CBS NEWS VETERAN CALLED 'TRAITOR'; WRITES BOOK EXPOSING ELITE BIAS
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XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX FRI NOV 30 2001 15:21:37 ET XXXXX
**World Exclusive**
In the first defection of its kind, a 28-year veteran of CBS NEWS has written a tell-all book which names names and exposes elite media bias and slated coverage of events.
The DRUDGE REPORT has obtained the first copy of BIAS, A CBS INSIDER EXPOSES HOW THE MEDIA DISTORT THE NEWS -- anexplosive new work by CBS NEWS veteran Bernard Goldberg.
The book set for release in January, presents an unprecedented blueprint of media bias as documented by an insider.
"Bernie Goldberg is a G-ddamn traitor," a CBS NEWS executive said late Friday. "The book is trash written by a bitter man who is now determined to settle a score."
Writing that he's never voted for a Republican for elected office, Goldberg exposes the bias he witnessed first hand during the nearly three decades he spent at the network.
Goldberg zeros in on CBS NEWS anchor Dan Rather and current CBS NEWS President Andrew Heyward, who is quoted as saying: "Look Bernie, of course there's a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left."
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Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
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(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2001
Goldberg Exposes Networks' Racism
NewsMax.com
Monday, Dec. 3, 2001
Among the many bombshells dropped by longtime CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg in his new book, "Bias," are the leftist networks' hypocritical racial attitudes.
"'Bias' devotes considerable attention to the subject of race," Howard Kurtz writes in today's Washington Post. "During the May 2000 sweeps, Goldberg says, CBS's '48 Hours' and NBC's 'Dateline' ran no stories involving blacks, and ABC's '20/20' ran two. (The lone exception was '60 Minutes,' on which seven of 12 stories featured blacks as main characters.)"
During a 1999 story for "48 Hours" on a jailed teen-ager, Goldberg writes, a New York producer asked his field producer, "What is she?"
"'She's black,' the producer told his boss in New York, 'but she's light-skinned.' He felt he had to say that to get the okay to proceed with the story." Another producer is quoted as saying the bosses "were not subtle at all. They made it pretty damn clear to me that 'we want stories with white folks.'"
Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of "48 Hours," insisted to Kurtz that, despite these details, Goldberg was just making assumptions.
"These are charges without validation. If you can't give me a specific, I say case closed. We are about doing good stories, end of sentence. Race is not a factor," Zirinsky claimed, completely ignoring the fact that Goldberg did provide specifics.
The media elites are also hypocritical about sexism, the book points out. "Feminists are the pressure group that the media elites (and their wives and friends) are most aligned with," Goldberg writes, yet the networks are obsessed with what feminists denounce as "lookism."
Goldberg quotes from a "'48 Hours' Survival Guide": "Looks count, too. This is television after all. You can find the most articulate character in the world, but if she has no teeth or has a beard, no one will hear what she is saying."
Of course, Big Media's anti-religious bias will susprise no one. Goldberg describes a CBS conference call in which a Washington staffer "nonchalantly referred to a presidential candidate as 'Gary Bauer, the little nut from the Christian group.'" No one objected.
Goldberg: CBS Brass Ordered Me to Go Easy on Dan Rather
NewsMax.com
Monday, Dec. 3, 2001; 5:13 p.m. EST
In 1993, when longtime CBS News journalist Bernard Goldberg proposed an investigative report on media bias featuring interviews with top network news stars, CBS brass approved the project, but ordered Goldberg to go easy on Dan Rather.
In his first interview since word of his explosive new book, "Bias: A Veteran CBS Reporter's Account of How the Media Distorts the News," leaked out Friday, Goldberg told WABC Radio's Sean Hannity about an incident where he suggested the media bias report to CBS News boss Andrew Heyward for the new show Heyward was then producing, "Eye to Eye with Connie Chung."
"He looked at me like I must be on drugs," Goldberg said. But after some cajoling Heyward agreed to take the idea to the then-president of the news division.
"He came back and said: 'The president of the news division says you can do it. But you can't ask Dan any tough questions.'
"I thought he was kidding," Goldberg said. "I mean, could you imagine if I said, I want to do a piece on - I want to interview Newt Gingrich, but don't ask him any tough questions?"
When told he couldn't ask Rather what he wanted, Goldberg decided to drop the media bias report altogether.
The veteran reporter had words of praise for Rather, but said he also shared character flaws that bedeviled Rather's old nemesis, Richard Nixon.
"Dan is a great guy a lot of the time," he told Hannity. "He's funny, he's charming, he's intelligent, he's all the things you want a guy to be."
But Rather could also be ruthless and unforgiving, Goldberg said.
"When Dan sneezes, [Rather's staff] all catch cold. When Dan says jump, they all say, 'How high?'... Any kind of serious disagreement, especially about liberal bias, was seen as treason," he added.
The CBS veteran told Hannity about a network vice president who once warned, "Just like Nixon, if you cross Dan once - if he perceives you as an enemy for a second - you're an enemy for life."
"The irony," said Goldberg, "is (that) Dan Rather, the great journalist who exposed Nixon for what he was, sort of became Nixon."