Bernard Goldberg Attacks MSNBC's Double Standards

Former CBS correspondent and best selling author Bernard Goldberg noted the clear double standard NBC and MSNBC has on liberal versus conservative commentators. On the February 11 edition of "The O’Reilly Factor," Goldberg discussed the corruption at NBC News after the fallout from the David Shuster "pimped out" comments.

Goldberg alluded to left wing partisan commentator Keith Olbermann, without mentioning him by name, and noted that has anchored the election night coverage and moderated a presidential debate. Goldberg posed the question "would NBC News have Rush Limbaugh anchoring their election night coverage on MSNBC? Would they have an angry, ideological right winger like Michael Savage anchor their election night coverage on MSNBC?" He then answered his own question "of course not!" And added that "they do have a left wing bomb thrower doing it."

BERNARD GOLDBERG: The people who run GE either don’t care or don’t realize how they’re hurting their brand, how they’re corrupting NBC News. They don’t realize that it’s just plain wrong to have a rabidly partisan commentator who says the president of the United States, and this is an exact quote, "is either a pathological liar or the idiot in chief." You can’t have that person anchoring election night coverage and moderating a presidential debate, but they do. They really literally do.

BILL O’REILLY: What is the danger, what is the danger to the folks? You know, so millions of people watching us right now and they’re saying "okay Goldberg, O’Reilly, they don’t like NBC News," which is true, but "why do I care?" Why does the guy in South Miami care whether NBC News is corrupt, whether General Electric, the parent company, is corrupt? Why?

GOLDBERG: Because, because we’re now going on the road of having a free for all, where somebody, somebody hosts anchoring election night coverage, which is, we’re not talking about election night coverage for city council. We’re talking about the race for president of the United States. The people at home need to know that when they watch the media, the national media, that they’re going to get an honest, fair shake. And you can’t get that from somebody who’s such a partisan. Look would NBC News- and I mean this. This is not just a throw away question. Would NBC News have Rush Limbaugh anchoring their election night coverage on MSNBC? Would they have an angry, ideological right winger like Michael Savage anchor their election night coverage on MSNBC? Of course not! But they do have a left wing bomb thrower doing it. This, this as I say, should bother GE because the American people have less and less faith, every time a poll comes out you see this, they have less and less and less faith in the news media. And a democracy can’t survive for long- it can survive in the short run- but it can’t survive for long if people don’t have faith in the news organizations that tell them what’s going on.