01 Apr 2002 How the Media Distorts the News, by R.D. Davis
When I heard about veteran CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg’s new book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, I knew I had to read it. It’s not that I had to be convinced. I noticed the media’s egregious bias years ago. This was just more proof coming from someone who was once actually a part of it all.
I have told people for years that if all they watched was the news on ABC, CBS, CNN or NBC, all they really “knew” – particularly about economic and social issues – was what they were told. Sadly, people formulate their political and social opinions on this “news,” which is nothing more than left-wing indoctrination. This means their “thinking” can be controlled, directed and limited by a liberal media.
In his book, Goldberg discloses that network news steals just about everything from the major liberal (read socialistic and secular humanistic) newspapers. Therefore, if the Washington Post and the New York Times are against the flat tax, the networks can’t and won’t be far behind. This in itself is not surprising since polls show that 89% people working in the media vote Democrat. They all share the same values.
Pretty much everyone in the media think the same way on the big social issues of our time like gun control, parental rights, abortion, feminism, homosexual rights, the environment and school prayer. Furthermore, they think the way that they think is the only way to think.
This would not be a problem if, as renowned economist and columnist Dr. Thomas Sowell puts it, “Media bias does not become media fraud.” Media fraud is committed when crucial facts are deliberately left out of news stories if they undermine or destroy a left-wing argument.
In his book, Goldberg gives some cogent examples of media fraud. He describes how the media essentially do public relations for the HIV/AIDS lobby by spreading fear, by telling viewers how AIDS was about to break out into mainstream heterosexual America. Goldberg points out this was not true. In his book, White Lies, Black Lies, black commentator Tony Brown echoed this, saying the AIDS threat to heterosexuals was a media farce.
On women’s issues, the media seek out liberal feminist organizations such as the pro-abortion NOW, but not those opposing abortion. When day care studies pop up, the media immediately take sides. Those who believe that most toddlers are better off with their own mothers than with day care workers are ignored. It is never explored as to whether adolescent children would do better if a parent were home after school instead of “fending for themselves.”
Goldberg also gives many examples of how socialists in the media can get away with making certain statements and observations that conservatives never could. For example, black liberal commentator Julianne Malveaux once said of Clarence Thomas: “I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease.” Despite a statement like this, she has never been considered a “hatemonger,” and she gets invited back to state her liberal opinions all the time.
What if black conservative Ezola Foster, a past vice presidential candidate and the president of American Family Values, had said the same thing as Malveaux, but wished illness on Jesse Jackson instead. ( I have met and talked with Ezola several times, and I can’t imagine her saying this even in a private conversation.) The media would probably treat her as an “Uncle Tom” who hates her own race. In his book, Goldberg asks the question, “Why is it that when liberal media stars say nasty things they’re merely sharing their thoughts with us and their feelings, but when the same sentiment comes out of a conservative’s mouth, it’s seen as mean-spirited?”
This media bias is one of the main reasons why people are literally “brainwashed” to dislike conservatives. And one does not need to wonder why the Fox News (“We Report, You Decide”) is fast becoming the news network of choice. On Fox, you hear all views.
During his three decades at CBS, Bernard Goldberg repeatedly voiced his concerns to network executives about the one-sided nature of the news coverage. Unfortunately, no one listened to his complaints. If they did, they just blew him off.
Goldberg felt there was no other choice but to blow the whistle on his own industry – to break the code of silence that pervades the news business. Bias is the result. Once you read it, I guarantee you’ll never look at your nightly news the same way again.
Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author, and not necessarily those of Project 21.