Sad to say, we have not heard much from poor Bernard Goldberg since he made the faux pas of criticizing the fairness and objectivity of a colleague at CBS News back in February (see “The Press’s Naïve Cynicism,” in our March number). “The old argument that the networks and other media elites have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore,” wrote Goldberg in The Wall Street Journal—and he promptly disappeared from his regular commentary slot on the “CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.” He is now off Rather’s show permanently, but it is rumored within CBS that he may eventually turn up in some kind of role on the magazine show “48 Hours.”
The president of CBS News, Andrew Heyward, spoke of Goldberg’s words as “a real breach of our fundamental trust. Whatever his motives were, the net effect has been extremely damaging among his colleagues; there is a great deal of residual pain and suffering.” Where there is pain and suffering one must always, of course, sympathize. Yet it is hard not to notice with some alarm that, as under other totalitarian regimes, the transgressor against correct thinking at CBS has also been required to produce a confession. Goldberg offered this one to the press:
I’ve been contrite about this from day one. It was never personal. I swear to God that I never wanted to hurt friends or family… . I raised what I considered to be