Goldberg's "Biased" right or wrong ?

Goldberg’s “Biased” right or wrong?


Author Goldberg worked as a reporter for CBS for 28 years. His book Biased has been the best selling book in the nation for the last two weeks.


In it he documents how for over 20 years CBS has biased their news.


He feels that CBS did so, because they felt that it “was in the best interest of the nation”


Some examples that he sights include:


1. Although CBS knew that less that 1/2 of 1% of AIDS cases were contracted through classic heterosexual activity, they combined the percentages of cases that were contracted through “Blood transfusions, baby’s born to mothers with Aids, IV drug users, and participants in passive anal sex with bisexuals.


By adding these unrelated cases to the group of heterosexual cases, CBS knowingly misrepresented the truth about the probability of heterosexuals contracting the disease.


CBS biased their stories because they felt that it might increase the amount of monies that would be dedicated to finding a cure for aids.


2. Since CBS knew that “ President Clinton and the Democratic agenda was better for America than that of the Senior President Bush and the Republican Party”


And since CBS also knew that stories about “homeless” people tended to discredit who ever was in the White House.


For every one story about the “homeless” that CBS ran during the Clinton years, CBS ran 10 during the eight previous years when a Republican held the presidency.


This was true, even though there was a significant increase in the number of “Homeless people” during the Clinton years.


3. Though white adult males made up only a small percentage of the perpetrators of violent crime.


CBS decided to systematically select examples of cases of violent crime committed by white males to repeatedly show their audience.


They did so to "equalize their viewer’s opinion" of members of all the different races.


4. Though CBS knew that 64% of all “homeless “people were forced on to the street because of mental illness, and another 24% were “homeless” because of drug addiction, CBS decided to consistently presented examples of “regular families” down on their luck to their audience as examples of “homeless people“.


They did so to increase their audience’s sympathy for the “homeless.”


5. Since CBS knew that the left wing’s goals for the nation were the correct ones, they systematically discredited anyone who disagreed with their goals by referring to them with derogatory references such as “ An ultra right wing” ” An extreme conservative," and “ A Religious Right winger.“.


For every time that CBS reporters used a demeaning description to describe of a member of the liberal community, they demeaned 50 representatives of the conservative community.


Goldberg states that it was his feeling that CBS knowingly misrepresented the truth to the American people out of a sincere desire mold our society in the direction that CBS knew was the best.


A typical example of Bias was recently demonstrated in the reporting of the recent Virginia Law School-shooting spree.


The shooting spree was stopped when another student got a gun out of his car, and confronted the shooter, and forced the shooter to throw his gun away.


But CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York and LA Times knowing that “ An American’s constitutional right to own a gun has to be eliminated” all chose to censored the portion of the story about a gun owner bring and end to the incident.


Only the regional newspapers and Fox cable news carried the full story.


When we discussed topic this at the poker table yesterday, some players felt that it was right for CBS to bias their news stories, since it “was best for the country.”


The other side felt that what CBS did was wrong. Because they felt that CBS had a responsibility to present non-biased news stories.


What do you think?

I new Goldberg socially in the late 70's and early 80's. Now I know why I didn't like him. I personally wouldn't trust anything he wrote.

If CBS or any other network wants to bias thier newscasts then they should be free to do so. However, they should drop thier pretense to impartiality and show themselves to be the good little communists they are. Unfortunately if you say something often enough and loud enough then people will eventually believe it, regardless of how absurd it is.

"By adding these unrelated cases to the group of heterosexual cases, CBS knowingly misrepresented the truth about the probability of heterosexuals contracting the disease."


Huh? I thought it was fairly well established that about 80% of worldwide HIV infections resulted from heterosexual intercourse. How else could one explain the infection rate of sub-Saharan Africa?


"they systematically discredited anyone who disagreed with their goals by referring to them with derogatory references such as “ An ultra right wing” ” An extreme conservative," and “ A Religious Right winger.“.


For every time that CBS reporters used a demeaning description to describe of a member of the liberal community, they demeaned 50 representatives of the conservative community."


Yeah, right. You must be thinking of the CBS on Mars.


Making money off right-wing nuts predisposed to the notion that liberal conspirators control the media. Sounds like a tolerable enough scam.

So you think he was lieing then, or lieing now?

"By adding these unrelated cases to the group of heterosexual cases, CBS knowingly misrepresented the truth about the probability of heterosexuals contracting the disease."


Huh? I thought it was fairly well established that about 80% of worldwide HIV infections resulted from heterosexual intercourse. How else could one explain the infection rate of sub-Saharan Africa?


That might be true for sub saharan Africa, but that might not be the case for the US in the early to late 80's. THe demographics for HIV have changed a lot over the past 10-15 years.


There is no doubt in my mind that all the major networks shade their news coverage in certain directions. It's most obvious with foreign events, as I have seen news coverage in other countries and it differs drastically from what we see on TV here in the US. I'm not sure to what extent this occurs on the domestic front but it may very well occur.


That's why I am extremely reticent to listen to too much mainstream media these days. Too much spin doctoring, and too many people interested in shading the facts in certain directions, rather than trying to present as much factual information as possible.

IMO the majority of people who comprise and work in major media are clearly biased against conservatives (except for most of talk radio). Below is a link to a column I just read.

Here's a link to a more thorough treatment of the topic. Bottom line: journalists tend to reflect the biases of the relatively affluent, educated class from where they come and in which they live. They're hostile toward the religious right, recpetive to feminism and affirmative action, indifferent or hostile toward unions and and irritated by high taxes and government regulation. More importantly, however, journalists don't decide what goes in the news, their bosses and their bosses constituents (advertisers) do. The controlling forces over the news media have significant vested interests in the way things are, and are accutely sentive to any threat to them.