Speaking of Bernard Goldberg, CNN/Jeff Greenfield Transcript follows....of show last night... It was interesting, and especially if one has time to re-read it after hearing it. Greenfield tries pretty hard to be objective, but sometimes his real thoughts come through. Especially as he tries to have Goldberg accept what he says, without giving adequate rebuttal time...
How the media, who had acceped Goldberg for so long, and given him awards for good work, can now turn on him, and not have the average person wonder WHY is beyond me.
(I left out the Federal Rewards part on this...but it is on the link if anyone wants to see it)
CNN TRANSCRIPT/ GREENFIELD AT LARGE
Disparity in Federal Rewards for 9/11 Families; A Liberal Bias in the Media?
Aired January 7, 2002 - 23:00 ET
cnn.com
GREENFIELD: When we come back, Bernard Goldberg, author of "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News." Yes, my name wasn't in the index. Of course, there is no index.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GREENFIELD: The charge, of course, isn't new. Liberal media bias has been an article of faith among some conservatives, at least from the days of Vice President's Agnew's famous attack back in 1969. But when the charge comes from someone who spent most of his working life at CBS News, it's a different story. In his best-selling new book "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News," Bernard Goldberg, who worked for nearly 30 years as a reporter and producer for CBS says not only is there a liberal media bias, but you risk your professional life to talk about it. And indeed he says it happened to him. He joins us this evening from Miami.
Bernie, in reading your book, let me tell you what I found myself thinking. That you've got a lot of really telling points to make here, which some of which would've been a lot of stronger if you'd used a scalpel occasionally, instead of a meat ax. So I want to take some of them up, both the ones that I'm with you and the ones I got a problem with. OK?
BERNARD GOLDBERG, FRMR. CBS PRODUCER: Go ahead.
GREENFIELD: Let's talk about this overall social liberalism of the media.
GOLDBERG: Right.
GREENFIELD: More than 10 years ago, David Shaw of the "L.A. Times," probably for my money, the best media critic in the country, wrote an extensive piece about how unchoice the abortion issue. It's so overwhelmingly pro-choice, that the media can't even see the other side. Do you think that's still true?
GOLDBERG: Well, I don't have any surveys at hand, but I think it's basically true. I think there's a take on all the big social issues, including abortion in the newsroom. And the take on abortion is basically pro-choice.
GREENFIELD: See, I certainly think that was true. I tell you why I think that maybe that charge is somewhat dated. In the stem cell debate, where you know, I thought that the media, by and large, the debates that I saw, made the very -- tried very, very hard and did to put both sides on that. Even though on that issue, you might have thought the media were overwhelmingly on the side of research.
So do you think maybe -- what I'm getting at is, do you think maybe the drumbeat of criticism over the last years has changed some of the attitudes of the media towards some of these issues?
GOLDBERG: I see. So your overall question is, has there been a shift to the middle?
GREENFIELD: Or an understanding, yes.
GOLDBERG: Yes, I think I could give you right now, Jeff, about 100 examples of liberal bias in the media that are current. And I think an open-minded person, like yourself, would at least be persuaded and maybe even convinced that there's a liberal bias. But I think there's an overriding exhibit A that tells you that liberal bias is still a problem today.
And that is, how we identify liberals and how we identify conservatives. We overwhelmingly identify conservatives, because we think the audience needs to know that they're conservative, that they're not mainstream. And we rarely identify liberals, which is why we have right-wing Christians and right-wing Republicans, and right- wing radio talk show hosts and right-wing Miami Cubans. And the only time you hear the term "left wing" is if they're talking about a part of an airplane.
Now that's not a small point.
GREENFIELD: No, it isn't. And I think you're right -- I happen to think, by the way, that that's one of those points that is dead on in the book. So we agree with that. Can I just -- well go ahead, because I want to try to cover a fair amount of ground here.
GOLDBERG: Yes, let me just say this very quickly. In the bad old days that you and I remember, Jeff, reporters would identify crime suspects or criminals by race only if they were black. It would be Joe Blow, a black unemployed whatever committed a crime or was arrested, but they wouldn't do it because they're white.
Now why was that? Because blacks were seen as different, as out of the mainstream, as inferior, as more dangerous.
GREENFIELD: I take your point.
GOLDBERG: And what we're doing today...
GREENFIELD: I know. I understand the point because I'm saying I agree with you that there ought to be an even-handedness if you're -- if Phyllis Schlafly is a conservative woman, then the folks at NOW ought to be liberal women. And I agree.
GOLDBERG: Right, but the reason that doesn't happen is because the media elite sees conservatives as alien and different and sometimes as dangerous and inferior. And that informs everything else about how they see the big issues of our time.
GREENFIELD: For the record, I think that's one of those examples where perhaps you are overstating the case, but you're entitled to. Let me come to another one. I have no doubt that these surveys that show that the great majority of working journalists vote Democratic are absolutely right. And it's ridiculous to deny it. It's been true since the days of F.D.R. For all I know, it's been true since the days of Andrew Jackson.
But here's where I think the criticism goes overboard. I watched the 2000 campaign coverage, I not only did part of it, I watched it very closely, because as you know, it's what I do, part of my living. Can you honestly say that you think the media bent over to give Al Gore a break over George W. Bush in this last campaign in the coverage of the debates, in the coverage of Gore's exaggeration?
GOLDBERG: No. And I'm not saying that in the book, as you know. What I am saying is if the media overwhelmingly voted for Ronald Reagan, instead of Walter Mondale, or voted overwhelmingly for Richard Nixon, instead of George McGovern, which they did. Or if 89 percent of the journalists in Washington voted for George Bush instead of Bill Clinton, do you think we'd get the news the same way as we do today?
GREENFIELD: Well, let me come back to you on that. Some of the -- Tim Russert spent years working for Democratic politicians, for Daniel Moynihan and for Mario Cuomo. Do you think that Tim Russert in any way isn't as straight on a journalist as there is?
GOLDBERG: I think he is as fair as anybody on television.
GREENFIELD: So he can put his background behind him, right?
GOLDBERG: Absolutely.
GREENFIELD: OK.
GOLDBERG: And you know what? I don't care if 99 percent of the people in the media are liberal.
GREENFIELD: Well, then exactly.
GOLDBERG: I don't care. Except in the real world, in the real world, Jeff, it's very difficult when you're looking at the big issues, whether it's gay rights or race or certainly feminism, to keep your personal views. And look, why do we have diversity? Why is diversity such an important thing? Because we don't want all the stories to come from a white male perspective.
So we have black men and black women and Hispanic men and Hispanic women and Asian men and Asian women and gay men and straight men and all this. Well, if that's the case, and if that's important, so we just don't get a white male perspective, why isn't it equally as important, and since many of these people have a liberal perspective, why isn't it also important to get some more people with a conservative perspective?
GREENFIELD: It not only is, but...
GOLDBERG: If all these people...
GREENFIELD: Bernie, it not only is, it's been happening steadily for the last 10 years. And I think it's been a great thing.
We've got a little time left. And I want to concentrate on one last thing.
GOLDBERG: I'm not sure. Let me just say I'm not sure you're right about that at all.
GREENFIELD: I think the balance -- I think the rise of Fox TV, our competitor, I think the rise of conservative talk radio is all that kind of balance.
GOLDBERG: Well, absolutely.
GREENFIELD: OK, here's my last point though. Because you spend a lot of time in the book talking about what happened to you. You wrote a Wall Street Journal op/ed piece a few years ago. You criticized the CBS colleague by name for his unfair reporting. And you got hurt by it.
My argument on this is it wasn't a liberal, conservative thing. Institutions don't like people who criticize themselves.
GOLDBERG: That's right.
GREENFIELD: It's the same reason why "The New York Post" didn't cover Rupert Murdoch's divorce and remarriage the way they would have covered Ted Turner's. And so now, because you have been, I think, very tough -- I want to turn the tables on you in the time we have. One person never shows up in this book, Bernie, and it surprised me. Bryant Gumbel, who has been accused more often of liberal media bias than anybody else in the news. If you look at the Media Research Center, which you often quote.
Let me ask you if it's fair to ask if that's because you now are a correspondent on the show he anchors?
GOLDBERG: Because if you read the book, Jeff, you'll see that I almost -- I have almost nothing to say about any of the morning shows. I don't think that they're hard news shows. I mentioned Katie Couric once.
GREENFIELD: Yes.
GOLDBERG: But I don't mention Diane Sawyer. I don't mention Gibson. I don't mention Gumbel. I just -- I stay mainly with the evening news.
GREENFIELD: But Bernie, isn't it fair to ask if one of the reasons why you may have skirted that is because one of the most frequently cited examples of liberal media bias is now a colleague of yours?
GOLDBERG: And what's the point? What if the answer is yes?
GREENFIELD: But the point being that what you were talking about is not a case of media bias, but if not understandable, certainly common institutional fact that when somebody in an organization criticizes the organization from within, you could've attacked somebody at CBS News for being a right-wing corporate, you know, whatever.
GOLDBERG: Right.
GREENFIELD: And they'd give the same amount.
GOLDBERG: And that point would be better taken if I worked for IBM or General Motors. But when you work for a company that's reason for being is to look down everybody else's throat, we look down the throat of politicians, we look Dow the throat of church people, we look down the throat of business people, for that kind of organization of all the organizations to be offended when you look down their throat is not the same as if I worked for any other kind of company in America.
GREENFIELD: Oh, as we end this hour, remind you of a quote that you might want to put in the second edition from Edward R. Murrow (ph), Bernie, the icon of journalism. He said, "Journalists don't have thin skins; they have no skins."
GOLDBERG: Absolutely.
GREENFIELD: So let me suggest that my colleagues would do very well to take up this book, whether they like all of it or don't or think you were fair or not. And good luck to you. Thanks for joining us.
GOLDBERG: Thank you, Jeff, I appreciate it.
GREENFIELD: OK. When we come back, a case of unfairness so blatant and so outrageous, it has forced me leave the press box and run right onto the field.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GREENFIELD: And another thing, speaking of fairness, once and a while there's an event where there is no other side, where right and wrong is blatantly, obviously clear. I'm talking, of course, about the closing moments of yesterday's football game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers. Giant defensive end, and I do mean giant end, Michael Strayon (ph), needed only one quarterback sack to break the all-time NFL record. What happened? With time running out, Packer quarterback Brett Favre, to the apparent surprise of his team, sprinted to the right, slid to the ground, as Strayon (ph) gently flocked on him, thus breaking the record.
Friends, facts are facts. Two plus two equals four. Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And this was the biggest tank job since Rommel rolled through Africa. I'm an angry Jeff Greenfield. Thanks for watching. Lou Dobbs' MONEYLINE is next.
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