“[Bernie Goldberg] Just Has a Great Knack for Being a Jerk,” but He’s Right About Liberal Bias

The late Andy Rooney on yours truly. Plus: what happened next.

“There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias.”

Welcome to this week’s Bernie’s Time Machine…

My first book, Bias came out in 2001 and caused — as many of you know — quite a stir. Liberal journalists hated it – and me! The book was an insider’s story about how liberal bias at CBS News, where I had worked for 28 years, and at the rest of the mainstream media actually operated. I was on lots of radio and TV shows talking about the book, but one show I was not on was the Larry King Live on CNN.

Larry, or probably his liberal producer, had no interest in having me on. And since I had no constitutional right to be on Larry’s show, or anyone else’s, I had no problem with the decision. Besides, my book was number one on the New York Times bestseller list without any help from Larry.

But Larry did have a number of other journalists on over time to talk about the news business in general, and at some point Larry would inevitably ask what they thought of Bias. One of those journalists was my former CBS News colleague, Andy Rooney.

When Larry asked about my book and about liberal bias in the news, Andy was Andy – direct and to the point.

“There is no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias,” he said.

I didn’t care about Andy’s liberal bias. He was a commentator and was entitled to his opinions, no matter how liberal. But who were the “among others” who had a liberal bias? That remark had me leaning forward in my chair as I watched the interview.

Then… Andy answered the question with this bombshell: