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No Diversity in Leftist Newsrooms, Goldberg Tells NewsMax Wes Vernon, NewsMax.comWASHINGTON – We can destroy you. That’s the thrust of an implied threat to Bernard Goldberg after he blew the whistle on left-wing bias in the media.
But the former CBS correspondent has stirred up a very animated nationwide discussion of just that subject with his new book, "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News.” He was going at a fast clip trying to keep a schedule of back-to-back interviews when NewsMax.com caught up with him late Monday. "Is CBS News going to fire me?” he asked after he had broken the ice in 1996. "If we wanted to fire you, we would have fired you the day the Wall Street Journal piece ran," was the reply. After all, would the company want a headline such as "Correspondent Fired for Talking About Liberal Bias in the Media”? Well, then? The news executive let Goldberg know that if he became a sympathetic character, the company would use "all the big guns in its arsenal” against him. The veteran CBS News correspondent says he took that in much the same way Crazy Joey Gallo would interpret a similar warning from Carlo Gambino. In this case, Goldberg knew that meant "a public relations arsenal.” And the executive said this "as calmly as can be,” the network veteran told NewsMax. "He said: ‘You know how corporations work. Nothing personal. It’s just business.’” "No threats,” Goldberg went on. "It’s almost as if it was a friendly warning.” They Have Ways In the book the author explains that CBS, like all big companies, has people on the payroll who can take care of any nasty methods that might be used. "They could plant stories with friendly newspaper writers about how I had to go because no one would work with me in the wake of the op-ed column, or who knows, maybe that I was ‘a political activist with a political agenda.’” Political agenda? He says that as of the time he wrote the Journal article, he had never voted for a Republican. Since then? Well, that’s something the former network insider prefers to keep a secret, while adding, "You can read between the lines.” The 1996 meetings with executives in New York did not last long, Goldberg reports. They had issued their warning, but he would not back down or apologize for what he had written. "They were all protesting entirely too much.” As for the substance of what he had said then and continues to say in his new book: "Just the general conversation. Forget about the news,” he told NewsMax. Network newsroom conversation reinforces left-wing conventional wisdoms among those who write, produce and voice what America sees on the major network news broadcasts. In the interview, he cites examples: "If you’re in the newsroom at the networks, and you say something like, ‘Well, I don’t think affirmative action is that good an idea if Jesse Jackson’s kid or Diana Ross’s kid gets an advantage over the son of a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant coal miner from West Virginia,’ you’d be seen as a little odd: 'Come on, that’s not the party line on affirmative action.'” Or to cite another scenario: "If you go in there and say, ‘You know, I think there’s an excess of feminists. I’m not against fair play, but I think some people are just masquerading as feminists when, in fact they’re sexist,’ you’re 'anti-woman.'” Diversity in Appearance but Not in Substance The networks talk about diversity. They may try to nickel and dime you at contract time, but there’s always enough money to send supervisors out to conferences of black, gay or other "protected” minorities to bring "diversity” to the newsroom. "They talk about diversity,” says Goldberg, "but there’s not a lot of diversity of opinion.” Anyone who has worked in a network environment knows that certain kinds of "diversity” rate as high priorities. There are lots of white liberals, black liberals, straight liberals, gay liberals, male liberals, female liberals, Hispanic liberals, Asian liberals and "Native American” liberals. So there IS diversity. But exactly what’s wrong with this picture is not something the hiring brass considers. And why? As one Washington correspondent told this writer, "There is no left wing.” Us Moderates and Those Right-wingers "That’s a great quote,” said Goldberg. "That’s a great quote because we’ve heard on the network news the description of right-wing Republicans, right-wing Christians, right-wing radio talk show hosts, right-wing Miami Cubans. The only time they use left-wing is when they’re talking about a part of an airplane.” No such thing as left wing? "It’s a great story, I wish I could say I’m surprised,” said Goldberg. The world, according to much of the Washington media, is made up of "moderates like themselves, and right-wing nuts.” So how can a group of intelligent, well-educated people develop such a herd instinct? That question leads him to conclude that "everybody would be better off if the network headquarters were in places like Omaha, Nebraska, where there is a different sensibility out there, and a little of that rubbed off on the anchors. "When you travel in certain circles [i.e. Manhattan and Georgetown cocktail parties] after awhile it becomes group think. "They can identify conservative positions very, very clearly. And that’s fine,” he said. "I don’t have a problem in the world with that." Educated but Ignorant "But when it comes to liberal positions, they don’t even think they’re liberal. They just think they’re reasonable. They just think they’re sensible positions. They just think they’re civilized. That’s why they can say with a straight face, and I contend pass a lie detector test, when asked if there’s liberal bias, and say no because they don’t even know what a liberal bias means.” One thing that does continue to surprise the veteran of 28 years with CBS News is the fact that many in the upper echelons at CBS, once you get beyond the news department, are not left-wing, yet they tolerate what the news types are doing to the corporation. "That’s the one thing that baffles me,” he said. "The people who are in charge of money, you would think at some point would say, ‘We can’t let these guys in the news division squander this valuable asset any longer.’” Since there is no sign of any such introspection in the corporate suite, Goldberg figures they’ve concluded the hemorrhaging of viewers can be attributed to the multiplicity of cable channels and that there are now up to 500 choices, as opposed to only three just a few years ago. No doubt that’s a big part of the problem, but it’s not the whole story, said the author. "They don’t connect their loss of viewers to liberal bias,” he said. He notes some news people have gone over to cable networks "where they think they get two sides.” Follow the Herd Who does much of the thinking when the networks decide how they’re going to draw up an assignment sheet early in the day? "I’ve often thought that if the New York Times and the Washington Post went on strike, the evening news producers wouldn’t know what to put on that night,” opined the longtime network correspondent. Even if those liberal establishment newspapers editorialize in a certain direction, usually left, "that influences the network people on how they’re going to handle the story and how they’re going to see the story.” Anyone at his former place of employment who says, "Hey, you know, I think Bernie is on to something,” risks retaliation, said Goldberg. That, he added, is "an unhealthy atmosphere.” But with his new book, probably heading for the New York Times best-seller list, the silence has now been broken.
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