by Warren Ross
The just-published book Bias, by Bernard Goldberg, meticulously documents what everyone outside the media and the Left establishment knows – that news coverage has a left-wing bias. Even more, this book makes clear the critical role the news media play in our lives, and the life-threatening default on responsibility the media is guilty of – all the way from the AIDS scare frightening Americans into believing all heterosexuals are at risk, to the evasion going back a decade or more, of blatant America-hatred as a commonplace characteristic of the Arab world.
Goldberg was a CBS news insider for 28 years, who over time became disillusioned with the slanting of news stories on CBS broadcasts. For years he complained to CBS news editors and executives, with no success. Finally, in 1996, he “went public,” publishing an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing CBS of bias and fully critiquing an Eric Engberg story supposedly providing a “reality check” on Steve Forbes’ flat tax proposal. Despite the story’s billing as “news,” Goldberg noted that it used all the following techniques of distortion: loaded words (“scheme” and “elixir”), omission of anyone supporting Forbes’ idea (though a number of prominent economists were available), omission of affiliation of “experts” opposing the idea, and snide characterization (Engberg called it a “wacky” proposal that should be tried first in Albania). Goldberg used this egregious example as a starting point to support a broader charge of left-wing bias at the networks, and to explain why the big three TV networks were losing viewers.
The reaction at CBS was predictable: Goldberg, who had worked his way up to the top of CBS news, winning several Emmys, and who at the time was regularly presenting stories on Dan Rather’s evening broadcasts, was almost fired, given no assignments for several months, then marginalized to bouncing from one forgotten news magazine to another for four years, until he retired in 2000. All of this was a consequence of embarrassing CBS and crossing “The Dan,” who took very personally Goldberg’s expose’ of CBS’s lack of objectivity. During those four years, CBS realized it had better not fire Goldberg, since this would further support the credibility of Goldberg’s charges. CBS was perfectly willing, however, to destroy his career.
While he was a nobody inside CBS, outside the media world, and even with a few quiet voices of support inside the media, Goldberg gained a national voice – all for saying what everyone else could see, what in fact had created the popularity of talk radio, yet what the media continues to deny.
The result is this book, which analyzes the press’s coverage of race, the relation of the sexes, AIDS, homelessness, and finally, terrorism. You will not find a more well documented or honest book anywhere. You will see in this book how the problem of homelessness (to take one example) was deliberately exaggerated by the media, and blamed on Republican tax cuts, while the actual homeless (the drug- and alcohol-addicted, mentally ill weirdoes unable to function even enough to earn shelter) were deliberately kept off camera for fear of letting the American people see the homeless person’s own culpability for his plight. You will see the techniques used to implement a widespread attack on the entire male gender, and the tragic consequences of that attack in California. Finally, you will see how news people, driven by a commitment to represent Arab terrorists and Israeli defense forces as morally equivalent, hid the true nature of the Arab world from Americans, in effect implementing the agenda of all the academic intellectuals and morally disarming the country – both before and AFTER September 11.
Objectivists will not agree with all of Goldberg’s specific conclusions. He is, after all, a liberal himself, who has voted for every Democratic presidential candidate (including McGovern). The book is of least value when Goldberg is blaming the media for being biased by money, a typical liberal charge (and one picked up and harped on by the New York Times in its review of the book). The book is of enormous value despite some liberal statements, because of its many examples, its searching questions and thorough honesty.
Read this book and carefully contemplate the implications for what you see in the media. Use it as a diagnosis of a horrific disease, and as the blueprint for the cure. Learn the techniques being used on us daily to misrepresent the facts and twist interpretations irrationally. Further, use the knowledge gained in this process to challenge the media themselves, holding them to the high standard of objectivity on every essential point and every key issue. In that effort, Goldberg’s book is an invaluable aid.