Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In his #1 New York Times bestseller, Bias, Emmy Award-winning journalist Bernard Goldberg created a national firestorm when he exposed the liberal biases of the so-called mainstream media. Now Goldberg takes on Big Journalism and punctures the bubble in which the media elites live and work-a culture of denial where contrary views are not welcome. With blistering wit and passion, Goldberg offers a twelve-step program to help journalists overcome their addiction to slanted news and exposes the main culprits of arrogance in the media. He reveals: How the media's coverage of the Jayson Blair scandal missed far more serious problems at the New York Times, Why the media refuse to shoot straight when the subject turns to guns, Which CBS News icon is "transparently liberal," according to commentator Andy Rooney, Why some think the top journalism school in America is an intellectual gulag, How some journalists, like Bob Costas and Tim Russert, do get it-and how they think American journalism can be made better.

SYNOPSIS

Former CBS News correspondent Goldberg cites example after example of what he identifies as distorted reporting and asserts that these examples prove the pervasiveness of a liberal bias in the mainstream media. His credibility is diminished by a breathless, scattershot approach and sketchy documentation of examples (many taken out of context); but his points seem to be that attuned citizens will find such examples everywhere they look and that honest journalists should open their eyes. He includes a section of contact information for conservative organizations and think tanks.There is no bibliography. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Most people who hit the top of the bestseller lists with their first book would enjoy their success, but Goldberg (Bias) would rather grouse about how little media attention he got and how even his new publisher (he was previously with Regnery) doesn't understand why liberal bias in journalism is a "crucial" issue. His analysis of the media's "leftward" slant in coverage of social issues, buttressed by his own experiences as a CBS News correspondent and tales from anonymous colleagues, is not without its persuasive qualities, though undermined by rather obvious deck-stacking, condescension toward opposing viewpoints and intermittent outrageousness. He also drops hints about how news organizations bully interviewees to eliminate anything that might contradict what they broadcast an act of arrogance transcending ideological lines but quickly drops that story in favor of more liberal-bashing. And despite his admonition to media professionals to "stop taking [criticism] personally," Goldberg repeatedly makes it personal, taking shots at Barbara Walters, for example, or accusing New York Times columnist Frank Rich of attacking him as a favor to a college classmate. That's only a fraction of his complaints against what he sees as the paper of record's ideological stance, which he considers both far more pervasive and more important than the Jayson Blair scandal. (Nor, he says, is it a new problem, recycling criticisms of Stalin-era Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty that have recently gained favor among mainstream analysts.) Goldberg isn't just a lone voice in the wilderness, either, as interviews with Bob Costas and Tim Russert offer supporting perspectives. Still, this is pure, unadulterated Goldberg, with precisely the same combination of insider knowledge and righteous indignation that made him a hit the first time around. Expect robust sales. (Nov.) Forecast: The publisher has announced a first printing of 325,000 copies and plans to run radio ads in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Chicago and print ads in most major papers and book review journals. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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