To the editor:

In his book, “Bias,” former CBS news reporter Bernard Goldberg claims that there is a “liberal bias” in the national news media. He writes, “The bias I’m talking about, by the way, isn’t so much POLITICAL bias of the Democratic-versus-Republican sort. … For me that isn’t the real problem. The problem comes in the big social and cultural issues … abortion, gun control, feminism, gay rights, the environment, school prayer.”

Nowhere in his list do any of the economic and financial struggles of the poor, the near-poor, the lower classes and the middle classes appear. He is among a number of “conservatives” who seem to suggest that the “liberals” of the 1960s were primarily concerned with the “bread-and-butter issues” of survival of these groups as well as with expanding the social-safety-net federal government programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps) while the “progressives” of 2020 seem to be primarily concerned with the social, “identity-politics” and “culture wars” issues.

To the extent that this is accurate, you can put me down as siding more with the “liberals” of the 1960s than with the “progressives” of 2020.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester