Rating: 
Summary: racists will love it
Review: "Bell Curve" of the decade... By the way, Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas are beneficiaries of affirmative action -- think about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Perverted Diversity
Review: Both Bernard Goldberg and William McGowan have written books about the obvious bias in newsrooms today. Goldberg's book, Bias, was written with specific reference to his many years at CBS news. McGowan has written a more generalized and philosophical book about how publishers, managers and editors made conscious decisions to "diversify" their newsrooms in an effort to present a more complete and balanced view of the world in which we live.McGowan believes that effort became corrupted early on. Instead of presenting a useful, broadened view of our complex lives, the news today has become much more narrowed. Political correctness reigns, with journalists who are now advocates rather than reporters. Different points of view, once cherished, are now discouraged or attacked outright within the newsrooms themselves. Not that alternate views are never published or aired. But to do so requires the journalist to undergo heavy criticism, intimidation, and in some cases, complete ostracism. For journalists who might report different views, McGowan writes that many have found those stories not worth the effort. Something of that sort seems to have happened to Goldberg. In the end, today's news has nothing to do with intellectual curiosity tracking through a wide range of opinions; that is, real diversity. It is only about promoting preferred groups and skin color.
Rating:
Summary: Bias in the news exposed
Review: If you want to know how a Jayson Blair could have happened, this is the book for you. Although Coloring the News was published in 2001, author William McGowan shows how Blair, far from being the fluke he has been portrayed as by the mainstream media, was inevitable. McGowan chronicles how - following the lead of New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. - major mainstream, daily newspapers, and TV news operations all over America, gave up on telling the truth as the goal of the news business. And he names names. Sulzberger & Co. replaced truth with "diversity" (radicalized affirmative action aka multiculturalism aka political correctness), which involves not only hiring as reporters and editors black and Hispanic (also gay and feminist) applicants with inferior qualifications, but also imposing the multicultural/pc "script" on the reporting of events, which means that often there is no reporting at all, or only fraudulent reporting, in which certain parties are quoted and certain research cited, no matter how dishonest the former and no matter how discredited the latter is. McGowan demonstrates how many media organizations, particularly the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, ABC News, CBS News and NPR, have botched story after story after story. He does his best work skewering the New York Times, which over the past ten years, has become a self-caricature of a great metropolitan daily. I know what a good job McGowan does on the Times, because I've covered many of the stories he discusses, and have caught the Times misrepresenting many stories he doesn't discuss. The author argues that in seeking to be cheerleaders for certain groups, the media have hurt them, by suppressing unpleasant truths which must be faced, in order to help the groups. Examining dozens of stories focusing on race, sex (feminism and homosexuality) and immigration, McGowan shows how in each case the mainstream media engaged in deliberate misrepresentation, ignored salient facts that contradicted their "script," or killed the story outright. For instance, he contrasts coverage of the Matthew Shepard murder with coverage of the murder of Jesse Dirkhising. In the first month after two thugs robbed and murdered openly gay, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard, over 3,000 stories were devoted to the case, which was exploited, in order to get hate crime legislation passed that treated the murder of gays as more of a crime than the murder of heterosexuals. Meanwhile, the murder of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising by two gay pedophiles in Arkansas, was "killed," with only 46 stories appearing the first month after the murder. The New York Times alone ran 195 stories on the Shepard case, but NONE on Jesse Dirkhising, including during the March, 2001 trial of one of his killers (he was convicted; the other later pleaded guilty). The reason was simple: Covering the Shepard case cast gays in the role of victims; covering the Dirkhising case cast gays as the villains, which political correctness forbids. Another group of botched big stories McGowan which dissects concern female Air Force and Navy officers who, though incompetent and/or guilty of flouting service rules, were pushed along the path to pilot, because the Pentagon had adopted illegal quotas for women pilots. As McGowan shows, any number of major media outlets (CBS News, the Times, NPR) insisted on presenting these stories, the facts be damned, as cases of heroic women battling an oppressive patriarchy. And McGowan shows how the corruption of the Washington Post, via diversity, harmed the District of Columbia during the years-long political control of Mayor Marion Barry, a corrupt, drug-addled, megalomaniac. Instead of exposing Barry, black Post reporters and editors protected him, and harassed white reporters out of doing serious work on his corrupt administration. The black staffers engaged in openly racist harassment, "spiking stories," or causing them to die the death of a thousand cuts, through constant demands for more information. Considering the author's restrained tone, it is a minor miracle that this book was published at all. Consider the review from Publisher's Weekly posted at the amazon.com web site, whose author called McGowan's book "inflammatory." The critic didn't come up with a single example of "inflammatory" writing, because none exists. What the writer really meant was, 'How dare he show up my politics for the soft totalitarianism that it is!' Similarly, Library Journal reviewer Susan M. Colowick calls McGowan's evidence "impressive" and "anecdotal" in the same sentence, and attacks him for "refer[ring] to the 'outdated paradigm of white oppression' and repeatedly us[ing] the value-laden term illegitimacy for out-of-wedlock births." In a review for Washington Monthly, McGowan's old stomping grounds, Seth Mnookin attacked McGowan for laying into a New York Times writer who had described mass murderer Roland Smith Jr./Abubunde Mulocko (who committed the December, 1995 Harlem Massacre, murdering seven people) as a man of "principle." But McGowan told the truth! (I read the Times article.) And then there's the Times, the "Grey Lady" herself, whose brass refused to assign a writer to review Coloring the News. (When the Times' editors are pushing a book, they will run as many as three positive reviews of it by different writers on different days.) In the mainstream media, nothing has changed. In the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, where internships and jobs were thrown at an incompetent, unqualified young man by the nation's biggest media organizations (the Boston Globe, Washington Post, AND the Times) solely because of the color of his skin, mainstream reporters have been screaming from the rooftops, "Race had nothing to do with it!" and branding anyone who would state the obvious (in spite of then-Times Executive Editor Howell Raines' confession) a "hater." As McGowan points out, the refusal of the mainstream media to honestly report the news, has fueled the explosion of the Web and talk radio as news sources. And so, Big Media can call their critics "racist!," "sexist!," and "homophobic!" all they want, or try and kill them with silence. Bill McGowan warned the media, but they ignored him. The corporate media still push agitprop in place of the news, and continue to wonder why the public increasingly deserts them. Affirmative action corrupts, diversity corrupts absolutely. Originally published in The Critical Critic, 6 July, 2003.
Rating: 
Summary: Well documented and argued
Review: In all of my readings on bias in the media, none of been as well documented and argued as McGowan's Coloring the News. McGowan, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, believes that the media's quest for 'diversity' shapes their perspective on how to present the news and what stories to cover. Part of the argument here is that, because news organizations want to 'correct' their historically white-male centered coverage, they are willing to shape stories about minority groups however the groups see fit. This includes not running pictures of accused criminals because it may cause racial backlash (more recently, in a protest at UC Berkeley), and using a quota system to make sure that at least a certain amount of "people around town" pictures that a newspaper runs are African-American.
McGowan's title may be a bit misleading, and potentially a bit controversial, if only for the "coloring" part of the title. McGowan does not single out media coverage of African-Americans, showing that the media also shape their coverage to not offend gays, lesbians and, more recently, Arab-Americans. Instances of these include coverage of gay adoption and racial profiling.
This book is not an easy read. The paperback version is only 250-odd pages, but the text is small and there are few breaks in chapters. I was having difficulty reading it until I got towards the last 100 pages, when the stuff that McGowan documents just becomes so jaw-dropping that one can't believe it is actually true. This includes a Vermont newspaper story that got a writer fired without the normal process of disputing the charges taking place because of a small backlash from an agitator in the community. The agitator was hired by the newspaper to help shape the paper's coverage of the black community and, when an independent source verified that the original article was factually accurate, ended up with the editor's resignation. The book reads a lot like a text book and less like a partisan attack (although at times McGowan is obviously arguing that one point of view is correct, but is still able to show why the coverage, nonetheless, is skewed).
Whereas books like Bias and Spin Sisters rely upon first hand experience of the inner workings of the media, Coloring the News is all about research. Unfortunately, McGowan does not provide footnotes (he does provide notes at the end with descriptions of what he is citing), which, unless you take the time to read the notes at the end, makes it difficult to know exactly what is coming from where.
If you are a member of the media, you must read this book. If you care about media bias, read this book. If you're a casual reader, I can't recommend it to you. The only problems with this book are the textbook-like nature and the lack of inline notes.
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: the Left are victims of the law of unintended consequences
Review: In the same vein as Bernard Goldberg with his book "Bias:", Bill McGowan speaks out about the heresy of those who are purveyers of the news as reported by the major networks and the nation's leading newspapers. He cites the by-now familiar tale of political correctness gone awry thru yet another attempt by the politically Left to be fair and balanced. The hitch is that this group's idea of fairness and balance is as exclusionary as any you can name in any historical context you care to conjure up. Bias is bias whether from the Left or the Right, but man's need to feel virtuous coupled with his infinite capacity for self deception leads to a metaphorical snow blindness when it comes to seeing reality thru a clear lens. McGowan's thesis is that the media, in an attempt to be more inclusive of different opinions in the newsroom, has hired reporters who have become advocates for their particular issues which has resulted in the omission of facts unsupportive of that individuals particular advocacy. This has reduced to a stream of issue advocacy reportage on subjects such as racial relations, gay and lesbian musings, feminist positions, the homeless, global warming, and PETA to name just a few. The result has been a steady stream of slanted world views conflicting with those of mainstream America. According to McGowan this has fueled the rise of talk-radio and the internet as mediums where dissenting listeners and viewers can now go and get there information. One might aver that this syndrome is also responsible for the falling market share of the major networks juxtaposed to the commensurately risng share garnered by the Fox Network. This trend is merely another example of trends going to extremes before correcting back to more normative levels. In this instance most of those on the Right would suggest that it's about time. As an example, the media became furious with Richard Nixon for labeling Helen Gahagan Douglas a Communist back in 1948 and they never forgave him for it. This would suggest that Left-leaning bias goes back far beyond this recent period that McGowan describes in his book. In any event, the explosion of power of the microchip, and its declining cost has propelled the proliferation of information which has accrued to the betterment of us all notwithstanding our political persuasions. And, this has made a better world than the one where dictators have been able to persevere by preaching the big lie to their followers. Think Taliban. This is another good book to add to your library of books on man's continuing search for liberty and justice.
Rating:
Summary: The Chapter on Immigration is Worth the Price of Admission
Review: Similar to other books that followed it, such as "Bias" and "Arrogance" by Bernard Goldberg and "Journalistic Fraud" by Bob Kohn . . . "Coloring the News" (paperback) provides still more damming evidence that our country's major newspapers, primarily the New York Times, Washing Post, Los Angeles Times, etc., are deceiving the public. They have accomplished this by using euphemisms, omissions and outright fraud, poor or non-existent investigative journalism and denial or distortion of fact by using all manner of journalistic deception in order to promote and perpetuate their liberal views. Of particular note was the chapter on immigration. With penetrating deftness and engaging readability, McGowan reveals MAJOR untold facts concerning the massive illegal immigration problems facing our nation. The immigration chapter is extraordinary because it highlights every conceivable countervailing fact and issue left untold, perverted or inaccurately reported in the newspapers. Clearly such biased reporting denies us all the much needed multi-faceted, honest, national discourse on illegal immigration! What a pity! Read it and weep!!
Rating: 
Summary: not the whole story, Billy
Review: Suggesting that the press is liberal by looking at journalists is a little like suggesting the automotive industry is left wing by observing the work force. There are, of course, the CEOs and board of directors who decide what to make and how much. In viewing the press Mcgowan ignores the editors and corporate owners who went for Bush 2:1 last election. They of course have the ultimate say in what is reported and those distortions can be, and have been, more pernicious. Moreover, their bias is a market bias that seeks not to offend not because of a liberal bias but because of a bias for the bottom line.
Rating:
Summary: Eye-Opener
Review: The term 'liberal bias' is often referred to the media. In Coloring the News, William McGowan explains the topic. He looks at how there has been bias in areas like race, gender, immigration, sexual orientation, and the number games by siting several specific examples of how the issues have not been accurately been reported by the media or in cases in which represiala to articles have been hidden towards the back section of newspapers. McGowan then ends with reasons why such bias exist.
Rating:
Summary: Devastating Exposé
Review: This book made me sick. I had already known of the left bias of the majority of the media (save the Wall Street Journal and Fox News Network among others) but I had no idea of the stomach-churning depths to which reporters and editors would go to further a doctrine. Time was when the press primarily reported the news, and gave us opinions on a separate page. True, everyone may have a bias, but one can at least make an effort to report objectively! Not only do many reporters reveal their blatant biases, but they actually print stories to "futher the cause" (you name it, affirmative action, welfare, bilingual education, ubiquitous racism, socialized medicine etc). McGowan certainly did his homework. His book liberally plumbs the depths of the media's "crusade for diversity" making it quite clear that there is nothing wrong with diversity as a quality. But a dogmatic forced diversity serves no one, and in fact leads to balkanization. The New York Times is possibly the worst offender. The Wall Street Journal in fact, publishes all the news that's fit to print, and the New York Times prints everything that's left. (Pun intended) Small criticism: the hundreds of reference citations in the back of the book are listed by page, rather than using numerical footnotes in the body of the text. While this is less distracting to the reader, it is a little frustrating to try to look up his source for a specific quote. I strongly recommend this book. If you don't believe what he says, then simply look up his sources to check his data. You'll be saddened by the truth.
Rating: 
Summary: Devastatingly Undermined by the Introductory Assertion
Review: William McGowan begins this very intelligent work with a preposterous summation that seriously undermines the valid and insightful thesis he articulately presents throughout the remainder of the book. Despite his coherent arguments--amply documented with bountiful evidence--"Coloring the News" is never quite able to recover from its asinine beginning anecdote. In his proem he engagingly relates several vignettes where genuine reporting was scarified to identity politics. All--save the very first one--bolster his case and show that aggrieved advocates have usurped the respectability of objective reporting in the name of that demagogue "diversity." Incomprehensibly, his first tidbit concerns the Miami Herald's coverage of the Elian Gonzalez tragedy. In remarks that could suggest racism, he says "Cuban journalists and newsroom staff fell prey to ethnic partisanship that diluted the newsroom's professional detachment on the story." He then writes disparagingly of a columnist being "photographed outside the house of the Gonzalez family in a prayer circle"--horror of horrors. Would Mr. McGowan expect Jewish reporters to have employed professional objectivity in covering the Holocaust? Would he have expected any decent human being to disinterestedly narrate history's darkest hour? In reality it was not the Cubans who along with the frighteningly small parcel of other journalist who heroically strove to provide the truth, but the majority of mainstream sources who avoided plentiful facts on this incident that shamed America. What makes this subconscious bias or debilitating naivet? all the more outre is that much of Mr. McGowan's other findings contradict such a unfathomable viewpoint. Beyond that anomalous passage, he shows no indication of favoring totalitarian tactics nor racial discrimination. Much of his persuasion starkly defies such concepts. In a touching chapter on race relations, he discusses the disproportionate percentage of crack addicts who are Black and Latino and quotes photojournalist Eugene Richards who aptly states, "the last thing I noticed about the pregnant woman smoking crack, the addicts dying after shooting up, the young girls prostituting themselves, the drug boys with the automatic weapons, or the mothers grieving for their dead children was the skin color." On AIDS, he bravely points out how inaccurate much of the subject's media coverage is. Discussing the power of the gay lobby, he laments that "this taboo against candor made it difficult to write about what was really driving the disease." He again quotes a Miami Herald reporter (this time non-dismissively) who admitted that "dozens of stories didn't make it into the paper or on the air because they might have offended the sensibilities of the pc police. " He explicates how capitulating to feminist orthodoxy has had some very dire consequences as the tragic case of the Navy's first combat pilot revealed. Lieutenant Kara Hultgreen died in a training accident. Reports of her death skimmed over the fact that she had been given extensive leeway in the rigorous training because Naval brass was trying to placate PC bureaucrats. By glossing over this part of the story the innocent victim is sacrificed at the altar of feminism and journalistic integrity loses to popular fads. The author also discusses Kelly Flynn who became an icon for the alleged unfair treatment she sustained merely for ... on the job. As he points out everyone from Trent Lott to Maureen Dowd came to the defense of this "wronged woman" but most neglected to get any facts strait. These are just a tiny portion of the sapient points he makes throughout a well-researched and clearly organized treatise. However, leading with such an off-base assertion seriously damages the work. The fatuous claim calls Mr. McGowan's judgment into question and even the behemoth of erudite reasoning that follows cannot quite alleviate lingering distaste.
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