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Media Bias: Something Wicked This Way Comes
A Review of Bernard Goldberg's Bias, A CBS Insider Exposes How the
Media Distort the News
James Versluys
Sometimes there comes an issue which people on one side or another
know they're on the wrong side of, and it's observable from the
outside. Media bias is one of those issues in this, the new
millennium of Allah. I received a forwarded email from a friend of
mine just as I was going to sit down and write some commentary on
Bernard Goldberg's book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media
Distort the News. It was an email by some netizen called "Batcop",
and it purported to debunk the book by making a grocery list of the
media personalities who were conservative. After each conservative
name, there would be added the phrase "....where they'll say
conservatives have no voice in the media". What it did was backlight
Goldberg's thesis in glaring relief. If Goldberg were an intelligent
book writer, he would send this email in every copy of his book. What
made the email so noteworthy were how few conservatives there
actually were who inhabited the mainstream media Goldberg speaks
about. There were 65 names on the list. Out of those names, I counted
a grand total of three who were in the mainstream media. The list
almost wholly contained think tank personnel (David Horowitz), media
personnel in brand new cable news networks (Bill O'Reilly), and op-ed
columnists (George Will). But next to no one in the media Goldberg
described, the media that, until the last decade, had no challengers
at all. Brit Hume was mentioned as a rightist news anchor. It will
occur to the more judiciously minded that he isn't part of the news
network that Goldberg was complaining about, but an upstart cable
network clawing its way into the big time. The list also contained
bizarre inclusions, people never before known to be conservatives,
like Paul Greenberg, who is a a de
dicated moderate, and Maureen Dowd, whose inclusion as a conservative begs some rather
important questions: How can the woman who compared the Bush family to the Corleones
be called conservative? Also, exactly what planet
is it that Batcop�s mysterious listmaker calls home? Is the sky there blue, too? The
gist of the list was a none too subtle theory that conservatives are represented just
fine in the mainstream media. It ended by essenti
ally admitting a liberal bias so extensive it boggles the imagination. At least there
was John Stossell, I suppose. The book did not need a poorly written piece of agitprop
to highlight its truth. I read Bias in two glass
es of wine and one cigar. Despite a "Hail, fellow, well met" conversational writing
style that has been made unfortunately popular by the net, Goldberg's book is
perfectly argued and utterly convincing. Being a veteran ne
ws anchor, Goldberg had anticipated nearly everything that would be thrown out about
his book from his ex- friends in the media, and the book is laced with references to
how he would be dealt with by these media people. T
he accuracy of his prophecy on what his comrades say about him is breathtaking:
"They're going to call me crazy". They did. "[the book] will be depicted as a personal
vendetta" It was. Goldberg says they will call him a t
raitor. They have. Just another day in The Machine. The book is essentially a long
list of interest groups the mainstream media are in bed with, including feminists, and
the tenor of the book explains how casual the bias
is: there are people who will be surprised to learn that bias comes from the media
cultural norms, and not from any leftist agenda. This bears repeating: no one comes in
the morning at CBS or ABC and decides to be biased.
They just are. And by "They" I of course mean the regular reporters and producers and
decision-makers. This is an important point, because as I mentioned above, the popular
left theory now extent regarding media bias reg
ards media bias as "corporate". Since the stations are run by corporate people, goes
the theory, they are naturally right-wing. That this is poppycock hardly needs
explanation, but Goldberg gives it and shows how bias is
created the floor of an organization, not in the boardroom. A trivial example is the
"expert" a reporter can call on. If the only experts you consult come from, say, the
National Organization for Women, it is difficult to
see how a "right-wing" (i.e. corporate manager) boss could make much of a difference.
Goldberg also plays the numbers game in his book by noting how many reporters vote for
which candidates and how many consider themselv
es whichever way. It's almost boring how perfect the numbers are and how clearly they
illustrate his point, so I won't regurgitate them here, suffice it to say they leave
little room for doubt, and a lot of room to think
the numbers underscore the liberality of the main media instead of overstating it.
It's hard to know whether to recommend this book or not. Its conclusions are almost
universally correct. Goldberg has no serious detractor
s, and the ones who have taken the plunge have acted exactly according to his own
predictions. But who is it going to inform? Those who are on the Right consider his
premise axiomatic, so he won't be telling them anything
new. Those on the Left have an elaborate, if rather unconvincing lie
with which they already wave the thesis away. The lie is easily
dispelled by Goldberg's first hand account of how news actually gets
reported, but the people who believe the corporate news ideology
account of how things are run won't buy this kind of book anyway.
However, I do believe the book is a good idea, and I do suggest it be
read. The book is good to focus anger and sharpen the outrage which
is rightly held by all those on the Right of the spectrum and all
those �like Alexander Cockburn� on the Left who dissent from the tiny
little left-liberal culture that has saturated the mainstream media
departments. Goldberg's book is good for sharpening anger, and that's
good enough.
James Versluys
End<{{{
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