Rating: 
Summary: A Terrible Disappointment
Review: Goldberg speaks nothing of the overwhelmingly massive right-wing slant in the media today, the fact that all journalists are just all too satisfied with gobbling up the GOP party line (no matter how unintelligible), and that massive corporations with big investments own the corporate media conglomerate which results in a crippling filter on the dissemination of real information. Sorry, but I would recommend David MacNally's "Bodies Of Meaning" over this superficial fluff anyday.
Rating:
Summary: MORE RUSH
Review: Sadly not much to report here. Another right wing extremist that can't beleive everyone doesn't share his views and so everyone must be "deceived" by some "secret left-wing plot". Personal attacks on people who don't share his opinions. Of course you only have his word for it.
Don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Liberals should be outraged
Review: When I read BIAS two things jumped out at me, one minor and one major. The minor thing was the book seemed very short. I expected a lot more material in here. It seemed to be over too quickly, and a lot of it was focused on his own personal situation. Mind you he approached it well, (the note from Rooney was classic) but I was left feeling there was a chapter or two missing. There was meat here but like an expensive resturant, you paid full price but left hungry. The thing that really got my juices flowing was the expose of the "lilly white" news. Our liberal friends have been so busy attacking this book because of the Bias arguement that they have missed the scandal that is in print for the first time that i've seen. The deleberate exclusion of and or editing of stories and the people due to race in just plain wrong. That it is going on at the networks among "liberals" who loudly proclaim support for civil rights is an insult to black, brown and yellow America, and frankly to white America too. Ethnic groups aren't children who need to be led and viewers are not so shallow as to not see people as people and not as something else. To directly quote an article by critic Roger Ebert: "(I quoted Chris Eyre, the Native American filmmaker, who was on a panel with me that afternoon. "For 100 years," he said, "American Indians have played the same roles in movies. Either savages or spiritual peoples who exist on some mystical plane. It is time to let us just simply be people.")" This is the real scandal exposed by the book. Lets face it the notion that the media is biased is like the notion that water is wet. It is this information about RACIAL PROFILING (there is no other way to honestly describe it) in the book that is most significant and is being lost in the debate. Liberals should be outraged by this book because it reveals overt racism being practiced in their name!
Rating:
Summary: Cobblers
Review: "The code of silence that pervades the news business" yea right, everyone in the media thinks they have a bestseller as long as they can find a decent hook. That's why juornalistic ethics gets thrown out of the window in potboilers like this.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Observations, But He Missed the Point
Review: First, I have to say I totally agree with this book. The author's examples of bias, and many others I have seen, are most definitely true. However, I believe the author missed the larger point. You see, I am a far left liberal and I agree that there is a bias in the media, but I think it is a CONSERVATIVE bias. The author's point, and I believe it is well taken, is that there is a strong bias in the media that excludes those who don't fit in its world view. The limitation of the book's thesis is its OWN political bias. Go back one step further, and we can see the larger pattern. I really don't care that conservatives feel left out of the mainstream discourse. It does not inspire outrage in me. I DO care that the homogenized mainstream discourse is so narrowly constructed as to exclude many more than it includes. This is NOT a liberal bias. By its aversion to change and attraction to the status quo (the traditional definition of conservative, as opposed to someone with right-wing politics, who could be libertarian or highly change-oriented), the media bias is distinctly CONSERVATIVE, or rather, PRO-CORPORATE-JOURNALISM MONOPOLY. What, in another time and another place, would have been called "Pravda." This book is the strongest when it shows exclusions and biases from all over the spectrum, or rather, when it stops whining and does real analysis of what is included and excluded. Why are certain questions that are too unsettling never asked in the media? What does corporate journalism have to gain by portraying itself as progressive and thoughtful while so carefully pitching to upper middle class whites with money that it never really can actually BE progressive and thoughtful?! Appearance and reality. Why is it so important to the media to APPEAR liberal (and I don't argue with that point), when the smoke screen shows thru to more marketing than journalism? The real question I guess we all should be asking is: "Why doesn't thought-provoking, unsettling, disturbing journalism PAY in a capitalistic context where marketing is king?" Corporate journalism rightly assumes that people are more contented consumers when they are NOT disturbed, and since sales are the motive, the quest for truth is sacrificed on the altar of bland, progressive-seeming bias leading to greater sales in coveted demographics.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting; Readable in 1-2 days; Nothing new, but...
Review: Bias is Bernard Goldberg's shot at the mainstream media machine that chewed him up and spit him out after he came forward in a Wall Street Journal editorial and wrote what many already take for granted. What he wrote, that the mainstream news media is overwhelmingly liberal, is no new accusation, but what is unique is that Goldberg himself is a self-described liberal who worked 30 years in the heart of the CBS news department. This book is interesting mainly for the story of how ruthless his friends at CBS were after he criticized their organization following one exceedingly vicious attack piece CBS news (supposedly just reporting the "news", remember) did in a nightly news feature on Steve Forbes and his presidential campaign of 1996. Even if Goldberg could be easily dismissed (which he cannot be) as having had some grudge as motivation for writing the editorial, the overreaction by his workmates and superiors at CBS would be simply comical, were it not so pathetic. Read the book, if only for this funny, yet sad, story. After recounting the string of events that led to his willingness to write this book, Goldberg, who meets all the criterion for a self-labeled liberal (pro-choice, anti death penalty, pro tax, never voted for even one GOP presidential candidate), goes on to give some examples of where the media empire is liberal to a point now beyond its own control. Breaking the book into chapters for each topic, Goldberg gives examples he believes prove the media's leftward slant on issues such as homelessness, AIDS, terrorism, and crime. If you believe there is a liberal bias in the mainstream news organizations, then you will simply love reading this book and it will give you lots of numbers, stories, and quotes for your argument. If you believe the major, broadcast networks are generally unbiased, or even have a conservative bias (although I've never really heard an argument for this contention), then this book will probably anger you, but read objectively it will give you a good summary of what your political opponents are alleging. Read the book, and it'll help you counter the arguments made by the man who will now be used frequently as the conservatives' greatest weapon.
Rating:
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: Goldberg has written an entertaining story with a political twist, so much is sure. Reading it was a breeze and, quite frankly, fun. As for the more serious aspects of the book or the significance of its statements - I am not sure one can unequivocally recommend or dismiss it. While I would consider msyelf more on the liberal end of the spectrum than Goldberg, I must admit that the points he makes in respect to the bias in news reporting or journalism altogether are worthwhile. He exemplifies his stance in a handful of chapters that each address one spin or another that have given me reason to think. While I can agree with most of his illustrations, I find his depiction of the media in the wake of 9/11 quite inaccurate, in effect I would contend the opposite of what he says. Unfortunately he only attends to what he calls 'liberal' (I would prefer the term 'politically correct') bias in the media. I am sure it would not have been hard to produce a couple of cases which would have demonstrated the very same (though on a different station and a different guise) for the more conservative (or should I say 'right-wing') news-making instead of news-reporting. Instead he chooses to grind an axe with his former employer only. Notwithstanding that he has something to say but that is it then. Besides that there are plenty of rants about this and that and in particular his bitterness about CNBC's response to the words he used in a piece in the Washington Post that he knew would dig his own career's grave. It is this piece which apparently set his decline in motion. While he spends the better part of a chapter insisting the book is not about a personal beef with Dan Rather - nice try - it becomes quickly clear that much of it is really just that. After he has referred to Rather as 'The Dan' for the umpteenth time I got the drift. Still, the book has something to say but more so it has a story about how he managed to get himself outed saying the wrong things about the wrong people. Well, this is tough luck, Bernard. I would venture to say that the very same would have happened to you on the Fox networks would the roles have been reversed. If you are looking for some light reading and mild inspiration - this is it. If you are looking for an in-depth analysis of the media get Noam Chomsky's 'Necessary Illusions' or some of the reports both authors cite in their books. Although I doubt Chomsky and Goldberg would agree on much of anything, both have something to say. This is not to imply that Goldberg can even begin to touch the analytical depth of other political authors, but then - it's only entertainment and I am sure the book's sales will pay for the mortgage now that he is out of a job. Especially in the current political climate.
Rating: 
Summary: a must read for news-hounds
Review: I just finished the book Bias by Bernard Goldberg its an easy read, pretty short its general premise of left Bias in the news media is really not a revelation for anyone who paid attention to the news the last 20 years. But it is a definitely a worthwhile read; although it confirms what most of us knew about that Bias in the news media; it also brings up some IMPORTANT things many of us did not about AIDS, HOMELESS, RACE and Women's issues and the way the news media handled and handle these important issues. Goldberg documents just how the news is slanted and why. Its a must read for news-hounds like myself.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed, but wish he'd discussed "silence bias" more ...
Review: This is a potentially very important book not because of any shocking revelations, but because of the resume of the person doing the revealing. I say "potentially very important" because only time will tell if the wide-spread publicity and best-seller status of this book will, in fact, influence the way reporters do their jobs. One of my favorite points/anecdotes made/revealed by Goldberg: The fact that CBS would not do a special news-magazine segment on this very issue - i.e. "Is the media biased?" Goldberg suggested such a piece but the idea was nixed when he was told he couldn't ask Rather any tough questions. Goldberg said the "heck with that." Would these "soft ball" rules apply on a piece dealing with any other topic or subject, he asked. Of course not. Personally, I still don't understand why some network won't do a one-hour special on this topic. Judging from the book's sales (and countless other measures) there is obviously extreme interest in the topic, and as Goldberg points out the question is of supreme importance - after all, it's the media that tells (or tries to tell) the rest of the country how we should view the world. As gatekeepers of "what's news" and "what's important" the media have far more influence and power than any politician. After all, what do politicians respond to? Public opinion. Who shapes public opinion? The mainstream media by deciding what to report and how to report it. (For an excellent treatment of this underappreciated point, and its scary consequences, see Robert Samuelson's "Untruth.") One disappointment, albeit minor: Goldberg did not discuss in detail the most important and distrubing way the media "slants" the news - by simply not reporting events/interpretations that run counter to their liberal world view. Goldberg does make this point - for example, by showing that too many journalists only talk to "experts" who presumably reinforce the reporter's own politically-correct views (for example, the three economists and the correspondent himself who smugly ridiculed Steve Forbes' flat-tax plan, the report that made Goldberg mad as hell and emboldened him to not take it anymore!) However, Goldberg could have cited pages of examples of credible and important stories that are ignored by journalists, and then showed how such selective reporting shapes conventional wisdom ("the-sky-is-falling" stories on the environment stand out here). The ONLY Network TV reporter who routinely produces stories that run 180 degrees counter to the PC Left - which CHALLENGE in convincing fashion many leftist viewpoints - is ABC's John Stossell, the Charles Lindbergh or Alvin York of TV journalism. Of course, Stossell's voice is a solitary one - which in itself makes Golderberg's point. I can't wait for Stossell to write a book and am grateful that Bernard Goldberg wrote "Bias."
Rating:
Summary: An important book
Review: This is an important book, not because it's the first to expose the political biases inherent in today's mainstream news media, but because of the credibility of the author, a veteran reporter with CBS News. He's not an outsider with an axe to grind, but a man whose entire career has been in the news business, a man who knows the people, the motives, and the attitudes that drive network news. Unlike some critics from the Right, he's not naive (or angry) enough to think that reporters and network execs wake up every day plotting how to impose their left wing politics on the country while doing everything in their power to thwart the agendas of Republicans and right wing activists. As he explains it, the reasons behind media bias are much more subtle. For example, most people in the news media simply are not aware of any "bias" at all. If they happen to be prochoice on abortion, favor gun control, affirmative action (provided, of course, it doesn't affect them or keep their kids out of a top Ivy League college) and overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, that's only because they live in an environment where EVERYONE feels the same way. In short, to them, their views are "mainstream", and therefore it is the "others", the pro-life, NRA member, Republican voting dwellers of flyover country that are the extremists. Thus Dan Rather, when asked about media bias, can say, with a straight face, that he has no idea what the questioner is talking about. In short, the problem is not one of conscious planning and intent, but is simply "hard wired" into the people who make up the news media. Speaking of Rather, he certainly does not come off well in this book. The author describes him as a paranoid martinet, a man who once took on Richard Nixon only to, later in life, take on some of the qualities of Nixon, most notably his obsession with enemies, either real or imaginary. In 1996, the author wrote an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that criticized what he saw as slanted coverage on the CBS Evening News of the flat tax plan from then GOP candidate Steve Forbes. Apparently Rather took this as a personal attack on his authority as CBS anchorman, despite the fact that the news piece was done by a reporter named Eric Engberg. At any rate, Rather never forgave Goldberg for this transgression and, unfortunately, he has so much clout at CBS that none of Goldberg's colleagues dared come to his defense, at least not publicly (to his credit, Andy Rooney wrote him a very supportive letter). In fact, it might be argued that the greatest service Mr. Goldberg renders in his book is pointing out, not the political biases, but rather the attitudes of arrogance, complacency, and mindless conformity that exist in network newsrooms. Dan Rather, along with his counterparts at ABC and NBC, are shown as prima donnas, treated like royalty, fed multi-million dollar contracts, and completely insulated by yes-men from anything occurring in the real world. Thus, when challenged by a mere peon like Goldberg, Mr. Rather could afford to circle his wagons and plot against the "traitor" within, instead of taking a good, hard cold look at why political bias, among a number of other factors, has been causing a nonstop drop in viewership of the Big Three network news programs. It is most ironic to read Mr. Goldberg describe how Walter Cronkite handed off to Dan Rather the top rated news program in America, only to see it sink to 3rd place under Mr. Rather's stewardship. In fact, one would think that the folks at CBS would be eager to listen to critics like Goldberg, if nothing else but to help figure out how to get back on top. Instead, they'd rather (pun intended) live in denial, and blame the messenger for the bad news instead of looking within to fix the problem.
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