CBS - GOLDBERG CRITICIZES FOX NEWS ON FOX NEWS

GOLDBERG CRITICIZES FOX NEWS ON FOX NEWS

Former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg, who has accused the mainstream media of liberal bias, has blasted Fox News for its claim to be fair and balanced in its presentation of the news. Moreover, Goldberg's criticism was broadcast on Fox News's Bill O'Reilly program. It came after O'Reilly put this question to Goldberg "Never in the history of broadcasting in this country has one network, Fox News Channel, been attacked so unrelentingly as this one has. Why?" O'Reilly did not receive the kind of sympathetic response that he presumably expected. After first observing that the attacks came because Fox was conservative, successful and provocative, he went on "Sometimes Fox brings on the criticism itself. They don't cover rallies and tea parties, they cheerlead for rallies and tea parties, and as a journalist I'm totally against that." He referred to a videotaped incident in which a Fox producer was seen cheerleading protesters at an anti-Obama rally. (The network later said that the producer had been reprimanded.) Goldberg then continued that some unnamed Fox personalities "pretend to be a journalist, and at the same time they're saying, 'I'm not a journalist.' ... They go on the air after they give their opinions, which is fine with me. They then state as facts things that aren't facts at all." Somewhat surprisingly, O'Reilly commented during the exchange "This is a good discussion."

01/10/2009