyond me. Whatever space is left after whining , is devoted to anecdotal evidence, lacks serious analysis and is surprisingly biased. Mr. Goldberg is a misogynist and doesn't try to conceal this fact. To summarize, we have here a self-obssessed and biased member of the media complaining about self-obssessed and biased media.The old dog can't unlearn the (old) tricks. Don't forget he excelled in the profession he has such a low opinion about. I'm tempted to ask : Ben, how did you survive all those long 25 years? If you're still curious , save a tree - pay a visit to your local library.
Rating: Summary: CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK Review: Ever since Walter Cronkite dared to express genuine outrage on the air against Chicago mayor Daley's police riot at the 1968 Democratic convention, which included physical assaults on CBS reporters, CBS has become the favorite whipping boy of those who were overjoyed at the event, those who did not share his equally emotional sorrow during the asassination of JFK. The coup de gras in the minds that created the myth of a liberal press came with Watergate when the danger became readily apparant to those who depended on the ignorance of the public to achieve their goals. The motivations of Spiro Agnew and Nixon's staff who attacked the bias of the press so prominently was a well-learned lesson, and when the Republican Party returned to power under Reagan the likes of Rush Limbaugh entrenched themselves in the media. This book is only another effort in that new Orwellian tradition. The assault on the minds of the American people has replaced the more physical approach of Daley's thugs in uniform.
Rating: Summary: honest and long overdue Review: An authoritative inside objective look at the bizarre world of the news media by an insider. Bernard Goldberg names names and authenticates what has become more and more obvious to the average person - the media shapes what it tells us through its own phony prism. A good read, neutral with no political agenda.
Rating: Summary: and is goldberg happy with foxnews? Review: In Bias Goldberg offers a fairly compelling rant about so-called liberal bias in the news. However, he's wrong about the media being a "liberal media". More and more liberals are being portrayed badly in the media while conservatives are often given a pass. For example look at how the media treated Gore during the whole Bush vs. Gore campaign. Gore was attacked in the press and on TV endlessly. Meanwhile, if anyone dared question Bush (who has a questionable record on almost every issue) the pundits would shout "oh here goes the liberal media again". Gore was portrayed as a liar, a loser, a know-it-all. After the Supreme Court handed the election over to Bush, there were more stories about Gore growing a beard than about Bush's latest and more serious blunders concerning the environment, the economy, and the Middle East. Is this what Goldberg wants? Does he want the Foxnews style of propaganda to dominate, just as long as it's conservative based? When was the last time Foxnews offered a look at the Bush administration--I mean seriously questioned these people. No, Foxnews is out to get--gasp--Jesse Jackson, who isn't even an elected official. Come on Bernard, wake up, watch the news, and see if this is good reporting or lies and propaganda. Look at how Bill Clinton was treated, the whole Monica Lewinsky affair. This affair really concerned only a handful of people: the Clintons, Monica Lewinsky. But the media turned it into a free for all circus. Meanwhile, when Bush and Cheney break laws or have relatives who break laws, the media doesn't want to report on it even though these violations affect us all. We have Ari Fleischer dictating what should and what shouldn't be news. It's disgusting. I will buy Goldberg's argument when I see conservatives treated with the same hostility and nastiness as liberals.
Rating: Summary: All The News That Fits Their Purpose Review: This readable and informative bestseller by a former CBS News reporter, Bernard Goldberg, illustrates the specific ways in which the leftist bias of the "elite" media poisons its reportage.. Granted, the elite media's leftist bias is hardly a novel proposition to anyone with an I.Q greater than his shoe size: We know from painful and prolonged exposure to the firm of Rather, Jennings & Brokaw that their leftist prejudices pervade the evening news. Yet, Goldberg's book is valuable for at least two reasons: First, it has the advantage of being the expose` of a once-trusted insider, who was privy to the conversations and decisions of those at the very top of an industry giant and chronic offender in the battles over public policy and public opinion. Moreover, Bias is replete with colorful anecdotes that demonstrate this leftward tilt, which will be useful to scholars and critics of the news media when examining the phenomenon: In this respect, these anecdotes complement a growing body of empirical evidence of news media bias by providing many, often amusing, real-life illustrations. AN ANOINTED ELITE To his credit, Goldberg is not a newcomer to the issue, and campaigned "in-house" for many years against media bias at considerable cost to himself, both personal and professional. As early as the 1990s, he pestered colleagues and higher-ups about fairness and balance in reporting, and to the eternal horror of superiors at CBS, in 1993 he even proposed treating it as a legitimate subject for journalistic inquiry! He shuns the label "conservative," however, and he's right: His views on many social issues are framed with the appropriate disclaimers, that he might never be accused of "racism," "sexism," or any of the other dreaded "isms" of the day. However, it's been said that a conservative is a liberal with teenage daughters, and Goldberg has one. Apparently, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back was a "CBS Evening News" piece during the 2000 presidential campaign which ridiculed Steve Forbes' proposal for a "flat" income tax. In an all-too familiar example of editorial masquerading as reportage, the Forbes' proposal was described as "wacky," and its opponents allowed to pile on mercilessly. Meanwhile, any interview with defenders of the flat tax was carefully avoided, although Milton Friedman and several other Nobel Laureates are among its supporters. Following heated complaints about it from a close friend and small contractor named Jerry Kelly, Goldberg reviewed a videotape of the editorial, and found it to be "breathtaking in its unfairness." Yet, when he confronted every CBS producer and editor with authority over its production, they reacted to his concerns with astonishment and incomprehension. This reaction of industry brass produced an epiphany of sorts, leading Goldberg to ask himself: "So how was Jerry Kelly able to see something that all the high-priced, big-shot network journalists couldn't see?" His answer is worth noting: News media elites can go nearly their entire lives without encountering anyone having an idea at odds with the prevailing liberal orthodoxy endemic to their profession. To wit: "That's one of the biggest problems with big-time journalism: It's elites are hopelessly out of touch with everyday Americans. Their friends are liberals, just as they are. They share the same values. Almost all of them think the same way on the big social issues of our time: Abortion, gun control, feminism, gay rights, the environment, school prayer. After a while, they start to believe that all civilized people think the same way they and their friends do. That's why they don't just disagree with conservatives. They see them as morally deficient." TECHNIQUES To encourage the great unwashed of this country to view the world from the same noble and enlightened perspective as they do, the elite media and their sycophants in smaller media outlets have devised a number of techniques for nudging us in the direction of acceptable political orthodoxy. To summarize some of the techniques described by Goldberg: * Whenever possible, label conservatives "right-wing," but avoid use of the label "left-wing" or even "liberal" to describe those of leftist persuasion. This suggests an imbalance in the political spectrum, which is "tipped" to the right due to the notable extremism of conservatives. * Permit no dissent from orthodoxy when covering certain core issues, such as A.I.D.S., homelessness, gun control, abortion, the death penalty, or civil rights, where enlightened people can't possibly disagree. When reporting on these issues, arrange interviews only with advocates who parrot the appropriate responses, and label as "controversial," any evidence or opinion to the contrary. * Whistle-blowers are a valuable asset when investigating corporate America or the Pentagon, but the news media as an industry must be exempt from this investigative technique. In particular, when the issue at hand is the objectivity and fairness of any news reportage, it is essential to adopt something akin to "Omerta," the Mafia's sacred code of silence. * "Connecting-the-dots," allows for the smearing of any conservative through the technique of guilt by association, no matter how tenuous the connection. It is almost impossible not to find a nexus between the object of one's efforts and, say, David Duke, Adolph Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan. * Ensure that feminists, homosexuals and blacks are hired as producers or placed in positions of editorial authority over any reportage involving their particular area of concern. Accuracy must be sacrificed to the loftier goal of avoiding any offense to minorities. Finally, this writer would have preferred to see some treatment by Goldberg of the universally fascinating question of why the journalistic profession has regressed into such a hotbed of subversive leftism since World War II, as distinct from the profession's efforts merely to maintain its liberal orthodoxy. For example, attributing to prospective journalists some vague, romanticized motive of wanting to "save the world" is less persuasive to this writer than a model which recognizes that the elite media have a vested interest in big government, since the Fourth Estate's prestige and influence grows as the size of government grows. In any event, Goldberg has taken dead aim at a worthy target, but his is not the first, nor will it be the last shot fired in what is certain to be a prolonged battle for reform of the news industry.
Rating: Summary: The title is accurate. The book is biased. Review: The book is heavily biased. I'm amazed that the author would put his name to such drivel, if it hadn't already been dragged through the mud, and apparently deservedly so if this book is any kind of example. Goldberg's thesis of liberal bias in the media is shown, BY HIS OWN ARGUMENTS, to be untrue, and in fact the reverse of his thesis. The media is clearly, in general, biased AGAINST liberals and liberal thought, and the author astonishingly provides examples of this. One can surmise from this book the real reasons behind Goldberg's sketchy past in journalism is an inability to make a compelling argument and support it with facts.
Rating: Summary: A simply written book with a powerful message. Review: This book is no masterpiece of literature, but I found the subject matter disturbing enough that I couldn't put it down. Although Goldberg is still carrying some emotional baggage, his points are well supported with detail. When I mentioned to a friend that I had read this book, she recommended I also read "The Thought Police" (can't remember the author name.) Another good eye-opener! Bottom line, we need to start listening to a greater variety of voices out there and stop letting main stream media tell us how we should think and feel.
Rating: Summary: Bias Misnomer Review: As a conservative, I thought I already knew enough about the media bias. Not so. Mr. Golberg's lucid thesis that media pundits are ignorant of their bias due to their belief that liberal thinking is "mainstream" and reasonable really opened my eyes. No wonder it is so often so difficult and/or impossible to debate with liberals: they start off with the premise that you are unreasonable if you do not agree with them. In that regard, a better title to Mr. Golberg book might have been "Ignorance and Arrogance: How the Media Sees the World"
Rating: Summary: Shadows of controversy. Review: Seeing the length of all the one star reviews on this site, you think that people could really juxtapose reasons for why that hate this book, other than the typical ad hominem attacks you see so much of in the media. Bernard Goldberg's Bias must have struck a chord with these people. Bernard Goldberg merely confirms what conservative people have claimed for years: that the media shifts to the left in reporting the critical issues of our day. He illustrates this with the fact that conservative Republicans are refered to as such, yet when someone like Tom Daschle comes into the scene, they fawn over him, saying "Tom Daschle of South Dakota." They do not bring the fact that he is a liberal Democrat into the picture, however. Eric Engberg of CBS also establishes bias when he came on with a scathing criticism of Steve Forbes' tax plan, interjecting his own comments of the plan being a "scheme" and an "elixir", as well as the fact that he went to a liberal institution to gather his facts, then presenting them as middle-of-the-road. The book also shows bias liberals themselves should be profoundly ashamed of supporting. The stories of journalists scrambling to exclude black people from stories can only be described as pathetic, and other observations that illustrate that the almighty dollar, and not the truth, drives this industry that is in a downward spiral in both revenue and public support (Fox News being the exception to this trend). All in all, this book illustrates the truth, and proves to be a wake-up call for the television news industry as well as a tool educating liberals and conservatives on the inside of the industry.
Rating: Summary: What a joke Review: If you really want the true picture of what happens in the journalist/media world, pick up Blinded By The Right, which has REAL sources and people used to get the point across. Let's have a look at some facts. 1) The media is entirely owned by corporations that are, and always have been, conservative by their VERY NATURE. How will the corporations benefit if their partners in crime (the conservative republicans and democrats) are slandered by the very media outlets that they own? That alone makes the notion of a liberal media ludicrous! 2) Fox News is the most blatantly conservative news network that has EVER existed. Convicted criminal Oliver North and "I was never a republican" O Reilly are some of the dirtbags who round out the lineup. They (like the Bias book) slam Rather's personal politics and somehow use it as proof of liberal bias in the media. WHERE are the documentable facts and evidence? 3) Radio media is COMPLETELY conservative. I don't even think the rightwing dunces in this country will object to that little fact. Name a liberal on talk radio for us! 4) The media relentlessly attacked and smeared Clinton during and after his presidency. Geraldo was one of less than five people in the entire network/cable media establishment that defended Clinton. They didn't cover Gingrich's reprehensible marital affairs (the SOB divorced his wife when she was on her deathbed). Did they ever cover the fact that Laura Bush killed a boyfriend with a motor vehicle? If you have any sense in your brain, I good laugh is to be had here. If you had your eyes in Clinton's pants for the past ten years, then you'll find a nice ego boost.
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