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Summary: Annoying liberal drivel
Review: The author rambles on, never supports his assertions with fact, and seems preoccupied with the attire of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham.
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Summary: A great example of Liberal Media Bias
Review: The author is preoccupied with the attire and physical appearances of Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham. (It's astonishing how much time he spends on this!) In the author's mind this somehow disqualifies them, never mentioning the educational credentials or work experience of either of these highly successful women.When he's not talking about Laura Ingraham's mini skirt, he rambles on making bold assertions without providing a single piece of supporting evidence. According to the author, Richard Nixon was more liberal than Al Gore, but he never gives an example of Nixon's alleged liberalism (or is it Gore's alleged conservatism)! This is just one example. There are numerous other unsubstantiated claims. The book never makes the point of its title, quite the contrary. The author spends most of the time whining about journalists that are more successful than he.
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Summary: They're not liberal, they're just "pushing the envelope"
Review: Contrary to the claims of Alterman's book, the media is left-wing biased. This can be seen by some of the agendae which the media pushes. Take for example, homosexuality. This issue would still be "in the closet" if it were not for television shows and newspapers constantly promoting this lifestyle. It is no small thanks to the media that homosexuality is more accepted today than at any other time in US history. Here's another agenda: gun control. The media is very good at emphasizing when a gun is used to commit a crime. However media organizations are conspicuously silent when it comes to mentioning when a gun was used to stop a crime. But media left-wing bias is nothing new. Take for example Walter Duranty of the New York Times. During the 1930's, Duranty was stationed in the Soviet Union, and was assigned to reporting about events in that communist utopia. How did Duranty cover the forced collectivization of the Ukrainian farms in which millions of peasants who were not shot were starved to death? Duranty claimed that there was no starvation, only "malnutrition" caused by some "spoilers." Many other examples of left-wing bias in the media exist, both old and new. Of course there are some "right-wing" biased elements in the media, especially talk radio. But the fundamental difference between the left and right is that the right is not ashamed to admit it is right-wing, while the left seems insistent on making claims that it is "centrist" or "moderate." This book is a good example of this phenomenon, which may rightly be called a "conspiracy."
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Summary: The media is about $$$ not ideology
Review: I just read this book and it does a very good job of pointing to the money behind the media today...and this money doesn't come from left wingers!! Murdoch, Scaife, etc. are the big players in the media today. ALterman clearly points out how conservative voices are just as if not much more likley to be in the print, radio, and TV media than liberals. Just like Watergate....FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!
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Summary: Tell a lie enough times and it will be accepted as fact
Review: This could be the sub-title for this book. Alterman makes the case that conservatives have beat this drum so loudly and so often over the years that it is now accepted as fact, regardless of all the evidence to the contrary. He even quotes right wing luminary William Kristol who states, "The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." One has only to look at TV or listen to radio today to see that we are being bombarded by a horde of right-wing Republican minions who have succeeded in redefining what used to be middle of the road views as "wacko liberal nonsense." Thus, true liberal views are seen as being from another planet or from the back pages of a long forgotten Trotskyite pamphlet. In one interesting aside, Alterman rattles off a list of 24 conservative personalities who regularly appear as journalist/pundits. The names are very familiar and discerning readers may grow ill reading through it....so I'll spare you. But, to point out the huge tilt rightward he notes that a similar slant leftwards would require "....a roundtable featuring Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Vanessa Redgrave and Fidel Castro." (I'd like to see that show!) Some great analysis also on the coverage of the 2000 elections, particularly regarding the free pass given to Bush and the rough treatment handed out to Gore, mainly because he was so disliked at a personal level by the "professional journalists" who followed him. This is a great read and an excellent addition to anyone's reading list who is interested in exploring what is really going on in the media trenches today.
Rating: 
Summary: Suspicious
Review: I feel this argument is like trying to convince another whether the glass is half full or half empty. I think that a lot of us project our own suspicious insecurities onto the news that we watch. We can listen to either side's cries of conspiracy and take in valid points from both, without becoming unreasobly fearful and hysterically accusatory. But admitting this does not thrust us into the drama that a partisan war creates and therefore we feel compelled to choose a side. Choose if you have to, but consider what you might end up sounding like: (another reviewer writes) "This shift has been strictly engineered, with maximum efficiency, by a large cabal of millionaire conservative wackos seemingly hell bent on creating a one party system for this country." Sound a little paranoid? Maybe it is.
Rating:
Summary: A very compelling case supported by facts and opinions.
Review: Mr. Alterman's book is not perfect. There are times when, in my opinion, he makes assertions about his so-called conservative opponents that are based on fairly tenuous evidence when one reads the footnotes. That being said, this book is informative, insightful, and convincing. In my contacts with psuedo and neo-conservatives who are aware of this book, I find that the book is often dismissed simply on the observation that the author is a liberal. I have neither seen nor heard a compelling case made against the substance of the propositions that Mr. Alterman makes in this book. In other words, his arguments tend to go unchallenged in favor of dismissing him off-hand as incapable of making his case since he is said to be a liberal.
Among the portions of the book I found informative is a section dealing with the origins of the charge that the media has a liberal bias. Although the author does not deal with the history of this claim in its entirity (which would take another book), he does discredit some of the common claims and psuedo-science of those who insist liberal bias is real.
The double-standard that is applied to bias in the news is revealed clearly as Mr. Alterman discusses the dominance of conservatives in the radio and television arenas. He provides examples of the bias of people such as Coulter, Limbaugh, and O'Reilly, while revealing the folly of anyone considering them unbiased. Some of the the quotes that Ann Coulter has made, which are reported in the book, reveal her to lack all credibility and to be a frightening zealot.
Mr. Alterman's arguments combine to present a formidable challenge to what many accept without question. I recommend this book to those who have an open mind and would like to examine this issue, as well as to those who would like to become more informed in order to argue against the notion that liberal media bias is truly widespread. I would caution liberals and conservatives alike to read with an open mind and check the arguments made against the evidence presented and the footnotes. All in all, an excellent book that succeeds in discrediting a notion that was sold to the American people and continues to harm our democratic republic.
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Summary: Bias In Today's Conservative-Controlled Media
Review: Anyone who can think for themselves knows that a substantial number of our country's newspapers and radio/television stations have been bought up by super-rich conservative consortiums in order to control and utilize these media outlets as Republican propaganda platforms. The Right Wing owned Clear Channel network, as an example, controls over 1,000 radio stations, all expounding a grotesquely shrill extremist agenda. And of course Rupert Murdoch's infamous, Republican sloganeering Fox "News" Channel represents the sleaziest embodiment of total partisan media control. And yet the ridiculous myth of "liberal bias in the media" refuses to die. Why do people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Bernard Goldberg continue to spread this all too fantastical fairy tale? And why do tens of thousands of people believe the lie? Eric Alterman's excellent WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? is a superbly documented, irrefutable look at the ever growing Right Wing bias of the U.S. media. It presents undeniable proof of the conservative shift in our newspapers and radio/television stations. This shift has been strictly engineered, with maximum efficiency, by a large cabal of millionaire conservative wackos seemingly hell bent on creating a one party system for this country. Alterman, one of our finest, most level headed political writers, takes a purely non-confrontational "just the facts" approach in presenting his evidence, and the result of his careful research is a complete and total rebuttal to the liberal bias myth. WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? is a highly readable, fascinating and even chilling description of what news reporting has been reduced to in this country. It is essential reading for any American who truly believes in open political discourse and freedom of speech. Also recommended: THE HUNTING OF THE PRESIDENT by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, which describes in terrifying detail the conservative-slanted media's culpability in the $70 million-plus of our tax dollars thrown away by the Republican party in their insidious attempts to humiliate President Clinton.
Rating:
Summary: Oh please!
Review: The premise of this book is nonsense. The newsrooms of America are permeated with liberals in denial about their biases. As someone who's spent a 30-year career in newspapers, I can attest that a liberal outlook pervades everything from matters of national coverage to what albums get reviewed in entertainment sections to front page headlines and stories.
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Summary: Honest look at the media
Review: Alterman makes a series of valid points - one of the most important being that while the nightly news (the focus of Bias) does have left-leaning reporting, that's not where most people get their information. Instead, many get their information from pundits and talk show hosts who seem to be driven merely by how they say things as opposed to if what they're saying is even correct. Other portions of the book also cover the press' coverage of the Clinton years and the effects of Richard Mellon Scaife, along with how the 24-hour news networks allow distortion of events.
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