Bass was the youngest of seven children. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1956 with a degree in journalism.
He served in the U.S. Navy, attending officer's candidate school in Newport, Rhode Island. He served for three years at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado, California, as well as in the Philippines.
When Bass resigned from the Navy, he and his family moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where he began his work as a professional journalist. He worked at The News and Courier (Charleston), a co-owned weekly paper, The West Ashley Journal, and The State (Columbia). He received a Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University for 1965–66.
From 1966 to 1973 Bass worked as the Columbia Bureau Chief for The Charlotte Observer as well as a part-time lecturer for journalism at the University of South Carolina. Bass has taught at a number of universities including the University of Mississippi and the College of Charleston.
He was named South Carolina Newspaperman of the Year in 1968 and 1972. His The Transformation of Southern Politics was on the American Library Association's "Notable Books for Adults List" for 1976, and he received a Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for "Taming the Storm" in 1994.