Rating: 
Summary: Biased infotainment product
Review: The author systematically debunks the media's claims of unbiased reporting. You get an insiders view of how stories and sources are selected in order to send the "correct" message, while giving the impression of an impartiality. The author even tackles big media as a business.Some call it spin or even propaganda, the author calls it bias. Whatever it is, it exists. It's a fairly short book that gets right to the points. The only weakness is that Goldberg spends considerable time on his own persecution at the hands of his former colleagues and bosses. On the other hand, these anecdotes provide a chilling reminder to anyone contemplating whistleblowing... You will become the target!
Rating:
Summary: Biased infotainment product
Review: The author systematically debunks the media's claims of unbiased reporting. You get an insiders view of how stories are sources are selected in order to send the "correct" message, while giving the impression of an impartiality. The author even tackles big media's as a business. Some call it spin or even propaganda, the author calls it bias. Whatever it is, it exists. It's a fairly short book that gets right to the points. The only weakness is that he spends considerable time on his own persecution at the hands of his former colleagues and bosses. On the other hand, these anecdotes provide a chilling reminder to anyone contemplating whistleblowing... You will become the target!
Rating: 
Summary: Take with a grain of salt
Review: A friend who received an advance copy of this book sent it over to me and asked me to read it and then asked for my opinion afterwards. I try to read things with an open mind but this made me wonder a bit too much. Is Mr. Goldberg upset at CBS? What was his REAL motive for writing this book? How skewed is this book to favor the right-leaning readers? How accurate is this book? The book, albeit very well written, left me with more questions about the writer than it did with the subject he was covering.
Rating:
Summary: A Wake Up Call For America
Review: Bias is one of those books that come along once in ten years that rings a wake up call for all of us who depend on the news media for our information. Even though is has been obivous for years what has been going on around us, Bernard Goldberg sounds the wake up alarm to all Americans to be viligant and to look for fairness in all reporting and news casting. Bias does it all. Thank You Mr. GoldBerg for a superb book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Strange Premise
Review: I don't understand the ancient cry of conservatives about liberal bias.Last time I looked,CBS is a large corporation,and by their very nature,corporations are conservative.They need to be,especially in this government's climate,or they wouldn't get such fine tax breaks.I find the conservative bias distorts the news.So,we start with a biased point of view,therefore,I feel that this is a book for conservative readers.
Rating:
Summary: Read it backwards!
Review: The style and organization of this book make it uncomfortable to read at the start -- but I've given it 5 stars for content and signficance nevertheless. I hope the next edition reverses all its chapters -- meanwhile, a reader might read it backwards.
Goldberg's appearances on TV when the book was published were far less than exciting, and gave me the impression that the book would be a mess of personal remininscences; the first chapter or two lived up to this negative expectation. But further reading revealed it to be logically organized (especially if read backwards), with a nice overview of the way specific major topics (the AIDS crisis, feminism, Middle East) end up getting skewed presentation.
It is an extremely important book in understanding hot political topics, such as the Middle East, and how the mainstream media present them. Goldberg's analysis of the nature of the bias at CBS, etc., is insightful as only an insider's view can be -- and I agree with the comment quoted, "CBS should be proud" (but they aren't).
Goldberg's point is that the mainstream media are not promoting a partisan point of view, but rather that they are captives of a worldview, according to which conservatives are kooks and liberals are the mainstream.
All humans are "captives" of their own worldviews, whether they are religious or atheist, liberal or conservatives, Israeli or Arab, etc. The best we can do is realize our bias, and try to rise about it in partial ways. Goldberg has done much to reveal a pervasive bias, which has gone partly unrecognized for too long.
Rating:
Summary: I read it!
Review: (...) Actually, I've always believed that the conservative cry of liberal bias was maybe just a bit overdone. For all of you who still think that, be sure to read the book - it belongs in the library of every American who understands that a free press is integral and necessary to our way of life. Note the "free" part of free press. While the government isn't filtering your news, the news media is. The media isn't just failing us, they're sabotaging democracy. If Goldberg has told even just part of the truth, many in the media deserve to be branded as traitors and hounded out of the business - not because they're liberals or have a liberal bias, but because they're liars, and deliberately misleading the American public. The media has a right to report in any way they like. But they have an obligation to distinguish between fact and editorial comment. They have an obligation to report fact without regard to the political consequences of that fact. If they elect to add editorial comment to their reporting and acknowledge it as editorial comment, well, that's their right as American citizens. But to deliberately, maliciously lie to us about what is happening and what it means is immoral and unethical. To fail to distinguish between news and editorial comment is unethical. To suppress news or deliberately lie about the facts to advance a political agenda is unethical. If Mr. Goldberg is only partially accurate, the major media in this country is incredibly corrupt. If he's completely accurate, they're irredeemably corrupt. I shudder to think what the consequences are for our society. Our representative democracy only really works with an educated electorate. One wonders whether the media have noticed that they're no different in 2001 than the old Soviet Pravda and Tass were in the bad old days.
Rating:
Summary: A Smoking Gun
Review: A dozen years or so ago, I spoke to the managing editor of the local newspaper about the pejorative use of "right-winger" in his paper. I asked why I never saw "left-winger" in articles about very liberal people. He just could not follow my reasoning. To him there were no left-wingers! That is what Goldberg's book is about. The media deny their left-leaning slant of news because they believe their liberal views are really middle-of-the-road. And while there are a few very liberal people to the left of them, those left-wingers are not nearly so far from the "center" as those right-wingers. Is that a good thing? Goldberg doesn't say one way or the other. His intent was not to take sides on political or social issues of the day, even though he says he is a liberal who has never voted for a Republican for president. His point is that the public gets only one side of these issues from the major media. That is, those news rooms are filled with people who have taken sides. Unlike so many of the reviewers below, I've read the book. It is complete with names, dates and those pejorative put-downs that major media types don't see as bias. Put-downs that could never be uttered if a woman, minority or left-wing cause were the object. And that's the rub. Right-wingers and their causes are always fair game. Left-wingers cannot be touched because of all the sensitivity that exists in the news rooms that recognizes even the smallest of slights to anyone or anything left. I found the book very easy to read. And very fast paced. If you've ever wondered why the major media get away with all those slurs toward the right side of the political spectrum, read this book. And also read William Greider's "Who will tell the People."
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Goldberg exposes what we have all known.
Review: Unlike many posters here, I have read the book. This book exposes what any critical viewers of CBS, ABC, and NBC news have known for many years -- the major news media channels are biased, as the author says, "just to the right of Stalin." Dan Rather has been so biased that I have had to turn to another channel many times, and I thought it was just a quirk or my own personal bias. As I strongly suspected, it was not. This book proves this, and exposes a "mafia-like network" within CBS news that is completely blind to their own biases. The author goes as far as explaining that if it were not for this group-think of liberl bias, there would be no need for a Rush Limbaugh. This highly talented and mulitple Emmy award-winning author has advised me what I should do. I should point the remote at Dan Rather and push "Off." Yet, the author is not the one who is biased. All Mr. Goldberg seeks is honesty in reporting. I believe that this book will be the beginning of something we have not seen in decades -- honesty in reporting, and a long-needed collapse of the CBS mafia. The book has letters of support from other seasoned journalists in the last chapter. If I have a message from this book, coupled with my own views, it would be "Don't go away made, Dan, just go away; and take your thugs with you." The same message applies to Brokaw and jennings.
Rating:
Summary: An expose long overdue of a fact long known
Review: This is a book long awaited. It is a truth most of the public has known or suspected for many years. I'm so happy that Mr. Goldberg had the courage to risk his job & career to tell us first hand about the bias in news reporting that exists at the 3 networks. What interested me especially was the hypocrisy of the media elites. They can question & criticize the government, big corporations and others but when an insider exposes their blatant lack of fairness they attack him as disloyal, rather than having an open mind to what he says. I believe Mr. Goldberg was actually doing the major networks a service by attempting to warn them that their lack of balance & liberal bias in their reporting will eventually come back to haunt them. It is a fact that they are losing their
audience rapidly to cable news outlets like Fox who emphasize balanced reporting. I sincerely hope this book becomes a best seller & this expose forces the media elite to admit to their liberal bias & more balance their reporting.
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