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1、.Hannah SuskoMay 11, 2009AP English and CompositionResearched ArgumentMedia BiasSection I: IntroductionBernard Goldbergs Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News is an enlightening book that explores the world of journalism and the liberal bias that exists in the media. Goldberg ha

2、s taken his first-hand encounters with bias in the media and put them together into an entertaining, informative, eye-opening book. Goldberg is brutally honest, and he is not afraid to give names and tell his personal stories. Bias is not only entertaining but it is also very informative and gives a

3、 new light on the way the news is presented (Bias). Bias is not only entertaining but he is also very informative and gives a new light on the way the news is presented (Bias). Bernard Goldberg has been in the television industry for many years, 5.2and the anecdotes he tells from his profession are

4、very amusing. Section II: The Authors BackgroundBernard Goldberg is a ten-time Emmy-winning journalist. Today he is a frequent commentator for FOX News and a correspondent for HBO on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. He was born in New York City and attended college at Rutgers. He started his career i

5、n Atlanta as a producer from 1972 to 1974 working for CBS News. In 2001 he wrote his very first book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. Bias was a number one New York Times bestseller. In addition to Bias, he has written a number of other bestsellers such as Arrogance, 100

6、People Who Are Screwing Up America: (And Al Franken is #37), Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right, and A Slobbering Love Affair (Bernard G). Bernard Goldberg worked as a news correspondent for CBS from the age of 28 in 1972, until the summer of 2000. The other titles of Goldbergs books supp

7、ort his view of liberals that he described in Bias. Goldberg has worked in the media for many years, 5.2and he is more than qualified to write a book about media bias. Goldbergs latest book, A Slobbering Love Affair, is related to Bias in that he is describing how liberals in the media promote their

8、 own beliefs. The way that Goldbergs colleagues responded to a newspaper article he wrote about media bias greatly influenced his writing style in Bias. Goldberg definitely expresses his strong opinions in the book, 5.2and he has concealed motives of defending himself and trying to persuade readers

9、to agree with his ideals (Bias). Despite the fact that Goldberg mentions several times that he is a Democrat, the book is about criticizing Democrats for not being impartial when telling the news. Section III: The Books Argument After working for CBS News for over twenty-five years, Bernard Gol

10、dberg firmly believes that a liberal bias exists in the media. Goldberg's writing style is very persuasive and he does a fantastic job in getting the reader to understand his points of view. He is also very entertaining; he uses humor, which is very effective in Bias. Bias is written in first pe

11、rson and Goldberg tells the story of how he exposed the liberal bias in the news. Goldberg never gives a reason or a solution to the problem, but he complains and points out the various flaws that exist in the media. He points out that a large portion of the news focuses on stories about things like

12、 missing children and focuses less on important stories. Pointing out flaws in the media helps the reader relate and find things in common with Goldberg. Goldberg also appeals to pathos throughout the book. He tells the story of how he wrote an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal 12.1exposing one

13、 of his colleagues for displaying a liberal bias in a news segment. He describes the way his co-workers ostracized him and includes several phone messages and letters he received from them (Bias).Even if one agrees with the way that his co-workers treated him, it is hard not to feel bad for Goldberg

14、 during some parts of the book. One of Goldbergs most effective rhetorical strategies is his tones. The combination of his writing style and his tones make Goldberg sound intelligent and wise. Goldberg is very persuasive when using a critical tone. While Goldberg is telling his story, he includes se

15、veral quotes from other people that agree with his views. He also includes quotes from people that oppose his claims about the liberal bias, such as Dan Rather. Although he does include quotes from both sides, the quotes he published from people like Dan Rather sounded very unintelligent or mean. Go

16、ldberg names specific people that do not agree with him like Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw. Despite the fact that he calls these newscasters his friends in the book, he makes jokes about them as a device to persuade readers not agree with his contemporaries. He refers to Dan Rather as &

17、quot;The Dan," and refers to prime time, liberal journalists as "The Mafia" or "The Liberal Media Elite" (Bias). Although he is being disrespectful, he is effective in making “The Media Elite” look bad. It is hard to see in this paragraph the connection to the needs of this

18、section.     He also uses several graphs and statistics. Goldberg included a quote that asked what party journalists identified with and fifty percent of them admitted to being a Democrat and only four percent admitted to being a Republican. This statement is important becau

19、se it proves that liberals are more open about sharing their opinions, 5.2and they do not try to stay as objective. He also included a page of statistics contrasting views of the public with views of the “media elites.” One said “23 percent of the public said they were liberal; 55 percent of the jou

20、rnalists described themselves as liberal.” Another statistic states 16.1“Half the public was for stricter handgun controls; 78 percent of the journalists were for tougher gun controls” (Bias). These statistics were effective because they showed how journalists in the media are far more liberal than

21、society as a whole.    Although his writing style is very convincing, the last thirty pages changed my opinion, and probably many other readers'. For most of the book, Goldberg is only pointing the flaws in Democrats, but in the last thirty pages he promotes conservative newscaste

22、rs like Bill O'Reilly. Goldbergs biggest flaw in writing was mentioning that Bill OReilly is fair and balanced. Including this information did not relate to the topic and his writing style became much less effective towards the end of the book. His strong rhetoric and bitter attitude made it ver

23、y easy for liberals to respond after the release of Bias.You summarize the points of the book well, but you only loosely refer to the rhetoric at work to create these points. Revisit the directions for Section III. Section IV: Opposing points of viewL. Brent Bozell III discusses the effects of Bias:

24、 A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News in his book Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media. Several books were written in response to Bias, such as What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the NewsHow does this sentence fit here?. Bozell strongly agre

25、es with Goldbergs beliefs about liberal bias. He notes several occasions where a liberal bias has occurred but also mentions the liberal counterattacks. Bozells diction is very condescending towards the democrats who did not agree with Goldbergs claims, but he notes the most important counterargumen

26、ts. Bozell says the most prominent response to liberal bias claims is to cite Fox News and some of their very conservative newscasters. Many people bring up journalists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who are obviously Republicans. Some would argue that these Republicans have a “conservative dom

27、inance in the media (Weapons of Mass Distortion). He also mentions the idea that conservatives use the liberal bias excuse to cover up for republican failures. Bozell also mentions some Democrats claim that Al Gore lost the presidential election due to a conservative bias (Weapons of Mass Distortion

28、). All of these arguments are valid. When thinking of media bias, some of the names that come to mind are reporters such as Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews. Orthese names arent biased because we at least know where they stand; the problem comes when places like Fox an

29、d MSNBC tell us they are “fair” when, for these networks, nothing could be further from the truth. We think of these newscasters because they work for Fox News and MSNBC, who claim to be fair, but these are two of the most biased networks on television. The statement that a strong conservative media

30、 bias exists is true, but the liberal bias is much more abundant. Using reporters like Rush Limbaugh to show conservative bias is effective, but it does not address Goldbergs writing about the number of liberals in the media. Section V: Conclusion  The arguments that Bernard Goldberg made were very convincing and after reading this book my opinions about the media have changed. I do not like the way he made fun of people and at times he came across as very offensive, but