Tackling Bias
A news veteran reviews Bernard Goldberg’s Bias.

By Lou Cannon, a veteran newspaper reporter
January 26-27, 2002

Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, by Bernard Goldberg (Regnery, 232 pp., $27.95)

ward-winning CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg became an instant outcast at his network when, on February 13, 1996, he published an article in the Wall Street Journal accusing a colleague of one-sided reporting. In his Journal piece, Goldberg said the work of CBS's Eric Engberg exemplified the "liberal bias" of network news.

On a "reality check" segment of the CBS Evening News, Engberg had ridiculed the flat-tax proposal of presidential candidate Steve Forbes. Goldberg assailed Engberg for quoting only opponents of the flat tax, among them an unnamed economist who suggested the plan should be tested in Albania. Engberg's report concluded with a David Letterman-type parody, in which Engberg declared that "Forbes's Number One Wackiest Flat-Tax Promise" was his contention that it would give parents "more time to spend with their children and each other."

I never saw Engberg's commentary; assuming that Goldberg describes it accurately, its economic ignorance is even more blatant than its bias. Engberg said the flat tax was "called supply-side economics under President Reagan," a misleading shorthand that should have set off alarm bells at CBS. It didn't. Goldberg believes that this is because CBS producers — and anchorman Dan Rather — are so reflexively liberal (and anti-flat tax) that it never occurred to them that the piece might be unfair.

After Goldberg's column appeared, network luminaries, including CBS News president Andrew Heyward, complained that Goldberg was disloyal because he had expressed his opinions outside of CBS. Goldberg, who had worked for CBS since 1972, was kept on the payroll but disappeared from public view. He was so rarely seen on television that one admirer sent him a picture of a milk carton and asked him to paste his picture on it. (He was eventually put back on 48 Hours.)

Goldberg professes to be surprised that his colleagues (except the untouchable Andy Rooney, who wrote him a letter of support) regarded him as a "traitor" for writing the column. But whistleblowers are frequently treated as pariahs by those on whom they blow the whistle. For most Americans, loyalty to the team is a defining virtue; Goldberg knows this, and seems a bit uncomfortable with his apostasy. In his new book, Goldberg has a chapter on the "News Mafia," in which he compares himself to a mob member who cooperates with the authorities. (He casts anchorman Rather — "The Dan" — as the counterpart to TV's Tony Soprano.) When it comes to the "biggest sin" of telling others about the family business, writes Goldberg, "there is no difference — no difference, whatsoever! — between the wise guys who operate in the dark shadows of the underworld and the news guys who supposedly operate in the bright sunlight." Actually, there is an important difference: The Mafia kills members who talk. The bad guys at CBS, by Goldberg's account, kept him off the air and allowed him to stick around on full salary until he became eligible for his CBS pension on May 31, 2000, and took a job with HBO.

As a reporter who worked for the Washington Post nearly as long (26 years) as Goldberg did for CBS, I started reading his book with great anticipation: The deficiencies of network news need to be exposed, and this book offered an excellent opportunity to do it. Until the valiant and often brilliant performance of the networks in dealing with September 11 and its aftermath, television news was often slothful, slanted, and trivial; regrettably, Goldberg's book doesn't do justice to the problem, and must be marked down as an opportunity missed.

Goldberg seems to share my distaste for tabloid television; I say "seems" because he equates the sagas of Tonya Harding, Lorena Bobbitt, and Joey Buttafuoco with that of Elián González, of whom he writes: "I know so much about Elián González that for weeks before it finally happened, I was rooting for the U.S. government to send him back to Fidel Castro's Communist dictatorship, just so I wouldn't have to listen to his cousin Marisleysis anymore." This offhand comment — suggesting as it does a certain insouciance about what was, after all, a foreign-policy story of considerable significance — points to the unevenness that is the book's major flaw. Goldberg begins the book with a transparent joke about how his liberal friends are planning to celebrate its publication; a page later, he dismisses it as a "cheap attempt to be funny." This fitful beginning sets the tone for a book that is too often sarcastic when it ought to be serious.

Bias does, however, have its moments. Goldberg's best story is an account of what happened in 1993 when he suggested that CBS do a segment — on one of its magazine shows — examining the network's own bias. Heyward, then the show's executive producer, reluctantly agreed, but said Goldberg could only interview Rather if he agreed not to ask him any "tough questions." Goldberg then dropped the idea of doing a segment on CBS's bias.

Goldberg says that Heyward went on to admit that "of course, there's a liberal bias in the news" and to say that he would deny it if Goldberg ever repeat ed their conversation. (Heyward has declined comment on the book.) It's a great story, but on its very face, Goldberg's account of Heyward's admission contradicts the book's basic thesis — which is that liberal culture at CBS is so ingrained that it goes unrecognized. For example, the book depicts Rather as particularly resistant to any suggestion that he has any bias. Goldberg claims to like Rather, but it is hard to see why he would care for someone he portrays as untrustworthy, ruthless, and resistant to even the mildest criticism. Goldberg would be more believable if he frankly acknowledged that he is trying to settle scores. Instead, sounding remarkably like Dan Rather, he denies it. "Staring at a blank page on a computer screen for hours and hours and hours is not the most efficient way to be vindictive," he writes. (True, but it's also not the most efficient way to write a book.)

Goldberg's Wall Street Journal column bothered his bosses because he made a compelling case; his book will pose much less of a threat to them. It relies largely on data compiled by others to assert that CBS, NBC, and ABC have a liberal slant because journalists at these networks are disproportionately liberal, Democratic, and feminist. It's a familiar sermon, one that will be most convincing to those already sitting in the choir. Those with more agnostic views about news bias are likely to require more documentation to be convinced.

A model of such documentation was provided last February on National Public Radio by L. Brent Bozell, who observed that one of Bill Clinton's first presidential acts was to scrap an executive order of Ronald Reagan prohibiting U.S. funding for international agencies that subsidize or promote abortion. When George W. Bush became president, he reverted to the Reagan policy. Both presidents were carrying out campaign promises, but Bush's action was described by ABC anchor Peter Jennings as "taking a tough line on abortion" and Clinton's as "keep[ing] his word on abortion rights." Similar comparisons of network reporting on other hot-button issues — my candidate would be missile defense — might make the case for a pattern of bias that Goldberg simply assumes into evidence.

In painting his picture of journalistic unfairness, Goldberg uses a broad, sloppy brush. He asserts, for example, that Reagan was depicted on television as "the embodiment of the greedy 1980s"; but he is mistaken in believing that Reagan suffered on the network news. To the contrary, Reagan was so skilled in taking advantage of the camera (and so well liked by many of those who covered him) that Democrats often complained they weren't getting a fair shake. I covered Reagan in all his campaigns and throughout his presidency, and heard more complaints from outsiders that we were "too soft" on him than that we were "too hard. "We probably erred in both directions, but some of us were fairer than others. One of the fairest was White House correspondent Bill Plante, who was respected by Reagan and Reagan's critics alike. Plante reports for CBS.

Goldberg does better when he sticks to what he has observed. He tells an appalling story of an incident in which a producer on the CBS Evening News was reprimanded for a story about an Alabama chain gang in which all but one prisoner was black. The pictures illustrating the story accurately reflected the racial make-up of the chain gang, but the CBS brass worried that blacks might object and change the channel. This is an example of commercial, not liberal, bias; indeed, "cowardice" might be a more accurate word than "bias."

Late in his book, after repeatedly equating the big three network anchors, Goldberg salutes Jennings for telling the Boston Globe: "Conservative voices in the U.S. have not been as present as they might have been and should have been in the media." Goldberg agrees, and his book makes a strong case for political diversity in newsrooms. But Goldberg has also told Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post: "Does anyone think a 'diverse' group of conservative journalists would give us the news straight? I sure as hell don't. They'd be just like the Left." I suspect that Goldberg's confusion reflects contradictory premises that he has not thought through. At times, he views all reporting as opinion, and suggests that balance can be achieved by making newsrooms more representative. At other times, he opts for the tradition of "objective journalism," which requires journalists to set aside personal opinions and apply professional standards to their coverage.

Most journalists of Goldberg's generation, including me, prefer the professional remedy. I never found it difficult to be fair to Hubert Humphrey or Ronald Reagan (or George McGovern or Barry Goldwater), honorable men with different ideas. My guess is that this is also true of Goldberg, a television journalist of considerable attainment. The premise of the Journal column that made him a CBS outcast was not partisan or ideological: It was a complaint that the smear of the flat tax (and Forbes) violated elemental standards of journalistic fairness.

I cheered Goldberg's column because it so effectively made mincemeat of biased reporting. I wish I could cheer this book. Perhaps now that Goldberg has expressed his pent-up feelings about his former colleagues, he'll write a thoughtful sequel that lives up to the promise of this book.

— Mr. Cannon is the author of several books, the latest of which is Ronald Reagan: The Presidential Portfolio.