Indeed, Alterman's book is at its best when describing the almost brilliant synergy in play among the Republican Party and various conservative media outlets, talk radio hosts, political activists, and think tanks (in a great piece in the Boston Phoenix this week, Dan Kennedy calls this the GOP Attack Machine). Alterman describes in detail how "liberal" media outlets are always inviting conservatives on for "balance," whereas conservative news organizations don't even bother with such efforts.

Alterman's argument isn't without its share of blind spots, however: The author completely discounts the considerable influence in national discourse of NPR, as well as the alternative press, and he ignores the influence the very liberal Times has on other media outlets nationwide. He also stretches considerably in slapping the "conservative" label on any journalist (from Howard Kurtz to David Broder) with a habit of quoting any Republican in a non-negative light. And if the Republican media juggernaut has as much power as Alterman says it does, it doesn't explain how Democrats ever win elections. There are also quite a few spelling errors (the author spells Gregg Easterbrook's name three different ways), and in two different sections he confuses which ones are "red states" and which are blue.

In a way, Goldberg and Alterman are both right. While "Bias" was a poorly written screed in which proving liberal media bias took a backseat to mean-spirited potshots at the author's former boss Dan Rather, he did make some valid points in regards to ridiculous ways in which people in network newsrooms are out of touch with their audience. Alterman makes the opposite argument even more convincingly, but obviously did much more research- his book consists of nearly 20 pages of endnotes, compared to Goldberg's zero.

Reaction to the books will likely fit along ideological lines: Fox News watchers will prefer "Bias," with New York Times devotees favoring "What Liberal Media." As a social liberal with some neocon leanings, I say the tie goes to the better-written, more intelligent book, and that undoubtedly is Eric Alterman's.