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Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
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: 5 stars
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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bias Exposed
Review: This book is very entertaining and makes you think and analize the evening news. This book made me realize why I prefer CNN Headline news - less clutter - basic facts & then repeat. Mr. Goldberg is an insider and a respected one at that. In the general public's views, if not the media elite, he is more respected now than ever. Way to Go!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: New truths about Liberal, Left, "Bias"
Review: This book illustarates how the liberal, left, has distorted the way our society is portrayed. We need many more individuals to come forward and tell the truths about the distorted views and lies that we are force fed by the media and special interest groups.

Also strongly recommend "Slander" by Ann Coulter

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truly Thought Provoking
Review: As a moderate that has spend the last decade working for liberal democrats on Capital Hill, I can say that I was very skeptical about this book before I read it. However, now that I have, I must say that this is one of the best thought provoking books I have ever read. Although I do not share several of Mr.Goldberg's views, I came away from this book with a very open mind ready to watch the nightly news and read the NY Times in a different way. For years people have argued that the media is slanted but most of them could not point at specific examples. Mr. Goldberg has taken it upon himself to find those blatant examples that prove the title of his book. The national media in this country is BIASED!!! Thank you Mr. Goldberg for helping others see that.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a great book by a whiney man
Review: bernie is a punk, but if you ignore his personal failings you'll discover a great book that poignantly lifts the veil off the media's incessant liberal bias.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: courage
Review: This book should be retitled "Courage" since the author has become the victim of reverse Mcarthyism. The same liberals who justifiably tear apart Joseph Mcarthy now show that they are no better them him.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Caveat Emptor
Review: This is a book you should read. It's fun, well written and entertaining. Bernard Goldberg does a good job of detailing the most obvious bias of the journalism profession. But, he missed the forest as he focused on the trees.

He focuses on obvious examples, the Anchor's identification of Republican Senators as "Conservative Senator..." while referring to Democrats as "Senator..." But, he totally misses the more insideous and most dangerous bias of the media.

The real bias of journalists is the bias towards government intervention. It seems that every time a journalist identifys a problem there is an immediate assumption that the government should do something about it. Fat kids, what is government doing to regulate hamburgers? Cancer, has the government banned artificial sweetners, or tobacco or whatever? Drug abuse, what has government done to protect our children? Terrorism, has government done enough turn America into a police state?

Never do journalists ask the really important question Peter Druker identified in his book "The New Realities." It's not what should government do? Rather, it's what can government do? Government can't legislate morality. Government can't save us from our appetites. Government can't legislate the abolition of risk. Journalists don't understand these limitations on government and consequently raise our expectations to unrealistic levels.

Mr. Goldberg totally misses this bias. Had he addressed this bias towards government intervention, Mr. Goldberg might have written an important book. As it is he has written a fun book that does a good job of revealing the news establishment, especially at CBS, for what it is.

Bias is a book worth reading. I just expected more.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Proves FAIR is unFair
Review: If you go to fair.org they have been attempting to tell everyone how liberal bias is all in the heads of conservatives but this book is a slap in the face of fair.

Goldberg does a great job showing how politics effect the content of the news and how conservatives are labled, this book has also thrown Andy Rooney into the picture admitting to the liberal bias in news.

This is a must read to all those who want to go into journalism

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Some Good Ideas Amidst A Retaliatory Missive
Review: Bernard Goldberg has some decent observations in this book, and offers some sound theories about why the media has a left-handed slant. He is pretty fair, too, acknowledging that media giants like Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Dan Rather aren't consciously giving the news a liberal flavor, but instead are reporting in the only way they know how to think and communicate. Goldberg posits that these and other newsmen are such natural leftist thinkers that not only do they see such extremely liberal groups as NOW as centrist and totally reasonable, but they see anything moderate and even-handed as far-right.

It's too bad, though, that Goldberg's message gets lost in this book's retaliatory tone. As courageous as Goldberg was for initially writing an Op-Ed piece about media bias to the WSJ in 1996 (non-anonymously), and for not backing down from his position even in the midst of impending ouster, this book is in reality one long diatribe against Dan Rather. Goldberg sounds jilted from the beginning to the end of this work, and while I don't doubt the validity of his assertions or evidence (or that he was railroaded by Rather and an over-sensitive employer in 1996), the fact that this is more vengeance than expose is distracting.

That said, there are some observations herein that read like a How-To guide for spotting liberal bias. For instance, reporters always precede a Republican's name with the label "Conservative," or "Republican," while never doing the same to Liberals/Democrats, as if it is important only to expose those from the right and to alert the listening audience to be on the lookout. People such as the homeless and AIDS victims tend to be "prettified" by the news, and have their negative qualities and irresponsible behaviors ignored or minimized, in an effort to make them more sympathetic. Republican and right-spectrum topics (like the coverage of Steve Forbes' flat tax plan, which prompted the initial Goldberg editorial in 1996), when covered at all, are done so in an unflattering way, and are oftentimes accompanied by snide commentary by smarmy newscasters. White males, the tobacco industry, and the Catholic church continue to be about the only fair game for nonobjective attack and criticism without fair representation.

There were some inconsistencies that should have been cleared up, perhaps if Goldberg had allowed himself more time to calm down about the mosquito in his ear named Dan Rather. For instance, Goldberg reports that the newsrooms take great pains to make sure there is minority representation in all stories, even when it doesn't seem logical (e.g., to garner black opinion about local matters in all white towns, or to search high and low to find minorities in mostly-white professions); however, later on Goldberg mentions that blacks and other minorities don't tend to watch news programs with the regularity that whites do, and therefore, the news stations don't kowtow to non-whites in their coverage. Goldberg should have tried harder to forget the injustice dealt to him by CBS, and instead concentrated more on his tale's consistency- he was on the right track, but never fully executed.


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