With each passing day the Fox News Channel and its various hosts come under more and more fire from the Left.

Democrats and their media minions have actually accused FNC of stirring up hatred in the nation that could result in violence against President Obama.

With this in mind, Fox's leading personality Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday invited media analyst and former CBSer Bernie Goldberg to discuss these criticisms of the cable news leader and to see if they had any merit.

What ensued was a marvelous discussion about what Fox does well compared to its liberal competitors, as well as what opportunities exist for even better news coverage.

Although Fox's detractors will jump on this segment as evidence the cable news network is indeed far too conservative given some of Goldberg's criticisms, those that can be impartial will see this as an organization refreshingly willing to examine itself while cameras are rolling (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Mediaite, file photo):

On Tuesday, FNC's The O'Reilly Factor hosted FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg as the former CBS News correspondent highlighted a story recently posted on his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, in which he complains of how little mainstream media attention was given to the fact that former President George W. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam as part of his service in the Texas Air National Guard, but that he was turned down because other pilots were more experienced, and that CBS News producer Mary Mapes, even though she knew this part of the story before the report aired, did not include this important angle in the infamous piece by Dan Rather that used forged documents to paint Bush as trying to avoid Vietnam War service.

On his Web site, BernardGoldberg.com, Goldberg chastizes Mapes:

On Thursday's The O'Reilly Factor, FNC host Bill O'Reilly hosted a discussion with FNC analyst and former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg, as the two pointed out the mainstream media's double standard in "obsessing" over how protesters who have been challenging ObamaCare were organized, but have shown no interest in the organization of protesters by left-wing groups. After O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" addressed the subject, Goldberg observed:

The word "hypocrisy" in your "Talking Points" is the key word. Civil rights demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations, pro-abortion rights demonstrations, environmental demonstrations, I don't remember the media obsessing about who got these people out to the demonstration site, who orchestrated the demonstration, who manufactured, to use another of their words, the anger at the demonstrations. ... But the media only feels an obligation to look behind the curtain at the forces that are orchestrating and manufacturing the demonstrations when it's a conservative demonstration.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, August 6, The O'Reilly Factor on FNC:

On Wednesday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC, host Bill O'Reilly cited the Business and Media Institute's recent study finding that broadcast network evening and morning news shows have slanted their coverage of President Obama's health care proposals heavily in the Democratic President's favor, as O'Reilly introduced a segment with FNC analyst and former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg.  O'Reilly:

Tonight, we have a number of topics for Mr. Goldberg, beginning with a new study by the Media Research Center, a conservative group out of Virginia. They analyzed more than 200 health care stories on the big three network morning and evening news programs. The Center found 70 percent of the soundbites used in those stories favored President Obama's health care vision – 70 percent.

On Monday’s The O’Reilly Factor, FNC host Bill O’Reilly asserted that former CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite "had no use for" his successor, and was "bitter about being replaced by [Dan] Rather." Citing an interview from a few years after Rather raplaced Cronkite on the Evening News, O’Reilly recounted that Cronkite expressed his view that Rather "shouldn’t succeed." O’Reilly: "He didn't say it on the record. He said it after the interview was over. He said to me, quote, in Boston, ‘You are really on to something. Dan is not going to succeed – and shouldn't.’"

O’Reilly made his assertion both during the show’s "Talking Points Memo," and again during a discussion with FNC analyst Bernie Goldberg as the two argued that the CBS Evening News and other media took a sharp turn to the left when Dan Rather took over the CBS Evening News – which coincided with Ronald Reagan becoming President and giving liberals the experience of being out of power.

During the show’s "Talking Points Memo," the FNC host recounted:

Two months ago, Time magazine trashed Bernard Goldberg’s book on liberal pro-Obama bias (A Slobbering Love Affair) as a book to "toss" instead of read in their mini-book review featured called The Skimmer. In the latest Time, Andrea Sachs praised the newest James Carville book, titled 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. It drew a "Skim" command instead of a "Read," but the copy was very promotional:

No one does partisanship better than the Ragin' Cajun. In his latest book, the Louisiana-bred campaign strategist, who recently returned to teach political science at Tulane, takes a victory lap celebrating the Democrats' 2008 electoral trifecta. "The myth of Republican competence and fiscal responsibility is shattered," a victim of the strategic and economic missteps of the Bush years, Carville gleefully notes. If Democrats play their cards right, he argues, they can dominate politics for the next four decades. The key? "To rebuild Americans' trust in government as a force of good." His excitability is infectious, if only to those on the same side of the aisle. ("Let's go out and spank the Republicans again and again," he exhorts readers.)

On Tuesday’s Countdown show, at the beginning of a segment about the Obama family’s pet dog, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and MSNBC political analyst Craig Crawford, joked about FNC host Bill O’Reilly being a dog. Picking up on Olbermann’s earlier suggestion that he gets tired of hearing about presidential dogs, Crawford opened the discussion by ribbing the Countdown host about the possibility of the show getting its own pet dog.

After Olbermann disagreed, Crawford came back with a lame joke: "Well, you’ve already got O’Reilly’s show.

Olbermann responded: "That would be a female dog."

The over-the-top name-calling against the FNC host came just minutes after Olbermann used his "Worst Person" segment to slam Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as he lectured the conservative talk radio hosts that one does not have to "spend every waking hour trying to annihilate" a political figure because of policy disagreements.

But Olbermann is well known for devoting a large portion of his program daily for the last several years to slamming President Bush – not only calling Bush a "fascist," but also suggesting last December that Bush administration members, presumably including President Bush himself, deserve to be "in hell" for some of their actions in the Iraq war. Olbermann: "I don’t know what, if any religion you belong to, but I suspect you’ll agree that people who ignored that many foretellings of preventable death should have a long time to think about it in hell!"

Former CBSer and current media critic Bernie Goldberg issued a strong warning to conservatives on Monday: don't behave like the left did when Bush was president -- avoid Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Following in David Horowitz's footsteps, Goldberg told Fox News's Sean Hannity:

You remember when liberals wouldn't give George Bush credit for anything? If he came up with a cure for cancer, they wouldn't have given him credit for that, and I'm sorry, Sean, I see that on the right now.

Such was the beginning of a fascinating discussion between Goldberg and Hannity Monday evening concerning whether or not it was wrong for the Obama administration to take credit for Captain Richard Phillips's rescue from Somali pirates Sunday (video embedded below the fold with full transcript, h/t Hot Air):

CBS veteran Bob Schieffer and former White House correspondent Helen Thomas spoke Monday at the CityClub luncheon at the downtown Seattle Sheraton, reported Andrea James on seattlepi.com. Perhaps out of perpetual loyalty to Dan Rather or perpetual denial about the daily CBS product, Schieffer smacked Bernard Goldberg.

From the audience, John Hamer of the Washington News Council asked about liberal media bias, citing specifically Goldberg’s books Bias and A Slobbering Love Affair.

"Is he right?" Hamer asked. "To what degree is he right?"

Schieffer rejected the criticism: "I don't think he's right. I never thought he's right. He's found a way to make a living by criticizing CBS news and journalism as a whole."

...After the event, Hamer said that he was disappointed by the answers.

"I thought it was an inadequate response," said Hamer, who bills himself as a moderate slightly to the right of center. "I wondered if Bob Schieffer had read either of the books."

Hamer was also offered the opportunity to question Helen Thomas:

More and more people are starting to take notice of CNBC's dramatic shift to the left and the liberal groups promoting it.

On Fox News Channel's March 27 "The O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly and Bernard Goldberg, author of "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media" took a look at trends pointing to this shift that started after the feud between "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer and "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart.

O'Reilly cited a column written by NewsBusters Associate Editor Noel Sheppard on March 26 for The Washington Examiner that noted some of the things indicating CNBC's leftward swing.

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann hosted left-wing actress and comedian Janeane Garofalo to discuss FNC analyst Bernard Goldberg’s recent enumeration of the "five worst offenders" of what Bill O’Reilly called the "far-left smear machine,"and Garofalo took the opportunity to paint conservatives as angry racists who inspire violence from some of their non-intellectual followers. Garofalo: "The right wing has a way of always having an enemy, whether it be immigrants or Arabs or brown-skinned people, black-skinned people, homosexuals, women. They all, kind of, rally around an enemy, an other, that they can get mad at. And death does occur."

After accusing conservative activist Grover Norquist of "handing out talking points" to a "right-wing machine," and after mentioning former Vice President Cheney’s recent contention that President Obama’s policies would endanger the nation’s homeland security, Garofalo called the "personality type" that she claimed motivates some non-intellectual conservatives a "scourge" and an "unfortunate part of our society." Garofalo: "A lot of the people in the right-wing base are not the most intellectual people in the world, not the most savvy people in the world, and they are definitely quick to anger, and quick to blame other people. ... it's a very sad, sad thing, and it's part of the human nature of a personality type that tends to identify as Republican or conservative. And it's an unfortunate part of our society. It's a scourge on our society." Olbermann concurred: "It is, indeed."

Last year, Time magazine created a little mini-book review featured called "The Skimmer," to quickly determine for readers whether a new book is something they should either Read, Skim, or Toss. In the March 2 edition, Time took up Bernard Goldberg’s media-bias expose A Slobbering Love Affair. Unsurprisingly, they trashed it as a book to "Toss."

A look back over the feature quickly demonstrates that Time has used the feature to offer raves and "Read" recommendations for fellow members of the liberal media, especially when they’re bashing President Bush or his war on terror. The list begins with former Wall Street Journal reporter Jane Mayer (July 28, 2008 issue), Washington Post bias legend Bob Woodward (September 22), Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru (November 24), New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (December 22), and New York Times reporter David Sanger (February 2).

Time’s Gilbert Cruz bashed Bernie throughout his mini-review:

The liberal media were flagrant supporters of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, as documented in literally thousands of postings here at NewsBusters and detailed research reports over at our parent site, www.MRC.org.

Now along comes former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg with “A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.” The book pulls together the evidence of the media’s indisputable tilt, making the case that journalists’ abdication of their professional responsibility to provide fair and balanced coverage does great harm to their profession and the nation:

The grim reaper is knocking on the mainstream media’s door, and they remain gloriously oblivious. They have reached a tipping point but refuse to believe it. The corrosion that is eating away at their credibility had been happening slowly. It’s like acid rain; one day you look around and all the trees are dead. Nobody pays attention until it’s too late.

The second chapter in Bernard Goldberg's new book A Slobbering Love Affair deals with Chris Matthews. It's titled "Pansy Ball." He starts by mocking the leg-thrill remark, saying Matthews "might as well have been wearing a short skirt and pom-poms emblazoned with a big O, was madly in love with Obama and didn't care if the whole world knew it."

Goldberg recalled how Matthews couldn't stop saying on the Jay Leno show a year ago that the Obamas were "cool, really cool, great looking and cool," and then said "I know I'm selling him now. I'm not supposed to sell."

Replied Goldberg: "I disagree. Hookers sell all the time. That's what they do. And Chris Matthews, whatever else he may or may not be, is a journalist hooker who was putting out for Obama from the moment the senator showed some leg and decided to run for president of the United States."

He wasn't done:

Bill Steigerwald of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has the first interview with author and former CBS News reporter Bernard Goldberg about his brand new book. You'll love the title:  "A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media."

The book goes on sale Monday, and Goldberg named two journalists as the most embarrassing pro-Obama partisans in the media: MSNBC's eternally thrilled Chris Matthews, and The Washington Post's "chiseled pectorals" correspondent, Eli Saslow.

Here's how Goldberg summed the book up: "This is not a book about the same old media bias. This time journalists cross a very bright line. This time they stopped being witnesses to history and they were intent on helping to shape history. They moved from media bias to media activism. In my whole life I have never seen the media get on board for one candidate the way they did this time around and -- this is very important -- they did it without even a hint of embarrassment."

He talked more about Matthews and Saslow:

Discussing the Obama campaign’s recent feud with a local Orlando station, best selling author and former CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg appeared on the October 27 edition of "Fox and Friends" to offer his analysis. Goldberg appeared puzzled as to the campaign’s response to what he found respectful questions.

The former CBS insider, agreed with co-host Gretchen Carlson’s point that the campaign was simply stunned that someone asked either Obama or Biden some tough questions. Bernie Goldberg noted that the mainstream media was largely asking soft questions such as "what is your favorite color?" Goldberg hypothesized Senator Biden’s harsh response is a product of his elitist attitude as a U.S. senator that no local station should ask such an "impertinent" question.

Bernie Goldberg also observed, despite the bad wrap Sarah Palin is receiving, Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden’s recent lack of access to the press.

Shocker! The mainstream media highlights right wing hate, but nearly ignores hate coming from the left. Such a topic best selling author and former CBS insider Bernard Goldberg exposed appearing on the October 13 "O’Reilly Factor." Host Bill O’Reilly scorned the media for accusing John McCain of "fostering and encouraging hatred" from a few crazies at his rallies, but give Democrats "a complete pass" for attending the vile DailyKos convention. A stunned O’Reilly wondered "am I living in the Twilight Zone?"

Bernie Goldberg agreed and added the media elite "were never concerned" about constant references to Bush as a Nazi. Accentuating O’Reilly’s point that Democratic presidential candidates attended the DailyKos convention, Goldberg also reminded the audience that these same candidates boycotted Fox News. Goldberg concluded "case closed. That’s all you need to know about that."

On Monday's The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly and FNC analyst Bernie Goldberg discussed the media's reluctance to report the National Enquirer's claims about John Edwards fathering a child with a mistress. O'Reilly expressed his own hesitance to delve into the matter, which he only vaguely referred to as "a difficult personal deal," contending that "I can't verify the story," and expressed concerns about the distress public exposure would cause the Edwards family. He further suggested that after more facts could be verified, that "I'll mention it, but I won't dwell on it."

Goldberg spoke of the double standard employed by the New York Times in its reluctance to cover the 2001 story of Jesse Jackson fathering a baby with an employee, while the Times more blazenly printed less solid allegations this year against John McCain. Goldberg: "The National Enquirer broke that story [about Jesse Jackson]. And when the New York Times finally decided to run it, they put it on page 21 under a one-column headline. Compare that to a story with two unnamed sources that think that maybe that I'm not sure, but I think that John McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist. That winds up on page one of the New York Times."

In an op-ed in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal (page A-15), “Russert Took Media Bias Seriously,” former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg observed:

What made Tim Russert different, and better, I think was his willingness to listen to -- and take seriously -- criticism about his own profession. He was willing, for example, to keep an open mind about a hot-button issue like media bias -- an issue that so many of his colleagues dismiss as the delusions of right-wing media haters.

Goldberg recalled that when he wrote Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, “no one in network television wanted to discuss the issue, no matter how many Middle Americans thought it was important.” But “Russert was the lone exception. He had me on his CNBC interview show, and we talked about bias for a full hour.” (Screen captures here and below are from that interview on the February 23, 2002 edition of Russert's CNBC show.)

In his op-ed, Goldberg quoted from an interview he conducted with Russert for his 2003 book, Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite.” (Below is a full reprint of that book chapter.)

Appearing by phone on Friday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC, former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg recalled for fill-in host Laura Ingraham how Tim Russert recognized there should be more to newsroom diversity than just diversity by gender and skin tone, that “you need ideological diversity.” Goldberg, who departed CBS News a few years after he pointed out their liberal bias, lamented:

I wish his colleagues understood that part of Tim Russert, too. That he knew that we needed all kinds of people in journalism because if we didn't have it we were going to get one-sided journalism.

Goldberg read aloud to the FNC audience a quote from Russert contained in an interview featured in Goldberg's 2003 book, Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite:

“I'm all for hiring women in the newsroom and minorities in the newsroom -- I'm all for it. It opens up our eyes and gives us a different perspective. But just as well, let's have people with military experience. Let's have people from all walks of life. People from the top echelon schools, but people from junior colleges and the so-called middling schools -- that's the rich pageantry of America. I'm a great believer in racial diversity and gender diversity, but you need cultural diversity, you need ideological diversity.” And then he emphasized, Laura: “You need it.”