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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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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Only one observation missing:
Review: In the chapter entitled "The Most Important Story You Never Saw on TV" concerning mothers who stay at home and raise their children, the only thing Mr. Goldberg missed is the fact that conservatives believe this is a job to be praised. Should the liberal media take that same stand, they would be for family values and that has become a "right-wing" cause.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Total Hatchet Job
Review: Published by an organization whose web site boasts being a major publisher of conservative literature, this bitter polemic is the vengeful retribution by a long time CBS "journalist" who was essentially forced out by his employer. The fundamental premise (that opinion is too often mingled with reporting) is no surprise and is repeated ad nauseum. The real cause for astonishment is how one, who writes so poorly, could have remained, for so long, as a network correspondent. If you reside on Mars, there may be something to be learned. An insomniac may also benefit.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: a trite complaint about a worthy subject
Review: The subject of this book--liberal bias in news media--is one that desperately needs to be written about. This is not the book that fills that void. Too often the book sounds like Mr. Goldberg whining about attacks upon his character and his integrity rather than a disciplined critique of the liberal bias he finds so pervasive.

Add to the whining the chatty, flighty feel of the prose, and you have a book of not much substance about a very substantial issue. The prose is broken up into bite-size chunks, which like the triviality of the news, does little to further debate. Rather, Mr. Goldberg jumps from one issue to the next with nary a breath to consider or to think. It all sounds a lot like Liz Smith, were Liz Smith complaining about the people who employ her and the triteness of the people about whom she writes.

Perhaps such writing is Mr. Goldberg's style (he was a newscaster after all) and perhaps the style is indicative of the American public's inability to pay attention to something for more than thirty seconds, but the political Right trumpets this book as the ideological cornerstone of their principles. I hope that the Right has more substance to its beliefs that two sentence paragraphs complaining about "the Dan" and other newscasters.

Were the subject about which Mr. Goldberg attempted to write not so important, this book would only serve as a pathetic characterization of someone licking his wounds. But since the subject he wants to write about is so important, the void to which Mr. Goldberg alludes--that of a conservative critique of the liberal news media--still exists.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Look at TV News From Inside
Review: A good book on business of TV network news. Clues you in on the how and why a major highly visible industry is dying or being reshaped. If you like to follow the big trends and get the emotions, color and flavor behind the scenes, for you this non fiction book is as juicy as it gets. From beginning to end the book is full of personal colorful experiences and tales on the rich and famous. The reading does not get any easier than this book. It is up to you to test the authors creditability by reevaluating what you see on the major networks after reading this book. If you don't read the book you will be less well equipped to handle the rapid changes taking place in the news business. Sometimes the most exciting scandals to watch are when industries or governments sit back and do nothing and the public rips them from limb to limb. This is such a scandal in the major networks. The book quotes a survey that the media is viewed as more liberal than half of registered democrats polled. To be out of touch with people that are not your customers would not be surprising, but to out of step with your most friendly customers shows a serious lack of management skills. You will never see TV news or major print media as unbiased again after reading this book. It will also help you understand why the media being left of center for the Democratic party alone is losing its economic base to alternative news outlets. From reading this book there would seem ample reason that the alternative media sources would grow in leaps and bounds at the expense of old traditional sources. That would be forecasting... a very risky business.

Bias in major television news and newspaper news has supercharged a dramatic migration of news consumers to cable, satellite, talk radio and the Internet. Major network news viewership has nearly fallen in half in the last 20 years. The fatigue of liberal bias in the old sources, TV and newspapers, over the last several decades is now being accelerated from the availability of new sources particularly the Internet for serious news consumers and the talk radio for those stranded in cars.

Bernard Goldberg in this book is nearly totally focused on the liberal bias of the television news programs and the lock step culture surrounding them. These superstar exotically paid TV performers are masking as knowledge processor workers. From reading the dramatic vivid examples he details, it would appear that the network news programs are unlikely to save themselves from the self created destructive forces that are at work constantly eroding its viewer base year after year.

Given the little change in top management at the news programs even after such striking declines in viewership, this may be the lull before the storm. The same old rich anchor personalities greet us each day. The top managements of companies that own the major networks have been afraid to intervene in news program policies except to surrender ground to the new competitors by reducing the amount of network news and reducing the resources available to news programs. This in turn reduces quality and quantity of news further driving away viewers.

The first amendment rights protect media of all types in regard to content. The anchor people and news program management seem to take the view that the first amendment will somehow save them from the realities of the market place for news. Since the nations founding there has never been much self restraint from news people damaging individuals and organization by biased coverage. Were it not for the power of the consumer to take an easy hike with the remote control there is no other constraint with management so asleep at the switch at the networks. The new sources for news are starting to turn the information market place into a more free wheeling environment where consumers can leave old sources and access news that is more to there liking. Today if you miss the evening news you can access it elsewhere. It is not just technological change, it is a industry wide culture in a death spiral. The people working at ABC, NBC and CBS are running off the customers by making a defective product.

The author shows how when it comes to public policy the TV network news attempts to shape the debate according to a liberal bias. The author describes reporters and editors as "total dunces when it comes to economics" page 217. It strikes this reviewer that the lack of economic knowledge is as equally bad as the liberal bias. It would be worthy of sequel to this book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Media are biased? What else is new?
Review: While for many the very theme of this book may be common sense, I'm sure there are many who might find it an eye opener. It might also be useful for those who are interested in the documentation the book provides.
However, lets face the facts, the media goes beyond bias, it's downright hostile towards the values and existence of western civilization and its peoples.
The MTV mentality pervades in all media sources only in various shapes and forms. This book won't make a dent in the media monster but it might help a few to side-step the beast.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bias, yes. Liberal bias? Well....
Review: There are all kinds of biases in the media, but most bias is in the eye of the beholder. Bias lies not only in how stories are covered, but in the selection process in terms of which stories get covered. Is there liberal bias in the media? Probably, just as there is conservative bias in the media. Does the liberal bias dominate mainstream coverage? Absolutely not, and Mr. Goldberg presents no evidence to support such a claim.
What Mr. Goldberg does do is engage in a lot of name-calling, and telling half-truths and unsourced anecdotes. ... But the best evidence of the lack of liberal bias is the widespread publicity and promotion this book has received in the media. Compare that with the virtual absence of publicity for such books as David Brock's "Blinded by the Right," or Greg Palast's "The Best Democracy Money can Buy."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: BERNIE GOLDBERG HITS A NERVE
Review: Have you ever hit a hornet's nest with a baseball bat? Neither have I but I imagine that's what Bernie Goldberg thought he had inadvertently done when he wrote an oped piece for the Wall Street Journal about liberal bias in the main stream media.

It's unfortunate that the term "Liberal" has become a pejorative. Its true definition is, "Tolerant of different views and standards of behavior in others." Alas, political labels defy logic. Unfortunately so do most people, of which the media is almost exclusively comprised.

The fact that members of big media won't tolerate the same scrutiny they subject the rest of us to speaks volumes. Other reviewers here point out that there is nothing new in this book. I disagree. The instances cited, as well as the Mr. Goldberg's credibility, make this book compelling.

This is not a book by Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan. It's a book by a self-described old school liberal. It's a good read for anyone in the media, interested in the media, or a consumer of the media. I believe that pretty much covers everyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's not about a liberal media conspiracy
Review: If you're looking for some great left-wing conspiracy theory you should probably go somewhere else. Bernard Goldberg simply and eloquently demonstrates the fact that the liberal slant in network news and other mainstream media outlets is a direct result of the complete detachment of the press corps from everyday American existence. All of these people are from the same areas, went to the same schools and share the same political views. Is it any wonder why they put the same spin on the nightly news? The book is well written and puts forward an interesting premise that is hard to dispute.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Goldberg hits the nail on the coffin.
Review: Goldberg's book Bias is right on when it says that the media is liberal. The media always covers stories of special interests groups and always sides with the underdog or left wing parties.
The media never gives you the full story and thats why its bias.
Anyone who wants to be shocked, and enlightened about the liberal media must read this book. The book is a keeper!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Brilliant effort containing a first-hand account
Review: While I do not live in the US, I am still privy to the media machine in North America. The UK, I'm quite sure, suffers from the same bent. This book provided me with great insight and has now directed me by enlightening certain sensibilities previously enigmatic. What I mean is, I am now able to see the shear leaning of the media here in the UK. The book has opened my eyes. It has allowed me to hear the re-working of truth for an alternative purpose.

I highly recommend.


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