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He fails, however, to explain that editors and publishers—who have the final say over what goes out—tend to be conservative. According to a study made in this century by Editor and Publisher magazine, more than twice as many newspapers endorsed Bush as endorsed Gore. Bush-endorsing papers accounted for 58 percent of all national circulation.

* * *

Besides settling scores, Goldberg draws upon his twenty-eight years of broadcast journalism experience to relate a few telling anecdotes in which people in the newsroom said something liberal-sounding. Apparently, at 12:36 P.M. on April 14, 1999, during a routine CBS Weekend News conference call, producer Roxanne Russell had the temerity to jokingly refer to Gary Bauer as a “little nut from the Christian group.” (Full disclosure—Gary’s a friend of mine, is small, a Christian, and not a nut.) That was unfair. Thank God, CBS didn’t broadcast the conference call, because that would have been very biased.

I’ll admit that, from among the hundreds of thousands of hours of broadcast news over the last three decades, Bernie is able to cobble together a few instances of liberally slanted reporting. But even when Goldberg seems to have a point, it still feels just the teensiest bit selective. It’s like accusing a library of having a murder mystery bias after only going to the murder mystery shelf. They’re all murder mysteries!

Worse, most of his examples are about as well researched as the John Chancellor quote.

Why, Bernie asks, if CBS identifies the Heritage Foundation as a “conservative” think tank, does it not identify the Brookings Institution as a “liberal” think tank?

I don’t know. Bias? Or could it be because the Heritage Foundation’s website says their mission is to “promote conservative public policies,” while the Brookings website says it is committed to “independent, factual and nonpartisan research”?

Why, Bernie wants to know, is Phyllis Schlafly always labeled a “conservative”? Maybe because the official biography on her Eagle Forum website calls her a “national leader of the conservative movement.”

Why, Bernie asks on page 57, is Rush Limbaugh referred to as a “conservative” talk show host, but Rosie O’Donnell is not always labeled a “liberal” talk show host? At first, I thought that one was a misfire. Rush spends three hours a day delivering his patented brand of right-wing folderol. But then I remembered a Rosie show where she interviewed Haley Joel Osment. The kid was supposed to be promoting The Sixth Sense, but he just wouldn’t shut up about the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Bernie has a chapter called “The Most Important Story You Never Saw on TV.” It’s about latchkey kids and working moms. And it is an important story. But if you haven’t seen it on TV, it’s because you haven’t been watching CNN (11 stories), CBS (11), NBC (3), or ABC (10). When I see something only thirty-five times, I know the liberal media is trying to keep a lid on it.

You know, if there’s one thing I associate with liberalism, it’s anti-Semitism. And what else could explain the shocking media cover-up of the fact that many Arabs dislike Israel? Goldberg has the goods on this one. His smoking gun: “I learned much more about the atmosphere that breeds suicide bombers from one short article in Commentary magazine than I have from watching twenty years of network television news.” The Commentary article discusses a hit song in Cairo, Damascus, and the West Bank entitled, “I Hate Israel.”

“Why didn’t I know this?” Bernie writes indignantly. “A computer check soon answered my question. On television, only CNN reported the ‘I Hate Israel’ story. On radio, NPR did a piece. So did the Christian Science Monitor and the Chicago Tribune. The Los Angeles Times ran a short wire service story.”

So, in other words, except for CNN, NPR, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and the wire services, not one of the liberal media outlets let us know about this important story—not Fox, not the Wall Street Journal, not the Washington Times, not even the National