Bias
is a hot-button word.
In veteran TV reporter
Bernard Goldberg's hands, it
is a cudgel, a weapon
to strike out at the
people at CBS News who rejected
him after a lifetime of service,
and more broadly, to advance
an ideological agenda dressed
up in the appealing clothing
of media criticism. A New
York Times #1 best seller, "Bias:
A CBS Insider Exposes How
the Media Distort the News" is
published by Regnery, a long-time
home for right-wing polemicists
and propagandizers.[*]
His exposé is
of interest as a specimen
in the larger political
wars being fought in the
media worldwide. To him,
distortion is, it seems,
any perspective not certified
by the conservative policy
pushers at the Heritage
Foundation. I am not going
to go point-by-point through
the text — this is
not a review but a response.
Emmy Award-winner Goldberg
is known to many U.S. viewers
for his work at CBS News.
A 30-year survivor of the
news trenches, in 1996
he penned an op-ed for
that bastion of righteous
right-wingers, the editorial
page of the Wall Street
Journal. For the uninitiated,
the journal is really two
newspapers, with a respected
professional news section
with the best investigative
reporting around, and a
nasty editorial section
that even Attila the Hun
might distance himself
from.
Goldberg's first Journal
op-ed, a piece called "Reality
Check," denounced "liberal
bias at network news," in
their coverage of economic
issues, especially Steve
Forbes' "flat tax," a proposal
that later went flat with
voters but which he felt
CBS unfairly called wacky. "Can
you imagine, in your wildest
dreams, a network news
reporter calling Hillary
Clinton's health care plan
wacky? Can you imagine
any editor allowing it?" he
asks rhetorically. Excuse
me? Where was Goldberg
when the Clinton plan was
pilloried as everything
but a communist plot (and
in some circles, that too)
by an avalanche of reporters,
editorials and pharmaceutical
industry-funded advertising
that almost ran Hillary
out of town and doomed
health care reform ever
since.
Goldberg's
broadside offered the trappings
of improving journalism,
but along with many conservative
media groups such as Accuracy
in Media, his focus was
on denigrating and discrediting
political positions he
opposed. It is propaganda
by another name. You don't
find them monitoring or
critiquing fellow conservatives.
This is
not to say that others
don't do the same thing.
Media critics are not empty-minded
even as we try to be open-minded.
We all have political leanings
although most journalists
I know believe in balance
and fairness even if we
don't always practice it.
For example, during every
election, conservatives
argue that the liberal
media favors Democrats
because reporters tend
to vote Democratic, according
to several reports over
the years by media monitor
Robert Lichter to this
effect. Yet most of their
outlets largely endorse
Republican candidates.
At the same time, many
media monitors at the other
end of the spectrum find
that coverage largely reflects
the conservative values
of the Beltway establishment.
My book Mediaocracy (co-edited
with Roland Schatz www.electronpress.com)
on the 2000 election found
the media quite hostile
to liberal values and tilted
toward Bush. (This conclusion
was drawn by the nonpartisan
analysts at MediaTenor in
Germany.)
There were few complaints
from conservatives about "the
liberal media" when media
outlets were bashing Bill
Clinton with a frenzy that
often treated every rumor
as a fact and every insinuation
as grounds for indictment.
There are few complaints
from conservatives today
about the media coverage
of the terror war, which
for the most part echoes
the Pentagon line.
Why
Is "Bias" Big Now?
Is it any
surprise that "Bias" is getting
so much attention in this
period of conservative hegemony?
Could it be that his think-alike
colleagues in the mainstream
media are helping a crony
flack his book? It is called
the echo chamber effect,
where one radio station interviews
him and another follows like
a flock of birds migrating
south. They are like dogs
with a bone, refusing to
let it go and forever recycling
their political line and
attitude. Trust me, this
type of welcome wagon is
not routinely extended to
more progressive media critics.
(In recent months I was booked — and
canceled — by both CNN
and Fox.) At the same time,
it must be said that FOX
does include FAIR's Jeff
Cohen on its media program
while CNN banished him from "Crossfire." Yet
Cohen still says that the
networks limit the range
of legitimate expression "from
A to B, from GE to GM." He
doesn't argue that just because
he has a once-a-week gig
that the network itself is
balanced.
Republicans
own the White House and
control the House of Representatives,
Rush Limbaugh and his clones
have radio pulpits nationwide,
and straight-out conservative
channels like Fox, which
downplay their orientation
by claiming to be objective,
rule the ratings on cable
news (Fox News just surpassed
CNN in overall viewing.).
A Project on Excellence
survey of cable news outlets
since September 11 found no
real distinction between
the coverage on Fox and
CNN. Fox News sprinkles
in a little from the left
to appear even-handed but
that is token. Most days,
CNN doesn't even do that,
cleaving instead to the
right-center and having
just added neocon Laura
Ingraham to its lineup
to draw Fox viewers.
What
Is Liberal?
Goldberg's
view of liberalism is vague
and simplistic and seems
to boil down to people with
whom he has political differences.
Does it matter? The label
has lost most of its meaning
and much of its constituency.
One can be liberal on social
or cultural issues and hawkish
on foreign policy. It is
complicated. What liberals?
Many American liberal intellectuals
were Cold War missionaries
funded by the CIA, as a new
book "The Liberal Conspiracy," explains.
Many political conflicts
took place among liberals
in the '60s over the Vietnam
War and the movement for
racial equality. To lump
these positions together
does a disservice to the
complex realities of American
politics. Today, many in
the Democratic party have
turned away from liberalism
to embrace the free-market
corporate solutions advocated
by the Democratic Leadership
Conference (DLC). Years ago,
satirists sang, "Love Me,
I'm a Liberal." Today no
one wants admit they are
one.
The same can be said of
the term conservative,
incidentally. Who fits
that bill, and what are
they conserving? Do fanatics
of the strident right and
libertarians warrant the
same label? Is it "conservative" to
subsidize big business
or pump up the military
industrial complex? The
views among those who consider
themselves conservative
vary as much as those on
the left. The 20 people/50
opinions phenomenon prevails
in both camps. The right,
however, unlike the left,
seems to take a more Marine
Corps approach to organizing,
appearing at times more
focused and goal-oriented
than activists who champion
a thousand causes at once.
The problem with "Bias" is
that Goldberg doesn't seem
to recognize that today's
opposition movements don't
even talk about liberalism
or identify with its traditions.
They organize against what
they call "neo-liberalism," the
appropriation of liberal
rhetoric by conservative
institutions like the World
Bank or WTO to impose corporate
agendas on developing countries.
There is little that is
liberal in neo-liberalism.
Goldberg and the journalists
he attacks are ALL conservative
by global standards. The
publishers of "Bias" say
Goldberg is not partisan,
simply a journalist (presumably
apolitical) who thinks
the media shape how we
see the world. But in his
world view, there is no
world, just colleagues
to turn on in a snide and
sanctimonious manner.
Writing
in a — sorry, Bernie — conservative
newspaper, the New York
Press, Michelangelo
Signorile tears Goldberg's
arguments apart and concludes "money
is the real bias." He says
all you have to do to realize
how shoddy is Goldberg's
case is to turn on the TV
and watch programming like
Alan Keyes' new talk-at-you
show on MSNBC. "Goldberg
seems to be saying that because
everyone who works in a flag-making
factory might be left-leaning,
the flags in the end don't
turn out to be patriotic.
But a flag is a flag. And
a sensational, ratings-driven
media is a sensational, ratings-driven
media."
So now we have neoconservatives
like Goldberg making neocritiques
and sadly, being taken
seriously by people who
should know better. It
is the job of serious media
scholars and analysts to
debunk this pseudo-critique
and replace it with a real
one. Someone should explain
to Goldberg about the more
insidious problem of media
consolidation and the pro-corporate
bias that flows from it.
He would probably dismiss
me as a liberal if I try.
And yet as a former network
producer, I do agree with
him on one point: "People
don't trust us. And for
good reason."
* Many
political observers suspect
Regnery publishing to have
willingly served as a right
wing CIA front, receiving
hidden subsidies. For a
supposedly "commercial" publisher,
the firm often exhibited
less than prudent behavior
in its publishing choices.
