Bias

I've just finished reading a Group 2 book by Bernard Goldberg called Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. The fist few chapters are a laborious read. They flow like something between a vengeful rant and a conspiracy theory. Once you get past the openning sections, though, it actually gets pretty interesting. Goldberg provides a chapter presenting his take on The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS which is actually somewhat compelling. When he finally starts presenting examples and statistics, he makes a lot of good points along with questionable ones. On the whole I'd say the book is more good than bad. It kicks off with a long story of what happened after Goldberg published an editorial accusing a CBS News piece of expressing blatant bias against Forbes's flat tax. Being himself an employee of CBS News, you might guess that such publication would bring Goldberg a lot of grief, setting the stage for his book. I might list the order of topics as follows:

• The news networks screwed me, so I'll call them the Mafia.
• Dan Rather was my friend, but now he hates me so I hate him too.
• What did I do? Nothing! No really, what did I do!? News guys suck.
• Newsrooms are overwhelmingly populated by Democrats. They always identify conservatives as "conservative," but rarely identify the political orientations of liberals.
• Homelessness was a huge story under Reagan but suddenly wasn't interesting any more under Clinton.
• AIDS reporting has always been littered with misrepresentations.
• Racial politics in newsrooms produce all kinds of distortions in what ends up on the air. Interesting examination of newspaper practices too.
• More stats on political orientation within the media. Dan Rather sucks. CBS loves whistle blowers, why do they hate me?
• Men get screwed in the media. And nobody cares.
• Ratings and race: why the news magazines only show stories about white people.
• The media won't report studies that might offend or disturb career moms.
• Newscasters say unconscionable things like "I would be happy to give [Clinton] a blow job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs."
• The networks are losing their market because they suck.
• American news media water down their coverage of the Arab world. There is reluctance to portray widespread anti-American and anti-Israeli attitudes in moderate Arab nations such as Egypt. For example, a newspaper supported by the government of Egypt has published stories about how Jews use "the blood of Christians" to make passover food. The same newspaper also reported that Israeli operatives distribute drug-laced candy that makes Muslim women promiscuous. The same newspaper also ran a column thanking Hitler for taking "revenge in advance" on the Jews. This is a pretty interesting chapter.
• Dan Rather sucks.

I think the book was actually worth reading. It is probably unfortunate that it isn't read by more Group 1 readers. It's at the hub of Group 2, and no doubt many conservatives interpret it is vindication for whatever they believe. You can't call them ignorant because there are no accurate sources of information these days.