The Dispatch Podcast - The Gatekeepers Have Left the Building | Interview: Bernie Goldberg

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Jamie Weinstein sits down with Emmy-winning journalist and bestselling author Bernard Goldberg to discuss the evolution of conservative journalism over his career and the modern-day news influencers taking over media. The Agenda:—The three buckets of news media eras—How political interviews are changing—The rise of antisemitism—Covering the Israel-Hamas war—The future of CBS Show Notes:—Bernie’s Substack The Dispatch Podcast is a production of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dispatch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest this week is Bernie Goldberg. He is the Emmy winning journalist and bestselling author most famously of the classic book, Bias. He wrote about his 30 years at nearly 30 years at CBS. He has also been a Fox News contributor, ported for HBO's Real Sports, and is a regular critic and commentator about the state of the media. And that's exactly what we discuss with. Bernie in this episode. I should also mention his current outlet is his own website, bernard goldberg.com. And on this episode, we discuss what he makes of the current state of the media compared to what I would say are other eras of the media, this age of Twitter and YouTube influencers interviewing major figures. We discuss anti-Semitism, how that has risen in various media outlets. His thoughts on the current controversy. at the New York Times with the coverage of the Israel Gaza War. And finally, his view of the Skydance merger with Paramount,

which owns his old stomping grounds at CBS. So we get into all these topics and more. I think you're going to find this very interesting. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Bernie Goldberg. Bernie Goldberg, welcome to the dispatch podcast. My pleasure, glad to be here. Bernie, when I was preparing for this podcast this morning, I thought of this way to break down the era of the media that I lived in

into three different buckets. And I'd like you just to listen in and comment on it if you agree with it, and then what you make of the different eras. And I think you worked in all three eras. So there was the era of the three network anchors, you know, some elite news publications, kind of the gatekeeper era. Then cable news came in and democratized it a little more. And then this current era, which has Twitter and YouTube figures and personalities.

If you want to put it in a plight way, it further democratized it. Some might say it created kind of mob media in a certain way. What do you make of that categorization of the three eras, let's say, of the last 30, 40 years? Yeah, I do agree with it. I think historically those are the three eras. The first one, the networks, the one I started with. That was an idea whose time has come and gone. Walter Cronkite, Eric Severide, David Brinkley, they're not coming back.

So that era is gone. Walter Cronkite was named the most trusted man in America. I don't even know who you would pick as the most trusted person in America today. So that's, that's era number one, and it's in the rearview mirror. Era number two, cable. I wrote about bias when I left CBS News. Bias in the old era, the network era, was subtle. It was nuanced.

It wasn't a conspiracy. Nobody came in in the morning. Dan Rather didn't summon his top producers and correspondence and say, give the secret hand. shake and the secret salute, douse the lights, pull down the shades and say, how are we going to get those conservatives today? How are we going to get those Republicans? It didn't work that way. It was a problem of group think. Too many liberals in the newsroom who didn't see themselves as liberal at all, but reasonable, moderate, middle of the road, but they could spot

conservatives. Now cable comes along. Cable had bias as a business model. I mean, Cable is bias is how they make their money. Bias is what they do to pander to their audience. At CBS, we never said, what is the audience want? We decided what was news and the audience watched. In cable, they say, hold on, Fox, oh, we know what our audience wants. And even the head of Fox News even has an expression, a pathetic, despicable expression. Respect the audience.

Respect the audience doesn't mean respect the audience. It means give the audience what the audience wants because they're a bunch of bozos, and they don't want to be surprised by anything you might put on the network, on the channel, and CNN panders to its audience, and MSNBC panders to its audience. As I say, it's the business model. That was the second of the three buckets. The third, I'm not familiar with because I'm not familiar with social media, but on On the one hand, it's a good thing that people who didn't have voices now had voices to

express their opinions. That was a good thing. The bad thing was that people who didn't have voices now had voices to express their opinion. In the first two eras, and as you just mentioned, there's good critiques of those areas and the problems that they had, there was still a sense by politicians that they had to sit down with someone who was maybe biased, but at least in. informed on the issue enough to ask the questions.

And this is what I want to ask about in this new era, exemplified by the last presidential election, you see candidates almost avoid in case, sometimes the traditional media or the cable news media entirely. They'll do interviews on Joe Rogan, you know, Donald Trump sat down with the comedio Theo Vaugh. Just recently, Benjamin Netanyahu sat down with the Nelp boys, who admittedly when they sat down, said they don't really know anything about. Israel or the subject they're talking about. What does it pretend if politicians no longer have to sit down

with people that are even pretending to be knowledgeable on the subject, or in some cases, another set of influencers who are openly partisan, Benny Johnson's of the world, where the politician knows that they're going to get, you know, a comically favorable interview by sitting down with them? In a sense, it makes sense, not in a good way, but it makes sense. why sit down with somebody who's going to ask you serious questions that you may not want to answer when you can go to somebody who opens the interview with, I don't know anything about the subject. Why don't you talk and I'll listen. You know, you could understand why somebody would want to do it that way.

But let's not let the networks, which were the most serious at one point of the three buckets. let's not let them off the hook too easily. They squandered their credibility. You know, I wrote a book called Bias, came out right after 9-11. It was about liberal bias in the news. It was before cable. And it was a wake-up call.

It was a warning. And instead of paying attention, I was called every name in the book. Literally, I was called a traitor. They don't call traitors a traitor. but I was called a traitor for talking about bias after I was a network correspondent for 28 years. So they squanded their credibility. And if a prime minister of some country doesn't want to go to them, well, as I say, Walter Cronkite's not coming back.

I'll bet you most people can't even name the anchors of the CBS, ABC and NBC nightly newscasts. So why does a prime minister or some leader of a foreign country, he's not. going to talk to Walter Kronk. He's going to talk to somebody who we barely know. And social media fill the void left by cable and the broadcast networks. And now you can go to any place you want. You know the kind of interview you're going to get. You even know the kind of results you're going to get, probably. I don't like it, but I understand it. Let me press you a little bit more on that. You know, I was a big fan of bias. I read it when it came out. I was part of of that second era in some way, the more democratizations on the cable news. I'd go on cable

news. I thought the gatekeepers were bad. In the last two weeks, especially, I wonder what was worse? It was it was the too much gatekeeping when you didn't allow maybe someone like me who's right of center on the air. Let me just go back to the example. Benjamin Netanyahu did this interview with the now. Of course, I probably agree more with Benjamin Netanyahu than the critics, but he obviously went there because there was an issue with Israel among the youth. The Nelk boys, you're probably not familiar with them, you might not be. They started as pranksters and now they do interviews. They got a lot of criticism from their young audience.

So who did they come on to give an alternative view? They brought on Nick Fuentes, who is a white nationalist, who criticized their interview. They seem to be totally unable to distinguish between voices that you might want to exclude or at least be tough with. This era between mob rule, which I would might call it, and gatekeeping, have we gone way too far in the other direction? I mean, and is there any way back to a reasonable, you know? I don't know if I'm answering your question, because as I say, I'm not familiar with a lot of these places. Whatever critique we attach to ABC, NBC, and CBS in the good old days, there were gatekeepers.

There were people who listened to what you said and paid attention and asked. questions that were both appropriate and followed up with, you know, follow-up questions. Because because they were journalists, we're talking about people who aren't journalists. I mean, I'm not suggesting journalism is like brain surgery. I'm not saying, you know, journalists come, you know, come from some mountaintop. They're regular people. Some are smart, some not so smart, but they were journalists. A lot of the people you're talking about, they're not journalists. I don't know what they are, but they're not journalists.

Everybody and his sister has a podcast. You go on the one that suits your purpose. You go on the one that you can get something out of. I mean, I'm here because I think you're an intelligent guy. I mean, I hope I'm right. We'll find out. We'll find out. But a lot of people would say, I'm going to go on, here's what they say, the equivalent, I'm going to go on Fox because I know Fox likes what I have to say, or I'm going to go on MSNBC because I know they like what I have to say. And they do that with the equivalent of social media sites, most of which I never heard of, because I'm not interested to be quite honest in that kind of journalism, because it isn't journalism. It's information, but it's not information with gatekeepers and editors and producers who pay attention.

It's something else. I wonder if you have thoughts on the rise of, in this era, I would say, anti-Semitism in ways that was not in the previous two eras. Was it always there? I mean, you see Tucker Carlson, Lee Fox, and then bring on kooky historians saying these are great historians talking about, you know, Churchill being the greatest villain of World War II. Candace Owens is doing extremely well coming up with the most creative,

conspiracy theories about Jews and others that you can, was this always there during those first two eras and there was enough gatekeeping to keep that at bay? Because it seems extremely popular in this new era. Well, I started it in national news in 1972 and I haven't noticed anything like what you're describing to the extent that we're witnessing it as today. Today it's really bad. but it's not really bad only because of these social media sites that are run by whatever they are, you know, ideologues or whatever. The New York Times is contributing to it also, and they're as mainstream as you get. They're the Bible of the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

I mean, you know, as a matter of more people on the Upper West Side are familiar with the New York Times than the Bible. Well, Bernie, let me just show me because that was where I'm going to go next. Let me ask you about that, that you're right. I can't let off the mainstream media from the hook here. The New York Times is under controversy right now. For a picture it posted on the front page of a child, they said was malnourished. They put a correction a day later or a clarification saying that he had some underlying medical issues of muscle disease.

They narrowed the photos, so you didn't see some of the other children who did not look as nourished as this child. Additionally, when they put this clarification out, they put it out on a Twitter account that has like 60,000 followers, where their main account where they promoted this story has 80 million followers. So unless someone went back to the story to see it in print or follows the New York Times communication account, you would not have known of the clarification. First, let me say, every syllable that you just uttered is absolutely correct. Let's start with a foundation.

Now, I'm willing to accept and hear me out, because. because I don't want to just be listened to for the first part. I'm willing to accept that we make honest people can make an honest mistake. You're covering a war. That's not easy to begin with. You see a lot of hungry people, a lot of hungry children. And then you come across one that's really emaciated. And in a perverse journalistic way, perverse way, it's almost too good to be true.

Geez, if I can get this picture, if I can get this on my newscast or in the New York Times in this case, wow, except, as you correctly said, the mother didn't look emaciated, the brother didn't look emaciated unless you're going out there trying to find things that fit your preconceived notions. And when a reporter covering Gaza wakes up in the morning, a preconceived notion is, I'm going to find more misery. And he found misery. He may have, or whoever the reporter was, a photographer, may have said, the brother doesn't look like he's starving and the mother doesn't. Something's going on here. So there was a mistake. There was a mistake. But the bigger mistake is what you also mentioned.

The bigger mistake is where they put the correction. That picture on page one, images have power. And that big picture on page one was seen by a lot more people than subscribe to the New York Times. That picture was seen by people around the world. And in this country, Barack Obama took to social media to comment about it. Other prominent people saw that. And it affected the way they think of Israel. And by extension, probably of the way they think about Jews, but certainly of the way they think about Israel. I'm sorry, you don't put that clarification on some X account of your PR department. That's just plain wrong. I mean, if they said John L. Smith went to the bank today, but they really meant John G. Smith,

and they got his middle initial wrong, put that wherever the hell you want to put it. But you don't put a mistake like that on an X account, that, you know, 12 people are going to see, you put it on page one, and you put it prominently on page one, and they didn't do that. That was a bigger mistake than the initial mistake, which may have started out as an honest mistake. But there's one other point I'd like to make. Journalists are putting a lot of pressure on Israel, because Israel can respond to pressure. They're a Western democracy that made up of normal people that respond to pressure.

pressure, and there's a lot of journalistic pressure. But there's hardly any journalistic pressure, virtually none, aimed at Hamas, because everybody knows Hamas doesn't care what you think, doesn't care what I think, doesn't care what the New York Times thinks, doesn't care what the BBC thinks. So they get away with a lot. What I would do is, if I were in charge, is I would order an end to every newscast that I was in charge of, every newscast. and I would recommend that the BBC do it in London and beyond.

Every newscasts end the way Walter Cronkite ended his newscasts when there were hostages in Iran. This is the 100th day of the hostages in Iran, the 101st day. I would end every newscast saying this is the 600th day, Hamas is holding hostages. This is the 600 first day. This is the 700th day. Every single day. Now, that's not going to affect tomorrow. because, as I said, they don't care what you think or what I think or whatever, the anchors of any newscasts think, but it might affect the people who see the images broadcast every day and say, you know, I mean, they may come to the conclusion of the obvious, you know, Hamas had something to do with all of this, because I don't know if they're thinking that now.

But let me ask you just kind of a larger point, the coverage of Israel gets versus the coverage of us. other conflicts. I had to double check my work here because it was actually hard to believe, and I'm actually ashamed I didn't know the numbers here. Since 23, April 223 in Sudan, the number is around 500,000 children have died of famine and malnutrition. Ethiopia, the number since 2022 is over 100,000. If you take the number from what we can tell in Gaza, what they're estimated right now from hunger, which is trying to be alleviated, it seems, by Israel now. You're talking not 100,000, not 10,000 or 1,000, but 100 into 150 by official reports. Why is something where 500,000 people have died of famine get, what I can tell is almost no coverage

in the U.S. press, where this conflict where Israel is in a war against what I view is a genocidal enemy, if they had the power to be one, get all the coverage, almost. I have to walk and talk very carefully about what I'm about to say. It could be, and I want to be very careful here, it could be that these liberal journalists or journalists in general are saying some level of their thinking, this is just people over there killing each other. We don't expect anything better from them. you know what they are. I mean, if a right winger ever said anything like that, they'd be called

every name in the book, starting with racist. But nobody, again, you can get in trouble for saying what I just said, which is they're saying, we don't expect anything of them. But Israel is made up of white people, European white people mostly. They should know how to behave, and they don't. And they don't know how to behave at the expense of people of color. These people of color matter. The other people of color in Africa, well, they don't matter as much because there aren't white people oppressing them. There are other black people oppressing them.

And journalists don't feel comfortable covering black people, harming other black people. That's why you don't hear virtually nothing about fatherlessness in America, which is a plague, in Black America, you don't hear anything about Chicago. On any given weekend, there's a mini massacre in Chicago. You know, could be two people killed. It could be 20 people shot. And it's the same thing in Africa. What do we expect of those people? It's a horrible way to look at it. But I think I'm on to something. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss. And it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind.

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after the worst slaughter since the Holocaust, that you're finally hearing, oh, Israel's committing a genocide. What do you think animates the use of that term to apply to the one Jewish state? Everybody loved Israel when it was a weak little country. Now that it's a big country, they become the villains. Can I read you something I wrote in a column a few weeks after October. 7th, which I think speaks to your question. I said, if what we're witnessing now were a movie instead of a real-life horror story, the writer, producer, and the director would come from the

ranks of Hamas. And I went on to say that Hamas launched a ferocious attack on Israel on October 7th. Israel had suffered pogroms before, but nothing like this. and they knew, Hamas knew, that Israel would respond with a ferocious attack of its own. Hamas knew that there would be civilian deaths. Hamas knew that children would die. And mainly, mostly, most importantly, Hamas knew that journalists would show the images of this tragic situation and these images would be seen by people all over the world. not only by government officials, politicians, but ordinary citizens and people around the world.

And they knew that in a matter of no time flat, whatever empathy the world had for Israel on October 7th would dissipate very, very quickly, and Israel would become the villain. And you know what? That is exactly what we're seeing. what Hamas laid out on October 7th and what they knew would follow, as I say, if it were a movie, it would be directed by Hamas. It is exactly what's happening. Let me go to the other big media story going on. Skydance, which is run by David Ellison, the son of the second richest man in the world, Larry Ellison, is taking over Paramount, which owns your former employer, CBS.

What do you make of this major? media move? People may not care one way there that what happens at CBS News, but one thing is important. It's the first time, to the best of my knowledge, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about this, that as an institution, as a corporation, the new corporation, Skydance, they've addressed the lack of diversity of opinion in the newsroom. They've installed or will install an ombudsman in the newsroom. I wrote a book called Bias, which I've mentioned. I don't think Anybody at CBS News read the book. I mean, there's an arrogance that you can't believe.

Well, let me read you two things I wrote in two of my books that speak directly to what you said. Stephen Brill, who was a lawyer-turned media critic or a journalist, I put this right at the beginning of bias before chapter one. When it comes to arrogance, power, and lack of accountability, journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good, okay? And in my second book, Arrogance, I quoted the great Eric Zeberide, the most thoughtful guy at CBS News when I was there. He was a commentator, an analyst. He said, we are simply, I'm afraid, disliked by far too many, perceived by them as not only smug but arrogant, and as critics of everybody but ourselves. So here comes Skydance, the new sheriff in town, and they say, we understand all that, whether they read that or not. They understand that, that there's an arrogance and that there's a lack of diversity.

So we as a corporation are going to address that. I wrote a column about it. I'm going to read you how I ended the column. I say, so good look, CBS News Ombudsman. You're stepping into a job that will make hurting cats look like a walk in the park. You'll need a thick skin and possibly a crash helmet. And here's why. Let's say somebody comes along with a complaint to the ombudsman.

That's clearly ridiculous. Leslie Stahl blinked when she said Donald Trump, therefore she's biased. So it's rejected. The charge of bias is rejected. Whoever in MAGA made that charge is going to say, oh, CBS put in a judge, an ombudsman, who's a liberal hack protecting all the liberal hacks at CBS. That's when the ombudsman rejects the allegation. But what happens when the allegation is true?

that's when it gets really interesting. The allegation comes to the ombudsman, and he comes out with a report on air or whatever they're going to do it that says we were wrong about this. We expressed a bias that we shouldn't have expressed. I know the CBS News mentality. I'm not an expert on much, but I'm an expert on that. They're going to say, Skydance, let David Ellison put in a conservative ombudsman

to make us look bad. They have no introspection. I know that's a generalization, but it's pretty damn close to 100%. They have no general, they have no introspection. They don't look inward. They circle the wagons

whenever there's a charge of bias, a complaint. If you think we have a liberal bias, that proves one thing. And they've said this. That proves you're the one with the bias. We don't have a bike. So good luck skydance with your ombudsman.

I don't envy whoever that person is. I know what's going to happen. And I'm trying not to be too arrogant about like I know exactly what's going to have. I know that the journalist will not take criticism well. We know that. I mean, you mentioned Abundsvind. David Ellison was reportedly interested in purchasing my friend. Barry Weiss's publication, The Free Press, and it sounds from reports that it might be trying to

incorporate, you know, Barry herself somehow into the CBX grass, maybe as the ombudsman, I don't know. Do you think that is a positive or a negative? Yes, positive. I came up with an idea a while back. It was sort of tongue-in-cheek, but you could take it, one could take it seriously now. I said what journalism needs, is an affirmative mainstream journalism, CBS News, places like that, not cable, because they're a biased institution. But what CBS News needs is an affirmative action program for the smallest minority in America's newsrooms, conservative journalists.

And then you tell those conservative journalists, keep your biases to yourself, just as I would tell, if I were in charge, I would tell liberal journalists, keep your biases to yourselves, what we need with conservative journalists, and I think this is exactly what David Ellison is aiming for, is more perspective, a diversity of opinion, of views so that when somebody does a story on abortion, let's say, you have more than one point of view in the newsroom. Somebody does something on affirmative action, DEI. You have more than one opinion. And if you could bring Barry Weiss in, not to, not to, and I know she wouldn't do this,

but not to have a conservative bias to balance against a liberal bias, but a conservative point of view in the newsroom that's currently not there. If David came to you and said, Bernie, will you be our embudsman, come back to CBS and be the embudsman to CBS. Would you consider that? I'm only hesitating because I don't know if there's a stronger word then no. No, but here's what I would do, though. I would offer up any guidance I could to Barry or to David Ellison. There's a picture in my office, which you can't see, of David Ellison's father guarding me or trying to guard me on his basketball court in Redwood City at Oregon when I did a profile of his father.

Trying to think of his father. Larry, Larry Ellison was worth $7 billion when I did the story. He's worth like $150 billion, 180 billion. You haven't looked closely.

He's now worth just under $300 billion. He's the second wealthiest in the world now. Let me tell you, I'll do this briefly. I started the interview outside his house

and his lawn outside. And I said, Larry, you're worth $6 billion. And he interrupted me. He said, that's not true. I looked over at the producer and I shot him a look that if there was a bubble over my head, it would have said, you are a dead man. You embarrass me. And Larry said, no, I'm worth $7 billion. The stock market went up yesterday. And we laughed and we opened the piece with that. But no, the answer is an easy no to whether I would take the job if he offered it to

me because I'm going to get hit from, I'm going to take missiles from both sides. And I don't need that. But if he came to me and said, Bernie, can you offer any advice on what we might want to do and how we might want to do it? I would say yes to that. And to Barry also. What do you make of, you know, the before, I guess it was approved, or maybe it was, I don't know the exact timing, but the Colbert cancellation occurs. There's a lot of people on the, the, the, the left, you think this is because the Ellison's are coming in. They're trying to clear house of critics of Trump. And Stephen Colbert obviously has been a major critic on the show.

He was comedy of Trump. Before I let you answer, I'll say, you know, two days later, if you want to comment on this, South Park, which they just purchased, comes on the air and does the, you couldn't criticize Trump greater in an episode than South Park did in that episode or more ruthlessly. What do you make of the complaints around the view that maybe Ellison is coming in and trying to squash some criticism of Trump? I think that's a distinct possibility. I mean, CBS issued a statement saying, or Paramount, the parent company issued a statement saying it was purely, their word, not mine, purely a financial decision.

Well, it was a financial decision, but I don't know if it was purely a financial decision. Colbert was on vacation, came back 10 seconds after he's back, he's bad-mouthing the $16 million payment to Donald Trump, which is being called a bribe with some justification, might be seen as that. These people, the Hollywood people, they don't understand, they don't get criticized in-house. I don't think right to their face. I don't know, but I assume not. here's the guy making 10, 15 million dollars, I think at least 15 million, and he's bad-mouthing the company that's paying him, and then South Park comes along. These guys must be saying, what the hell did we get ourselves into? Colbert is gone. Okay, we know that. I don't know. South Park is popular people like it. They may say, we can handle that. We can take the criticism.

We'll live with that. But Colbert, I don't think it was purely. their word. I don't think it was purely a financial decision. I mean, I think with South Park, if they canceled South Park because I think they just brought it back, if I'm not mistaken, they paid $1.5 billion dollars. That would be, I think, pretty obvious

political decision if all of a sudden they'll get a third or a fourth episode. But here's a question for you. What's going to happen when somebody on 60 Minutes decides they don't like something that the parent company did? They've already

that spoken out about that, Scott Pelley did on 60 Minutes about the $16 million payout to Trump. I don't think that's going to happen again. This is a better chance if CBS is looking for a new anchor. This is a better chance that Bill O'Reilly

would be the anchor, then Scott Pelley would be the anchor. And I don't think Bill O'Reilly's going to be the anchor of CBS Evening News. But what I'm saying is I don't think they need any more liberal voices there. They have too many. They know they have too many.

And I don't think they're going to tolerate liberal voices speaking out against the parent company. So I think you're going to see a smaller CBS News for money reasons. I think you're going to see smaller salaries. And with a little luck, you're going to see more diversity of opinion. It's what my book was about. We need more diversity of thought. And that's what's lacking at CBS News, at NBC News, at ABC News. And cable is another thing altogether.

They make their money by being biased by throwing red meat to the audience. And I think cable news, and I've said this before, I've written it on my website, cable news is one of the most divisive forces in all of America. It didn't start the fire. It didn't start turning Americans against each other. But what it does is, of course, gasoline on the fire every single day and every single night. And that's a very bad thing. And mostly it's bad because they do it for money.

There's no principles involved. They do it for money. Let me close with this question, Bernie. Where do you get your news? I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. I listen to Brett Bear for an hour on Fox. That's the only news I take seriously. Well, it's a good newscast, a very good newscast. Let's leave it at that. I watch a lot of CNN. What bothers me about CNN, and not that you're asking, but what bothers me about CNN is we all know what boxes. It's not just an opinion show with Laura Ingraham and Hannity at night. It's all day long. We know that. We know what MSNBC is. But CNN likes to think of itself as a serious news organization, which it could be. But you can't tune in to CNN for more than

10 seconds without hearing the name Jeffrey Epstein. Now, why is that? Because Jeffrey Epstein is a name Donald Trump doesn't want to hear anymore. It's not a good story for Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, you couldn't tune on CNN without hearing the word obliterate all day long. You could tune in at any hour of the day and you'd hear obliterate because Donald Trump used the word obliterate that the bomb obliterated the Iran nuclear facility. and it didn't obliterate, it only caused a lot of damage, you know, ridiculous debate that was going on.

So CNN is as biased in its direction as Fox News is in its direction. But Fox News doesn't pretend to be a serious news organization. CNN does. So shame on CNN. It should be better than it is. With that, Bernie Goldberg, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. You know what? For what it's worth, if it matters to you,

I really enjoyed it. I really, it beats the hell out of doing sound bites, which I don't do anymore. Thank you very much. Thank you.