But Attkisson’s predecessors tell a different story: The media are biased, they say, and it is only because journalists are so averse to self-criticism that they are unable to recognize that bias.

“I’ve met guys who work the overnight at 7/11 selling Slurpees and Camel cigarettes who have more introspection than a lot of journalists I’ve met,” said Goldberg, who spent 28 years as a CBS News correspondent before becoming a Fox News analyst. “I don’t think most journalists understand that there is a country between Manhattan and Malibu.”

Goldberg, more than any other media figure, paved the way for Attkisson’s protest. In 1996, at the height of his career at CBS, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in which he argued that mainstream media’s liberal bias was “so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore.”

Goldberg stayed at CBS News for another four years, but his relationship with the network changed: “Let’s just say it was never quite the same,” he said. “You become radioactive when you do something like that. People treated me like I had a contagious disease.”