Rating: 
Summary: A NICE SOUR GRAPE BOOK
Review: I was, I admit, a bit disappointed in this book. When all is said and done, it is a "sour grapes, done me wrong" sort of book.
Goldberg had an opportunity to creat something quite good here, but was so hung up on taking cheap shot at Dan Rather, he missed his chance. On the other hand, I am not a big fan of Dan Rather, feeling that is is a rather arrogant, despicable sort of fellow, so I rather enjoyed the cheap shots Goldberg took. Perhaps this sort of work will hopefully shorten Rather's career and we can get someone who has a better grasp of reality in the U.S. today to digest, report and comment on our nightly news. All in all, worth the reading as it is quite entertaining, reads fast, and is certainly for fullfilling than listening to or watching the CBS, ABC and NBC Nightly News.
Rating: 
Summary: Important topic, but one that deserves better treatment
Review: I picked this book up in the local library, having heard several folks talking about it. The main thesis of the book -- that network news reflects the beliefs and worldview of those gathering and publishing it is self-evident. The resulting unconscious liberal slant to the majority of network news is likewise painfully visible to anyone with a critical eye of any political persuasion. Mr. Goldberg's book however, is not an exceptional treatment of the topic, and unfortunately comes across sounding less like the heroic "whistleblower revelation" than it does the watercooler "done me wrong" whining of the career office clerk. Less martyr talk about how the author was done wrong by "The Dan" and establishment media following his WSJ article, and deeper analysis of the history of the personalities and organizations described could have made a fair book into an exceptional one. Like those he criticised though, I fear Mr. Goldberg took the easy way out on this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Real Bipartisan Bias: Profit-induced Superficiality
Review: It's a big complex world out there and it is easy to find isolated facts to support most theses. Deprived of any real alternative mass media news, it is easy to convince many people of Goldberg's thesis of liberal bias. Here is a simple test. Read some real left and liberal news sources: Nation, In These Times, Covert Action Quarterly, The Progressive,etc. then check and see if that is what you are getting from the so-called liberal media. Ask not whether the news is slanted towards Republican or Democrat; both parties are corporate controlled and lie within an ever narrowing spectrum. The real question is who controls the media and what is its purpose. The same oil companies and high tech honchos who control the candidates and elected "leaders" control the media. There is much irony in George W. reading Bias and having that action prominently displayed in the mass media. Goldberg tells us that the liberals' "proof" that there is no liberal domination is the fact that we have elected so many Republican presidents and Goldberg's reply is that that just points out that people are able to rise above liberal efforts at persuasion and make their own common sense choices. Actually, what it proves is that the overriding ideological hegemony of conservative capitalism is able to prevail over the superficial liberalism that only some times pops into view on our screens. Goldberg offers us a useful term, "the liberals of convenience". That term is consistent with a deeper left wing critique of the media. Those media liberals practice a superficial liberalism that is more about the ocassionally annoying etiquette of political correctness and not about the ethics of a commitment to social justice. Goldberg also criticizes the media's desire to entertain and to do so cheaply and how this drives sensationalistic exposes that really have nothing to do with getting at the real problems in our society. Precisely, Mr. Goldberg, that has been the leftist critique all along. But Goldberg himself is nothing if not superficial, sensationalistic, and biased. He manages to convince me that Dan Rather is a jerk but takes up about 35 of the opening pages with a lot of repetition and sophomoric insults that add nothing to his analysis. He could have done this in about 4 pages. The book is so obsessed with his personal run in with Dan that it distorts the picture of what is going on in the media. He also cites examples of other liberal news people who are arrogant and rude as if there is not a problem of arrogance in representatives of other political persuasions. On p.166 he complains about the media not connecting the dots (elsewhere. p197, etc. he complains about their incesssant dot-connecting). In his example, Dan only manages to connect one dot: he blames women going to work and kids stuck at day care or simply unattended for the rise in teen suicides and poor test scores.He tells us this is a story the liberal media has not reported. First of all, it is not unreported and 2nd--why is Bernie only talking about moms? What about dads' obligations to the family (incidentally, few dad's can get paternity leave--so place some blame on corporations.) Why are more moms working?--Checked out the price of housing and college education lately, Bernie? Instead of blaming moms, look at the economic system. How about exploring other arrangements like 2 parents working 3 ten hour shifts, one day overlapping to minimize child care to one day. There are other dots to connect regarding teens and society in trouble: the decline of the community's sense of responsibility towards our kids, the rise of drugs. Yes we hear about this latter problem but not about U.S. government complicity in right wing narco-terrorism and drug smuggling into our country.(One exception, quickly discredited, was the series of articles in the San Jose Mercury that made a brief splash.)Read Cocaine Politics. Golberg has some good points to make about how the AIDS crisis was handled in the media but once again he borrows heavily from the liberals he is supposedly critiquing, specifically gay, liberal activist Randy Shilts. Goldberg's criticism of some feminists is also legit but they don't apply to many of the deeper leftist feminists like Barbara Ehrenreich or moderate conservatives like Christine Hoff Sommers (author of Who Stole Feminism). He tells us there was inadequate reporting of anti-semitic indoctrination in Middle Eastern Muslim schools--true enough but this has since been reported adequately. It is not proof of Goldberg's ridiculous contention that the media is not sufficiently pro-Israeli. The Palestinians are almost always depicted as the bad guy --the truth is far too complex for the superficiality of our media or of Bernie's rendition of the Truth. I suggest reading Joe Sacco's Palestine or liberal Jewish American periodical Tikkun for some real in-depth analysis. Read Bagdikian, Chomsky, etc. for what is wrong with the media in general. This book has a few good points but overall it is pretty lightweight. There is much more to criticize but space does not permit.
Rating:
Summary: Bias is great reading.
Review: Bias is well written and personal. Good reading. WE all know the bias in the media, this just affirms it, with proof.
Michele Rhoads
Anahheim, Ca.
Rating:
Summary: The media's own "deep throat" concerning biasgate
Review: Mr. Goldberg has only confirmed what many in America already knew which is that the news is biased to the Left. What is so different is that Goldberg was an insider in the media industry. It ought to be illuminating to all who claim that the media is balanced to see exactly what Mr. Goldberg went through after he caught so much flack for merely attacking a poor piece of journalism that deserved to be attacked. Keep up the good work, Mr. Goldberg.
Rating: 
Summary: as jim hightower would say
Review: "liberal media, my [rear]!" (from his on the mark "there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos") any book that believes that multinational, corporate, weapons-manufaturing, companies like GE have some sort of "liberal" agenda in their news coverage is completely asinine and not worth your time. if the news is so dominated by the left, than why is mr goldberg's book constantly promoted on all of the talk shows, while leftist media critics like noam chomsky (author of manufaturing consent) are pretty much banned from tv?
Rating:
Summary: Finally . . .Verification!
Review: Conservatives have been complaining for years about liberal media bias only to be ignored or told they're paranoid. Through the decades, the allegation remained the stuff of conservative mythology. But with the publication of "Bias" Bernard Goldberg became the first member of Big Media to step outside the fortress and admit the truth. He paid a price by being blacklisted at CBS. The book gained a great deal of attention not only because it was the first crack in the fictitious edifice of "objective reporting", but also because it was published during the time of Fox News' ascension to the number one spot in cable news. If there were no media bias, then why were people flocking to the new option and it's center-right orientation in contrast to everything that existed before it? Goldberg is at his best when he tells his own story of what happened when he published a Wall Street Journal column about media bias. We get insight into the inner workings of CBS news and how lonely Goldberg became when he ran afoul of "The Dan" aka Dan Rather. The second half of the book is more analytical with regard to the problem of media bias. The best part of the second half is Goldberg's chapter on the lack of reportage on family breakdown and its effects.
Rating:
Summary: Informative, entertaining read
Review: This book gave me a fresh insight on what I see on News Television every night. It outlines several liberal biases that would otherwise go unnoticed to the untrained eye of the average viewer. Although Goldberg cites that revenge didn't motivate this book, it is rather evident that it was a factor. I recommend this book highly, an eye opener
Rating: 
Summary: You Know It's True
Review: It's important to understand what Goldberg is not saying in this book. He is not saying that the media is dominated by a vast left-wing conspiracy. Rather, he is saying that members of the mainstream media believe that their own views are the political mainstream, unaware that most Americans swim somewhere off to their right. Because the mainstream media don't understand that they live in La-La-Leftieland, they present cultural and political issues as if their beliefs were middle of the road. Phyllis Schlafly is a "conservative," but NOW is just a "women's organization." This is not an attempt to trick anyone, Goldberg argues -- the media just don't realize how far out in left field they are. Goldberg makes his case in respect of a number of issues, illustrated with amusing and infuriating anecdotes drawn from his 28 years at CBS. Throughout, the discussion is woven into his account of his own awakening to this issue, his writing of op-eds on the subject, his falling from the good graces of Dan Rather et al., and his eventual drumming out of CBS. I'm sure that the bias exists. I'm not so sure that it's as innocent as Goldberg suggests -- it's hard to believe that clever, articulate, educated people can be so willfully blind. In any case, the book is illuminating as a cultural critique and entertaining as a narrative, well written and very readable.
Rating:
Summary: Balanced
Review: I've been looking for someone to finally present a balanced view on news reporting - this is it. Goldberg accurately states that biased, loaded reporting is damaging regardless of left or right slant. I seem to find that liberals are anything but liberal when it comes to anyone questioning their positions. Hold your liberal/conservative rhetoric and give this book a chance.
|
