Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.(Review)

Reviewed by Laura Echevarria

I remember when CBS News yanked Bernard Goldberg off the air for a few months following his 1996 Wall Street Journal opinion piece on media bias. Then-NRLC Communications Director Michele Allen and I discussed (with shock and something akin to relief) that a well-known member of the media had admitted to the existence of a liberal media bias. What didn't surprise us was CBS's reaction to the op-ed.

Now, over five years later, Goldberg recounts his experience and his still-firm belief that there is a liberal media bias in his book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. His book has become a bestseller and Goldberg is doing interviews on the news programs that will have him.

However, despite the popularity of his book and other obvious clues (such as Fox News Channel's number one rating), many members of the media elite cry foul when charges of media bias are leveled against them.

Goldberg makes many salient points in his book and in doing so explains why members of the media don't see the bias or don't admit to it. Many of his assertions are things you've heard before but it's nice have a self-proclaimed liberal-leaning journalist agree with them.

Goldberg is very up-front with his beliefs. He makes it very clear that he is not a conservative who is trying to paint the media black, as his critics claim. He is pro-abortion "with reservations, especially with regard to minors" and pro- a lot of other things as well.

What he is trying to say with his book is that there is no vast conspiracy in newsrooms to offend and misrepresent conservatives (or, by extension, pro-lifers). He writes that the truth is far worse!