An Introduction to Media Bias

In a perfect world, a whistle blower would have been taken aside, sat down and his or her story documented and analyzed to ensure that once the veracity of which has been proven, the culpable will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Unfortunately, ours is not a real world and most whistle blowers know that they are on an uphill battle against giants and behemoths who control and command people and vast resources. For sure Bernard Goldberg felt he was fighting hell and high water when he finally blew the whistle on the media and its biases whether for or against something, someone or whatever.

Goldberg’s 2003 published book Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News says it all about how the various mass media reported or presented the news not as objective and unbiased entities but had self-serving inclinations. Goldberg knew what he was talking about considering “in his thirty years at CBS News, this Emmy Award winning reporter earned a reputation as one of the preeminent reporters in the television news business. When he looked at his own industry, however, he saw that the media far too often ignored their primary mission: objective, disinterested reporting. (Goldberg, 2003)” The book is filled with facts and truths and it is especially disheartening to read how his own network and colleagues at the network made him feel like a pariah after he “wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal criticising his employer for broadcasting a put-down of the ‘flat tax’ (a conservative fad of the mid-1990s) as though it were straight news (Frank, 2002).”

Instead of facing the issue head on, the media truly distorts the real issue and spins it for its own benefit or interest. Goldberg’s book is a goldmine of information and though written several years ago, the lessons therein are as valuable now as before – and the book is quite difficult to put down once one starts reading.

Bibliography:


Frank, T. (2002) “Let’s talk class again.” London Review of Books, vol.6, no.21. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 8 November 2009].

Goldberg, B. (2003) Bias: A CBS insider exposes how the media distort the news. New York, HarperCollins Publishers. [Internet] Available from [Accessed 8 November 2009].