Rating: 
Summary: BELIEVE IT OR NOT!
Review: How often have you watched a telecast and surmised that instead of hearing facts you're receiving the slanted perspective of the commentator? Bernard Goldberg has written a courageous perspective about the media. This book has not endeared him to some of his former high-ranking colleagues who he insists perpetually distort the truth. Others, applaud his candor. You may be startled by the names he mentions; Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, John Stossel are only a few.If you think you've been seeing junk journalism instead of straight forward news, then you'll find yourself agreeing with Mr Goldberg. "Bias" is well written and invites debate.
Rating: 
Summary: full of lies and distortion-- biased itself
Review: What Goldberg says is true, that the media are liberal, but he uses lies to "prove it." The book is just designed to cheat gullible conservatives out of their money. I'm sad to say that I am one of those cheated. I regret buying this "book."One of the biggest pieces of evidence that Goldberg offers to support his claim that the media are liberal is his dissection of a report by Eric Engberg on the CBS Evening News called "Reality Check." In the report Engberg ridiculed Steve Forbes' flat tax plan using words like "wacky," "elixir," and "scheme." Passing an editorial off as a news report is certainly a distortion and Goldberg points this out quite well. What he does next is prevalent throughout the book; he says this is an example of liberal bias and undermines his own argument by including other facts. Goldberg points out that not only liberals were against the flat tax at the time; some conservatives were too. He mentions that Pat Buchanan and Lamar Alexander were against the plan and that Alexander even called it "nutty." Perhaps nutty is a conservative word and wacky is a liberal one. Goldberg does not attempt to explain the difference. Goldberg's labeling of Engberg's distorted news report as liberal is directly contradicted by information that he provides. He leaves quite open the possibility that Engberg might have favored Buchanan or Alexander, who were running against Forbes. We have to take Goldberg's word that Engberg is a liberal. In the book we have to take Goldberg's word for a lot of things. But it's what Goldberg does not say that makes his argument even more invalid and untruthful. Get the transcript of the "reality check" and see for yourself. Newt Gingrich, a WELL KNOWN LIBERAL, calls Forbes' flat tax "nonsense" and says that it is only getting attention because of "the sheer weight of advertising." The next LIBERAL in Engberg's report to repudiate Forbes' tax plan is Donald Alexander, a Washington lawyer who was tax commissioner in RICHARD NIXON'S administration. Another so called liberal featured in the report was William G. Gale who was a member President's Council of Economic Advisers (1991-92), meaning that he worked for that very liberal president George HW Bush. And this is Goldberg's exhibit A, his main evidence. Don't expect to find many citations in the book. Most of Goldberg's evidence is hearsay that he cannot prove one way or the other. He quotes an executive at CBS News as saying that of course the media tilt left. Goldberg notes that the executive, Andrew Heyward, tells him that he'll deny that he said such a thing if Goldberg goes public. Even if he had the means to prove this anecdotal evidence it would still be a far cry from showing concretely that the media are left leaning. One person's opinion does not make something so. And anyway, how many corporate execs complain about the liberal media? Quite a few. As further proof that the media are liberal, the bitter Goldberg gives us some ad hominem arguments relating to Dan Rather. While Rather may indeed be an odious man, Goldberg fails to show that the CBS anchor is a liberal. The former correspondent uses the same type of specious reasoning to call other media elites hypocrites. In Goldberg's view they are hypocrites because they don't follow their liberal ways in trying to make profits. What he seems to forget is that they never claimed to be liberal. There were some good moments, however. Goldberg points out how Peter Jennings covered the Clinton impeachment. The ABC News anchor named all the senators that appeared on camera. Whenever a Republican was shown, Jennings told the viewers the senator's name and also labeled him or her a conservative. Whenever a Democrat appeared, Jennings only named the senator without mentioning the word liberal. Goldberg gives some more examples of individual journalists' bias. He tells us about Susan Zirinsky, a CBS News producer who covered Supreme Court decisions relating to women's issues. When asked if she ever went to a conservative women's group for a reaction regarding the court's decision, Zirinsky could not think of one time. Overall, this book is not worth buying because it "proves" to you what you already know but unfortunately uses lies to do it. Before you buy the book think about what Nietzsche said: "We criticize a thinker more sharply when he proposes a tenet that is disagreeable to us; and yet it would be more reasonable to do this when we find his tenet agreeable."
Rating:
Summary: Have a little whine with that book?
Review: For someone who worked for the same company for 25 years, and is obviously an intelligent guy, I fail to understand how Bernard Goldberg thought by writing an evidently nasty op-ed piece for the WSJ, naming names and pointing fingers, he was not committing professional suicide within CBS. This book is one chapter after another of his trying to blame other people for the aftermath and career crash that he suffered after he made this midguided attempt to "bring the issue of bias in the media" into the light of day and create some good-natured discussion of this important topic. Most of us know you don't "burn bridges" when you leave the employment of a company and you sure don't write nasty columns about your employers when you still work there!
I believe in bias in the media. I know it's there and some of his examples do put it right into a nutshell. And it should be brought out and its impact on our American culture needs to be explored, but this is not about that. I had hoped, when I bought this, that it would provide some real basis for discussion and thought about the topic and some insight into the effects of media bias on our lives. Instead you get maybe two chapters that fail to mention, in some extremely snide and almost juvenile ways, how everyone was mean to him after he wrote this nasty WSJ piece. The rest is non-stop whine. I am hoping to find a book on the media's impact on culture somewhere out there, but this sure wasn't it. This is at about the level of a Hollywood (0nly this is NY and DC) expose' and that's it. Very disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Revelation to the Blind
Review: I once was blind, but now I see. I always knew there was a liberal slant to the reporting, but I didn't really care. I believed what I believed anyway. Where else can I get the television news? Since reading the book, the BIG Three bias is blatant. I now refuse to watch the "Big Three", including the left wing shows, and have moved to Fox News so I can hear BOTH sides of the story. This book has also rekindled my interest in reading. Thanks Bernie.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Expose on How the News is Reported
Review: I finally bought a copy of Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias," after waiting weeks for my local bookstore to receive more copies of the book, since they could not keep it on the shelf. I equate what's happening to Goldberg by exposing the network news' tactics of taking news stories and slanting them to fit the agenda they want to put forth to the American consumer to Gary Aldridge, the White House FBI agent, who had the courage to write his book "Unlimited Access," and then was called a liar by White House spin doctors and he was maligned by the news networks; particularly, ABC. There is now evidence to support how Clinton's White House worked and how many rules were broken. It took courage and conviction by Goldberg to come up against those who not only held his paycheck and pension in their hands, but had the where-with-all (media power) to smear his reputation and life's work. I think Goldberg has been careful in his book to report the facts and to report on news stories about which he had personal knowledge. I think he also felt compelled to ensure the reader knew who he was personally and what his beliefs were to head-off any labels he was sure to receive once the book hit the bookstores. And, of course, he has already been tagged with many making him out to be a liar, a conversative, and worse, a Republican. I think the success of the book is the best indicator on where the American consumer is on network news--they don't believe most of what they see. Out in the real world, just about everybody can see how the news is reported by reflections in commentator's voice, how names of people are spoken in such a way so the viewer can see "this person we like" and most certainly "this person we don't like." I really don't know anybody who actually believes 100 percent of what they see on network news. Americans are becoming better educated on the media, politics and the world as a whole, and they are not so easily duped into believing what comes out of the mouths of the "talking heads" on TV who sound like they actually do believe what they're saying. Thank God, for people like Goldberg who had the courage to say it like it is, and not gloss it over.
Rating:
Summary: I'll Play The Game
Review: Since the reviewer dated February 27, 2002, with the title "Haven't read it, still feel compelled to critique it," can get his review posted, I'll submit my review. Now, I have read the book, and its not #1 on the national bestsellers list for over a month for no reason, but I'll pretend I haven't read it. If the other so-called reviewer wants to call me and other reviewers names who have actually read the book and have an informed opinion of it, he needs to spell them correctly. He calls us "no-nothing reviewers." The correct spelling for that phrase is know-nothing reviewers, which means you know nothing. A "no-nothing reviewer," means no as in "no you can't do that."
So who is uneducated, and a know-nothing reviewer, huh?
Rating:
Summary: "Accurate" doesn't describe this book
Review: Anyone who claims that this book is accurate, hasn't seen the numerous deconstructions of Goldberg's sloppy "fact-checking," and unsupported claims. For example, he claims that the alleged unwillingness of CBS news producers to feature minorities in their stories was evidence of "liberal bias." And that you could never get Edward R. Murrow's gripping documentary about migrant farm workers on the air today. Yes. You heard right. A scathing expose about the exploitation of immigrant workers couldn't be aired today for fear of alienating sponsors and viewers, and this is an example of LIBERAL bias. Huh? What was Bernard smoking when he wrote that? Or how about his complaint that Peter Jennings showed "liberal bias" when he introduced certain US Senators as Conservatives during the Clinton impeachment vote. The problem is...when you look at the context, there was a supposed split between moderate and conservative Republicans on some procedural votes, and Jennings ONLY indentifies a few of the entire Senate as Conservatives. My favorite one is where Goldberg cites a 25-year-old study to show that journalists TODAY are "liberals." This book is full of shoddy claims. Most of it us unprovable. And a lot of it is just office politics writ large. The Dummies who are buying boxes of this door stop, and stacking them in their basement to make the sales figures look good, are putting money on the pocket of one of the laziest journalists around.
Rating:
Summary: No insight- Just clarification.
Review: If you are looking for a book to blow the lid off of the media's left-wing bias, this isn't it. What this book will do is confirm your suspicions. Mr. Goldberg uses the big stories of the '80s and '90s to illustrate his opinion. Once you get past the first couple of chapters (where he tries to justify himself to the world)this book does put you inside the thought processes of the media moguls making decisions on what YOU get to see. But fear not for they are watching the sales of this book and the ratings of the Fox News Channel. Help is on the way.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but vital
Review: Mr. Goldberg can't decide if he wishes to give us a personal memoir, another chapter in the Byzantine politics of CBS News, a political tract, or a study of journalism. While he has a lot to say, his structure is lacking. He would have done better to have given us a linear narrative and allowed that to organize his thoughts. I read his original essay on the day it came out in 1996 and I re-read it in the appendix before starting. As I read, I realized that outside of some titillating inside gossip he had nothing newer to say. Sadly, the big three news shows haven't had an original thought for much, much longer and have yet to make any corrective moves in their product. Not that I spend much time watching them anymore. Living, as I do, in Bush's "Red America" the liberal media's distorted view of itself as mainstream is old news. As for Mr. Goldberg, he seems to be on a voyage of discovery as he looks at many liberal shibboleth's and finds them wanting. At what point will he become a "conservative commentator"? I read his book straight through and enjoyed it. I've always been a sucker for insider books out of CBS News. With all the flaws, he does have a point to make and those who have not read it should avail themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Good Material with a lot of "repeat"
Review: I found this book to be very enjoyable to read. Not that many people I have spoken with doubt the liberal slant of the news media, but it was interesting to hear an insider story. It makes you look at some of the big faces on TV a bit differently. The one flaw was that much of the material seemed to repeat from chapter to chapter without making alot of progress. Still, with all of that I found the book to be informational, insightful, and overall fun to read.
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