Just read a good review on Sooner Thought of Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? which is apparently a feisty or shrill (depending upon your persuasion) response to Bernard Goldberg's book, emphatically named BIAS, in block capitals, promising an "insider's" exposé of "how the media distort the news." I couldn't find a website dedicated to Mr. Goldberg's book; instead, I found the Media Research Center, which clearly champions Mr. Goldberg's bias.

BIAS first registered on my radar when someone at work mentioned how apalled he was at all the distortions of the news as described in the book. I flipped through it -- it was on the table in the office where everyone contributes to a sort of a "suggested reading" library (pile, to be accurate). Seemed to me that Mr. Goldberg's gripe was really that the media's bias didn't coincide with his own...not something I'd invest my time in reading of all that is available for reading. Many months later, when I heard about Mr. Alterman's book, I read the stuff on his website and printed much of what was there to balance the pile on the table that was tilting precariously to one side.

I find myself agreeing with Mr. Alterman more often than not; still, the guy gets on my nerves. I heard him speak about his book on On Point on Boston's NPR station. In the midst of a perfectly good argument with another guest who held an opposing view, he made me cringe by responding with (approximately) "You're out of your mind!" The other day he was on Scarborough Country when I landed on MSNBC while channel-surfing. After a few seconds of listening to him, I could see that he belonged on that show, bandying ideological punches with the host and the opposing guest as if they were playing an adversarial sport for the benefit of spectators who'd loyally cheer for their side and boo the opponents'. I may be a couch potato but I am no sports fan so I surfed on.

Nor am I a media guru but I don't expect them to be unbiased and a shouting match about the label of their collective bias only exposes -- and massages -- our own biases, not to mention that it distorts our perception of the media by reducing it to a groupthink monolith. To be fair, in his shrill and abrasive way, Mr. Alterman is telling us just that. He is neither coy nor apologetic about his bias nor does he claim to be oblivious of the miniscule part of the media that is indeed liberal. He is however not quite as slick and savvy as those who've quite successfully managed to virtually rechristen the media as the "Liberalmedia."

--aslam

9:02:07 PM