Bias 'The News Hour with Jim Lehrer' on PBS Television is one of the best newscasts available from Monday to Friday. In addition to a news summary, the program looks - in depth - at several stories of the day and the people who are asked to comment on these stories are, as a rule, well qualified to offer information and thoughtful opinions. Last week, 'The News Hour' did a story on a recently published book called BIAS, written by Bernard Goldberg, a former CBS television journalist for many years, who claims that CBS, and American news media in general, have a bias against conservatives. The coverage of BIAS on The News Hour was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, CBS declined an invitation by the producers of the News Hour to send a spokesperson to counter the charges Goldberg makes his book . By refusing to discuss the charges, CBS is, in effect, dismissing them - as trivial and unimportant. Second, the person who was invited to argue with the author of BIAS, was Marvin Kalb, also a former CBS Newsman, who flatly refused to agree with any of the points that the author of BIAS managed to make and who made no effort whatsoever to concede that there may be at least some bias in all reporting. Third, the moderator of the story, also a veteran newsman and a regular contributor to the News Hour, contributed very little to the content of the story. He did not really challenge any of the opinions his two guests expressed, all he did was introduce them and, once the argument got under way, let everyone say what they wanted to say. This, by the way, cannot be said of Jim Lehrer, who was the moderator the Bush-Gore Debates during the last presidential election. Fourth, the author of BIAS does not have a well-honed television personality. To start with, Bernard Goldberg is not 'telegenic' in the sense that Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Jim Lehrer and Marvin Kalb are 'telegenic'. He does not look and he does not sound like a Leading Man, he does not even look like the Leading Man's Best Friend. Time out for an old joke. Many years ago, when Ronald Reagan announced that he was going to run for Governor of California, a casting director apparently said, "No, no! Jimmy Stewart for Governor, Ronald Reagan for Best Friend!" Well, as everyone knows, Ronald Reagan's initial 'image problem', did not prevent him from becoming Governor of California and the President of the United States. In fact, being an actor helped him to become the Great Communicator. But Goldberg is no actor. Facing the steely-eyed, tough-talking Marvin Kalb, who looks like Jack Palance, the deadly gunfighter in SHANE, Goldberg looked as if he was afraid he would get shot between the eyes before he got his gun out of the holster and before he had a proper chance to shoot himself in the foot. I realize that what I am expressing here is a bias - the bias of the general public. It is possible that, in time, news anchors - and politicians - will not be judged by the way they look and sound and people will stop calling women news reporters 'talking hairdos'. For the time being, it is foolish to deny the influence of almost one hundred years of Hollywood casting. Trudeau and his gunfighter pose helped to get him elected and the fact that Mike Harris looks and sounds and acts a lot like John Wayne has not hurt him one bit. Back to Goldberg. Looks aside, Bernard Goldberg's biggest problem is that he was unprepared. Instead of launching into a number of clearly worded claims that he presents in his book, the only real point Goldberg actually managed to make was that when news reporters introduce a group of senators on their way to vote on some issue, they make sure that the audience knows who the Conservative senators are, while Ted Kennedy is simply introduced as 'the Senator from Massachussets'. This is not much of a charge. The practice may express a concealed anti-Conservative bias but it can also be argued that since everyone knows that Kennedy is a Democrat, why should newsmen bother to point it out? People who appear on television should not assume that they will be asked questions that will help them to make their case. They have to be prepared to make their case no matter what they are asked. Gregory Peck said it best when he appeared in front of a live audience, "You will ask the questions you want to ask and I will give the answers I want to give." This is not to say that people should feel sorry for Goldberg. BIAS is selling well, it has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list for five weeks. Conspiracy Theorists may want to argue that because Kalb was allowed to do a hatchet job on Goldberg, he generated sympathy for him and as a result more people will buy the book. Some may even argue that the producers knew this all along. Be that as it may, the fact remains that Goldberg is right when he says that the media distort the news and that most North American journalists are biased. They tend to be anti-conservative and pro-liberal. Just because Goldberg did not manage to present a lot of evidence to support his claims does not mean that he is wrong. Journalists who cover news stories all over the world stay at the same hotels and drink at the same bars. Most of them will admit that there is a 'herd mentality' that tends to produce a consensus in the way news is reported and this consensus - this bias - is sometimes arrived at because some reporters actually think that what they believe is the truth and that their reporting is not influenced by their political views. The good news is that the public, fortunately, often knows the truth even if reporters are unwilling or unable to report it.
Reagan is a good example. The media never took him seriously. To them, he was nothing more than an actor. To the voters he was much more than that. He was a leader. A caveat: people in totalitarian countries are usually well schooled at reading between the lines. People in democratic countries tend to be more trusting and easier to fool. A.S.
Bias
Archived Articles | 29 Jan 2002 | EWR
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