Bernard Goldberg has become famous for tackling an issue that is familiar to most residents of, and visitors to, The Blogosphere: the bias and arrogance of the media elite. He brings something to the task that most bloggers do not, however, and that is 28 years inside the business. In his first book, Bias, he tackled the issue of liberal bias head on and thereby endured the wrath of his fellow journalists. In writing a follow-up to that best seller – Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite released today – Mr. Goldberg has likely further ostracized himself from the leaders of the media establishment. Doggedly, Goldberg continues to insist that the major media elite insert a biased viewpoint in their reporting and that their failure to admit and deal with the issue threatens their relevance to mainstream America.
Conservatives and the new media
Since bias in the news seems to be a theme today, let me note this long rambling discussion of conservatives and the media by Brian Anderson over at Opinion Journal. Anderson argues that recent changes in the media landscape have given conservatives the ability to impact public debate and dialogue as never before. He cites cable TV (Fox in particular), the internet, and changes in the publishing world as beggining to break up the the “left’s near monopoly over the institutions of opinion and information.”
Since this site focuses on books, I thought it worth noting Anderson’s discussion of changes in the publishing world. He feels that recent changes in publishing are having a big impact on not only the business of publishing but the larger culture:
Nowadays, publishers are falling over themselves to bring conservative books to a mainstream audience. “Between now and December,” Publishers Weekly wrote in July, “scores of books on conservative topics will be published by houses large and small–the most ever produced in a single season. Already, 2003 has been a banner year for such books, with at least one and often two conservative titles hitting PW’s bestseller list each week.” Joining Regnery in releasing mass-market right-leaning books are two new imprints from superpower publishers, Random House’s Crown Forum and an as-yet-untitled Penguin series . . . It’s no exaggeration to describe this surge of conservative publishing as a paradigm shift. “It would have been unthinkable 10 years ago that mainstream publishers would embrace this trend,” acknowledges Doubleday editor and author Adam Bellow, who got his start in editing in 1988 at the Free Press, where he and his boss, the late Erwin Glikes, encountered “a tremendous amount of marketplace and institutional resistance” in pushing conservative titles. “There was no conspiracy,” avers Crown Forum publisher Steve Ross. “We were culturally isolated on this island of Manhattan, and people tend to publish to people of like mind.”
What is interesting is that the internet/new media has basically forced publishers to pay attention. Regnery and others have show that there is a demand for right leaning books while the internet has provided a way for conservative consumers to find books that interest them, discuss and promote those books, and provide feedback to not only other readers but the authors and publishers themselves. The democratization of information and ideas that is going on online is allowing conservative ideas to break out of the media establishment’s stranglehold. This humble blog is one such outlet. The beauty of this blog is that I can discuss and report on whatever books and ideas I choose. I admit mine is a very small voice in the larger discussion but the point is I have a voice. The fact that publishers and authors are willing to communicate with me proves that this small voice is worth something.
Richard Neustadt, RIP
Presidential advisor and historian Richard Neustadt passed away on Friday at the age of 84. Perhaps best known for his influential book Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership From Roosevelt to Reagan. Orignally pulbished in 1960 as just Presidential Power, the classic work was periodically updated abd was most recently published in 1990 under the above title. Neustadt reached beyond the ivory tower however:
Mr. Neustadt was an adviser to Presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and wrote many books on the presidency. His scholarship became a staple of research for several decades for students of government and even some elected officials.
“Professor Neustadt spent a lifetime advancing the public understanding of the American presidency,” former President Bill Clinton said in a statement. “I am grateful for the friendship and wise counsel he gave to me.”
Professor Neustadt also played a prominent role in transforming the Graduate School of Public Administration at Harvard into the Kennedy School of Government.
RIP
Arrogance in the News
Bernie Goldberg’s Arrogance: Rescuing America From the Media Elite, a follow up to his best selling Bias, hits bookstores today. I had planned on running an interview with Mr. Goldberg and following that up with a review. Technical difficulties, however, prevented that well laid plan from coming to fruition. Not wanting to deprive my readers (all three of you), I found content for you elsewhere. Kathryn Jean Lopez has a short review of Arrogance in the New York Post today and my mentor John Hawkins has an interview with Mr. Goldberg over at Right Wing News.
So go check those two out but promise you will come back and read my review later . . .
More on Philip Pullman and His Dark Materials
I wanted to follow up on the discussion of Philip Pullman and the His Dark Materials series below. In an article in The Weekly Standard entitled The Devil’s Party (no longer available online to my knowledge) Alan Jacobs discusses Pullman and his attempt to turn the Creation story on its head. Since it is no longer online, I wanted to give you an overview of what I consider Jacobs devastating critique.
The Tyrany of the Imagination?
Interesting Op-Ed in Today’s New York Times from Philip Pullman. Pullman is the author, most recently, of His Dark Materials Trilogy. He is something of the anti-C.S. Lewis. Despite being a writer of children’s fantasy, he is materialist and atheist of the strongest sort. It is this tension between realism and imagination that he contemplates in the Op-Ed.