"Whatever your politics, Alterman delivers well-documented, well-argued research in compulsively readable form. This book will be required reading for anyone in politics or journalism, or anyone curious about their complicated nexus." (Publishers Weekly)
"Eric Alterman...has jumped into the ring and taken off his gloves. (The New York Times)
Is media bias keeping us from getting the whole story? If so, who is at fault? Is it the liberals who are purported to be running the newsrooms, television and radio stations of this country, duping an unsuspecting public into mistaking their party line for news? Or is it the conservatives who have identified media bias as a rallying cry around which to consolidate their political base? The media has become so large and so pervasive in our lives that regardless of exactly where on the ideological fence you sit, the question of media bias has become all but unavoidable.
What Liberal Media? confronts the question of liberal bias and provides a sharp and utterly convincing assessment of the realities of political bias in the news. In distinct contrast to the conclusions reached by Ann Coulter, Bernard Goldberg, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, Alterman finds the media to be far more conservative than liberal. The fact that conservatives howl so much louder and more effectively than liberals is one big reason that big media is always on its guard for "liberal" bias but gives conservative bias a free pass.
After listening to What Liberal Media? you will understand that the real news story of recent years is not whether this newspaper, or that news anchor, is biased but rather what extent the entire news industry is organized to communicate conservative views and push our politics to the right - regardless of how "liberal" any given reporter may be.