CBS Whistle Blower

"It's short of soap, so there are lice in the hospitals. It's short of pantyhose, women's legs go bare. It's short of snowsuits, so babies stay home in the winter. Sometimes it is short of cigarettes so millions of people stop smoking, involuntarily. It drives everybody crazy. The problem isn't communism; no one even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages." - John Chancellor of NBC speaking of the Soviet Union, August 21 1991, as cited by Bernard Goldberg in Bias.

The argument for ethnic and racial diversity in newsrooms is one that Liberals are familiar with and adept at explaining. Regardless of good intentions on the part of the dominant racial and ethnic group, the argument goes, different groups bring with them different life experiences and different perspectives on stories and on what stories deserve more or less attention. Setting aside for the moment the question as to whether race and ethnic origin are accurate metrics of perspective, the argument has saliency. One wonders, therefore, why newsrooms to not also make formal and concerted efforts to insure political and ideological diversity in newsrooms.

Assessing the extent of Liberal bias in the major national media is often clouded by :what is meant by, Liberal, Moderate, and Conservative. There is an understandable tendency for everyone to view themselves as balanced, moderate, and near the center of the political spectrum. The recent book Bias by long-time CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg illustrates this tendency. After Goldberg had written an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal asserting that the national news programs were plagued by a Liberal bias, CBS's Dan Rather expressed his chagrin to Goldberg that he had published his critique in the Conservative Wall Street Journal. Goldberg pointed out that Rather himself had published op-ed pieces in the New York Times. That was all right, according to Rather, because the New York Times is middle of the road. From Rather's perspective, the New York Times swims in the middle of the political mainstream. This rather disturbing lack of circumspection and understanding of the American political scene on the part of Rather, goes a long way toward understanding why those in the major media do not believe they are burdened by bias.

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