Ex-Correspondent’s Book Rocks CBS

It’s not every day that someone likens Dan Rather and CBS News to the Mafia.

Or declares that the don in this case is the Dan, “who wanted me whacked.”

Or calls the CBS brass “a bunch of hypocrites” so consumed by liberal bias that they reflexively slant the news.

The source of this vitriolic attack is none other than Bernard Goldberg, a CBS correspondent for 28 years who left the network last year. In his forthcoming book, “Bias,” published by the conservative house Regnery Publishing, Goldberg unloads on his ex-employer.

What’s striking is the intensely personal nature of Goldberg’s assault. He describes Rather as a generous man who is also “ruthless and unforgiving,” with a touch of Richard Nixon’s “paranoia.” He accuses one correspondent of “junk journalism.” And he says CBS News President Andrew Heyward once told him: “Look, Bernie, of course there’s a liberal bias in the news. All the networks tilt left.... If you repeat any of this, I’ll deny it.”

Heyward declined to be drawn into a debate with Goldberg, saying: “Bernie asked to see me before the book was published and said he didn’t want to be portrayed as a liar or a disgruntled employee. Therefore, I have no comment.”

Goldberg became something of a pariah at CBS after accusing the network of liberal bias in a 1996 op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal.

Some CBS insiders describe Goldberg as a talented journalist who became bitter and isolated at the network. They are stunned that he would betray Heyward, a longtime friend who refused to fire him during the Journal controversy, pushed to get him a spot at “60 Minutes II” and kept him on the payroll until Goldberg could qualify for a larger pension at 55.

“In the end, he seemed to think his job was to report on CBS News instead of reporting for CBS News,” said Bob Schieffer, chief Washington correspondent. “Bernie just seemed to be upset about everything. He was upset with the world.”

Correspondent Eric Engberg said Goldberg committed an “act of treason” and decided the best way to sell a book “is to trash your friends and former colleagues.... He didn’t have many friends in this organization because he was a selfish, self-involved guy who was not a team player.”

Engberg accused Goldberg of a “sleazy, snake-in-the-grass style” for not complaining to him before blasting him in the Journal over his report ridiculing Steve Forbes’ flat-tax plan.

Goldberg, who now works for HBO’s “Real Sports,” said Sunday he wrote the book because he cares about journalism and that he “left out a bunch of things that might really embarrass people....

“Whenever you raise an issue like this, they close ranks and close their minds. They’re just going to call me these terrible vicious names instead of looking at the problem.... They don’t like the people they’re broadcasting to. I can’t tell you how many times I heard the term ‘white trash’ thrown around. I come from a lower-middle-class background and I resent that.”

Rather declined to comment, but told the Dallas Morning News in 1996 that he wouldn’t let anyone “intimidate” him “into reporting the news their way.”

To which Goldberg writes: “Why is it that when journalists write something tough about other people it’s called ‘news,’ but when someone writes something tough about news people like Dan Rather it’s called ‘intimidation’?”

In Goldberg’s view, CBS staffers are too “arrogant” to examine the leftward tilt of their reporting, which he says is shared by the other major networks.