Writing Hot on the Trail of the Lefty
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 20, 2003; Page C01
After smacking the media around in his first book for being insufferably liberal, Bernard Goldberg is back with another hardback scolding.
The title: "Arrogance."
It's a safe bet that many of his ex-colleagues will find that a perfect description of the former CBS correspondent they view as a traitor.
"There's no question the media elites salivate more when they're going after Republicans and conservatives," he writes, and they would probably admit it "after a few drinks."
He sneers at "their liberal friends in Manhattan and Georgetown." He derides liberals for having "become precisely what they accuse conservatives of: being closed-minded and nasty." And he prescribes a 12-step program to cure journalists of their affliction.
But unlike in his first book, the best-selling "Bias," in which Goldberg mounted an argument -- a very personal argument, when it came to CBS -- that journalists lean to the left on many issues, "Arrogance" has a smug, us-and-them tone captured by its subtitle: "Rescuing America From the Media Elite." Maybe best-selling writers can get away with that sort of thing.
Goldberg scores some points, according to advance excerpts, but also renders sweeping judgments, as if everyone at every major news outlet is a card-carrying, Clinton-worshiping, ACLU-loving leftist.
While Republicans have friends in such places as talk radio, Fox News and the Washington Times, he says, "Al Gore and his pals in the media" forget to mention that "Democrats also have friends, in some very powerful liberal places . . . like major newspapers in every big city in the country, big-circulation mainstream newsmagazines, television networks with their millions and millions of viewers." What's more, "they need to be saved -- from themselves."
Among his proposed 12 steps: Journalists should move to places like Tupelo, Miss., and Mitchell, S.D. Organizations for black, Hispanic, Asian and gay journalists should be disbanded as divisive. Reporters should stop inserting the word conservative "like a warning label on a pack of cigarettes." They should be spanked for bias on a Web site he would call newsjerks.com.
In a more constructive vein, Goldberg calls for greater ideological and class diversity in newsrooms filled with upper-income staffers. (Former New York Times managing editor Gerald Boyd seems to agree, telling the Associated Press Managing Editors last week that journalists are "economically out of touch" with most of America, and he kept telling his staff, "Let's go to Kmart and see what real people are thinking.")
Goldberg ultimately gets worked up into imagining a group therapy session with a certain anchor saying: "Hello. My name is Dan, and I'm a liberal."
Kill Gregg?
Gregg Easterbrook is sorry for what he wrote, but stunned at what he sees as an overreaction. "This nuclear-bomb response is dramatically disproportionate to the offense," he says.
The New Republic writer apologized Friday for suggesting that the Jewishness of Hollywood executives -- he named Disney's Michael Eisner and Harvey Weinstein of Disney's boutique film unit, Miramax -- was responsible for the awfulness of the movie "Kill Bill, Vol. 1."
"Even on the Internet, you need editors," says Easterbrook, who recently started a daily posting called "Easterblogg." "I stand by the thoughts in the piece, but the wording is terrible . . . both because it offends people and keeps people from recognizing that the thoughts are valid."
In last Monday's column, he wrote: "Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence." With that passage, he added on Friday, he wrongly invoked "a thousand years of stereotypes."
But Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League called Easterbrook's apology "insufficient," saying: "There is no excuse for bringing religion into a discussion about greed and the film industry." And ESPN, where he was writing a weekly football column, promptly fired him "without contacting me first or asking my side of the story," Easterbrook says. ESPN is owned by Disney.
Easterbook, who is Christian, allows that "what I wrote was very stupid and wrong and offensive. But in fairness to me, I have a publishing career that runs to several million words. I have no history at all of saying anything like this. . . . Judge me based on who I am and the totality of my work."
Playing Hardball
News organizations often protect the names of rape victims and whistle-blowers. But the press withheld the name of the bonehead Chicago Cubs fan who interfered with what could have been a game-saving catch in the National League Championship Series -- except for the Chicago Sun-Times.
The paper outed 26-year-old Steve Bartman as the guy who may have kept the Cubs out of the World Series. "We're not in the business of suppressing news," says Editor Michael Cooke. "Do people really think he's going to be killed, that Cubs fans would kill him? What does that say about Cubs fans?"
Some staffers asked, "Why are you ruining this guy's life?" Cooke's answer: "He became the center of an incredible news story. He's now part of the Cubs curse lore."
But Chicago Tribune Managing Editor James O'Shea says, "No one felt any pressing need to name him. We wanted to debate whether it was the right thing to do. Naming him just points the way to possible harm. . . . There was hysteria surrounding this guy."
The Trib used Bartman's name after he went public. "The Tribune is now dabbing its perfumed hanky at its mouth and saying, 'We can name him now because he's put out a public statement,' " Cooke scoffs.
Mayor Richard Daley cried foul: "What does it say about you media people? . . . You would not print your editor's name, address and telephone number and tell people, 'They did that editorial.' "
Footnote: After the Yankees' dramatic American League pennant win, a New York Post editorial lamented that "the Yankees couldn't get the job done. . . . It's a crying shame that Roger Clemens' career had to end on a losing note." Editor Col Allen told the Associated Press that the paper prepared two editorials and ran the wrong one in some editions.
The Kobe Blackout
With half the media world converging on Colorado for the Kobe Bryant trial, the Aspen Daily News is just saying no.
"I'm sick of it," says Editor Rick Carroll, who has banned further coverage of the sexual assault case. "We've had a few readers and journalists say we're up to a publicity stunt." But Carroll says the paper doesn't want to add to the media overkill. One prominent dissenter is the paper's owner, Dave Danforth, who wrote a piece disagreeing with his editor's edict.
Beltway Bound
The New Yorker has come up with a novel concept: a Washington correspondent who will live in Washington.
The magazine, which recently hired Margaret Talbot from the New York Times Magazine and Katherine Boo from The Washington Post, is giving the coveted job to James Bennet, now Jerusalem bureau chief of the New York Times and a former White House reporter.
Unlike his predecessors, Nick Lemann and Joe Klein, who did the job from the New York suburbs, Bennet will hang his hat here.
Who Leaked That?
From the Philadelphia Inquirer: "Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he 'didn't want to see any stories' quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used." |
