Tag Archives: Bill O’Reilly

national news

O'Reilly questions keep mounting

History might be repeating itself. First there’s an allegation of fibbing. Then it’s followed by more allegations. More witnesses come forward. More questions get asked.

That’s the way it often goes when controversy starts boiling over.

Bill O’Reilly’s troubles aren’t going away, any more than Brian Williams’ troubles aren’t going away.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/25/another-fabrication-oreilly-never-witnessed-the/202667

The Fox News talk show host now is being questioned about whether he witnessed the murder of nuns in El Salvador, which he says he saw. This comes after questions arose about whether he heard the shotgun blast when someone connected to President Kennedy’s assassination killed himself. It comes after questions surfaced in a lengthy Mother Jones article about whether O’Reilly ever was in serious danger while “covering” the Falklands War from Buenos Aires.

This stuff happens. It’s not unique to O’Reilly. Brian Williams went through it. Others have endured similar revelations. Remember the John Edwards story and how the one-time Democratic vice-presidential nominee denied the affair with Rielle Hunter? How about when President Nixon denied any wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal? Then came those tape recordings and the testimony from those who said, “Yep, he told the FBI to stop investigating the break-in at the Democratic Party office.”

Is any of this going to spell the end of O’Reilly at Fox News? Time will tell.

Meantime, the bombastic talk show host had better get ready for more nasty revelations.

 

national news

O'Reilly getting a taste of his own brew

The Bill O’Reilly story isn’t going away any time soon.

It might not ever disappear. Why is that? Well, look at it as payback from other media organizations that have been on the receiving end of O’Reilly’s sanctimony over many years.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/24/oreilly-lied-about-suicide-of-jfk-assassination/202655

The left-leaning media watchdog groups around the country are taking a serious look at the allegations of embellishment and falsification that have piled up around O’Reilly. The Falklands War story still is resonating in some circles. O’Reilly has implied that he was in serious danger while covering the 1982 Falklands War between Great Britain and Argentina. He didn’t show up on the battlefield, but was in Buenos Aires covering riots and other disturbances during the Falklands conflict.

Was he in the danger he says he was? His former CBS colleagues dispute it.

Now comes another allegation of falsehood, that he was present during the suicide of a principal in the John F. Kennedy assassination. That, too, has come under challenge.

This story will have legs for some time for one simple reason: Bill O’Reilly has made considerable hay over the years criticizing other media outlets and reporters for their own transgressions. He’s held himself and his employer, Fox News, as the twin paragons of virtue and truth-telling. The “No Spin Zone,” which he calls his Fox TV show, has every bit as much “spin” as any other TV news talk show. O’Reilly just chooses to “spin” his stories his way.

Another reality, though, is that O’Reilly isn’t getting any more of a media vetting than Brian Williams got when it was revealed that he really wasn’t shot down in Iraq in 2003 as he has suggested. Nor is he being hammered any harder than former CBS News anchor Dan Rather was when he reported erroneously about President George W. Bush’s Air National Guard duty in the 1970s.

However, O’Reilly’s penchant for sticking it to other media means this story will continue for a good while longer.

This kind of scrutiny goes with the territory. O’Reilly knows it better than most.

 

national news

VA chief 'inaccurately' states military service

When will this all stop? The fibbing, the “incorrect” statements about one’s personal history, the embarrassments.

Welcome to the Pantheon of Prevaricators, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald.

The new VA boss — hired to fix the problems that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care network — has been caught saying he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces when, in fact, he didn’t.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-veterans-secretary-apologizes-for-misstating-military-service-abc-news/ar-BBhUHJ7

McDonald was caught on camera telling a homeless veteran that he served in the elite fighting force. The vet told the secretary he had served in Special Forces. “Me, too,” McDonald answered, telling the fellow he also was a Special Forces soldier.

To be fair, McDonald is a West Point graduate and did become an Army Ranger, which happens to be an elite fighting force as well. Why embellish those credentials?

NBC News anchor Brian Williams has recently admitted to “misremembering” an incident in which he said  a helicopter he was riding in was shot down by enemy fire in Iraq; it didn’t happen and he’s been suspended without pay for six months. Then came questions about Fox News talk show host Bill O’Reilly’s experience covering the Falklands War in 1982; he has said he came under fire covering that conflict but others have challenged his assertions, saying he didn’t set foot on the battlefield, as his reporting at the time and the years since have implied. O’Reilly and Fox are battling the accusations.

McDonald has apologized for the incident, which was recorded by a CBS News crew. “I asked the man where he had served in the military,” McDonald said, according to ABC News. “He responded that he had served in special forces. I incorrectly stated that I had been in special forces. That was inaccurate and I apologize to anyone that was offended by my misstatement.”

Inaccurate? Yeah, it was at least that. I’d call it a “lie,” which is the kind of thing that got the VA into trouble in the first place, with hospital staffers falsifying wait times that veterans were having to endure while seeking medical care.

Get back to work, Mr. Secretary — and limit your public remarks to the job you’ve been assigned to do.

 

national news

'Kill zone' just a figure of speech?

Bill O’Reilly needs to settle down.

Mother Jones has written a scathing piece alleging that the Fox News talk show star fibbed about his coverage of the Falklands War in 1982 while he was working for CBS News.

O’Reilly has lashed out — savagely — against Mother Jones and one of the co-writers of the piece, David Corn. He said Corn will end up in the “kill zone. Where he deserves to be.”

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/oreilly-kill-zone-just-a-slang-expression-202887.html?hp=b2_l1

Corn took the “kill zone” remark badly. Mother Jones editors have demanded an apology. They won’t get one. O’Reilly called it a “figure of speech.”

Oh, that Bill. He’s such a kidder.

I’m still waiting for O’Reilly to prove he actually prowled the battlefield in the Falklands while covering the brief conflict between Great Britain and Argentina. He hasn’t done that. Instead, O’Reilly has lashed out with a barrage of pejorative terms to describe Corn, Mother Jones and — as is his modus operandi — all those on the “loony left” who have criticized his work over many years.

Let’s get to the issue at hand, Bill: Were you on the battlefield — or not?

national news

O'Reilly, Williams put media under the scope

Yes, there’s actually a lot of good that can come from the controversies surrounding two prominent broadcast journalists.

It is that the media — both print and broadcast — have been put on high alert to be sure they’re telling the truth and leave no doubt to their readers, viewers and listeners.

The world is watching. Carefully.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/oreilly-kill-zone-just-a-slang-expression-202887.html?hp=b2_l1

* Brian Williams of NBC News has suspended without pay for six months. His transgression? “Misremembering,” which is what he calls it, an event in which he reported being shot down by a rocket in Iraq in 2003. It didn’t happen that way, despite Williams’s telling of the tale. His credibility is in tatters and likely is damaged beyond repair.

* Now comes a blistering report that Fox News host Bill O’Reilly allegedly misrepresented his reporting from the 1982 Falklands War fought between Britain and Argentina. O’Reilly has said repeatedly he reported from the remote island battlefields. Mother Jones magazine has challenged O’Reilly’s assertion, to which O’Reilly — as is his style — responded by calling the writer David Corn a “guttersnipe” and a liar. A former colleague at CBS, where O’Reilly was working at the time, also has challenged Bill O’s account of where he was during that brief war. This one isn’t over.

Throughout all of this has been an interesting analysis of how the media do their job.

The U.S. Constitution protects the media from government interference, so there cannot be a government policing arm established to ensure the media tell the truth. That has to come from within the industry. And within all broadcast and cable news networks, as well as all print organizations, there must be some serious in-house discussions taking place to ensure that everyone who reports the news does so with impeccably.

There can be no doubt about the truth of what’s being reported.

The good that comes from all this tempest and tumult must be that journalists of all stripes are put on notice that the world is watching them with keen eyes and is tuning in with ears that hear everything.

***

Williams is unlikely to return to his anchor desk at NBC. As for O’Reilly and his career at Fox, well, stay tuned for that one. O’Reilly is always — always! — ready to unload against his accusers. He’ll just have to answer one question: Can you prove you were in the middle of the fight? If so, then let’s see the proof.

 

International news, national news

'Bloviator' O'Reilly's war coverage challenged

Bill O’Reilly’s brand on TV news is one of confrontation and — some would suggest — self-serving excess.

OK, I’ll suggest it, too. O’Reilly is full of himself at times.

He’s been all over the Brian Williams story and the now-admitted “misremembering” about the NBC News anchor being shot down in Iraq in 2003.

Well, the self-proclaimed bloviator is now facing a challenge of his own, from Mother Jones magazine, over whether O’Reilly actually witnessed combat during the brief war in the remote Falkland Islands in 1982, when Great Britain sent a flotilla to its territorial possession to rid the place of Argentine troops who had taken the island illegally.

“I was there,” O’Reilly has contended all along. Mother Jones disputes O’Reilly’s assertion.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/bill-o%E2%80%99reilly%E2%80%99s-falklands-war-coverage-challenged-in-explosive-new-report/ar-BBhLZxs?ocid=ansWrap11

This story is still developing, but as MSN reported, O’Reilly has been quick — imagine that — to respond to the allegations that Mother Jones has made that the correspondent did not face hostile fire, as he has reported for more than three decades.

MSN reports: “The (Mother Jones) website’s David Corn highlights several instances where the Fox News primetime host claimed to have covered the 1982 fighting in the Falklands War between Argentina and England up close–the issue is few reporters were able to cover the conflict up close due to the remote location of the war zone.”

I’m not going to make an assessment here of whether O’Reilly fibbed about his war coverage. I will, however, suggest that the Fox News TV talk show star’s aggressive reporting of others’ troubles — such as Brian Williams — exposes him to careful scrutiny by other watchdogs to ensure that he’s as righteous as he claims to be.

Here’s the Mother Jones article that O’Reilly asserts is “bulls***.” It’s lengthy. It’s also quite interesting and carefully detailed.

Bill O’Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem

See for yourself. Is David Corn merely a “left-wing assassin,” as O’Reilly asserts, or is he an aggressive reporter?

As for O’Reilly, it appears he has to explain himself — without resorting to name-calling.

 

political news

Palin now 'seriously' considering a WH run

Sarah Palin has gone from “considering” a campaign for the presidency to “seriously considering” it in 2016.

Oh, boy. This is getting fun.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/01/27/palin_hits_quasi-conservative_fox_on_fox_dings_oreilly_for_calling_potential_candidacy_reality_show.html

Palin dinged Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly for having the temerity to refer to a possible Palin campaign as a “reality show.” She went after who she calls “quasi-conservatives,” who, I guess, aren’t like her, which I suppose is a “true conservative.”

Truth be told, I no longer recognize the modern version of conservatism as I’ve always understood its political meaning.

A part of me laughs off a possible Palin candidacy. It cannot possibly be serious. Indeed, in the book “Game Change,” a chronicle of the 2008 presidential campaign, key advisers to Republican nominee Sen. John McCain acknowledged not vetting Palin after her name emerged as a possible pick to join McCain on the Republican ticket. McCain’s senior political adviser Steve Schmidt acknowledges now that it was a huge mistake to select Palin to run with McCain.

Yet, another part of me would welcome a Palin campaign, perhaps for the same reason I’m cheering for Mitt Romney to run again. Mitt made some goofs while running for president in 2012. Palin has written the book on gaffes, blunders and foul-ups since her 2008 campaign for VP. So, maybe this is her chance at redemption.

Sounds good, yes? Sure, except that Mitt is a serious politician, while Sarah Barracuda is not.

Mitt can redeem his reputation. Palin is a lost cause.

 

medical news, national news

Right-wing media attack getting out of hand

Right-wing mainstream media talking heads need to get a grip on this Ebola story.

Some of ’em are yammering about demands for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden to resign.

For what?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/14/foxs-cdc-smear-campaign-calls-for-directors-res/201146

Two of the “stars” of this trash Dr. Frieden cavalcade are Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham. They haven’t listen too intently to what their colleague Shepard Smith said on the air recently, that the Ebola “crisis” in the United States isn’t a crisis at all, that we have little to worry about and that — here it comes — we shouldn’t politicize this issue by seeking to lay blame on medical professionals who are trying to do their job.

That hasn’t stopped Blowhard Bill and Laura the Lip from firing off their criticism of Dr. Frieden.

Ingraham likened Frieden to “Baghdad Bob.” Remember that guy? He was the idiot propagandist who proclaimed that Iraqi forces were defeating American troops in 2003 — as Americans were rolling into the Iraqi capital city.

There’s no need at all to demonize Frieden in the manner that some on the right are seeking to do. Indeed, even O’Reilly’s own Fox colleague Greta Van Susteran has proclaimed Bill-O is wrong to criticize Frieden’s work as head of the CDC.

Let’s calm down, shall we?

Uncategorized

Obama says O’Reilly ‘unfair’? Shocking!

Imagine my surprise when I saw the story in which President Obama said Bill O’Reilly was unfair in his interview just prior to the Super Bowl.

Just kidding. No surprise there.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/02/03/22560607-obama-says-fox-newss-oreilly-absolutely-unfair-in-extended-interview?lite

O’Reilly is the noted Fox News Channel blowhard who fancies himself a serious broadcast journalist. He is no such thing. He is a commentator, a guy with lots of opinions on lots of issues — and someone who is totally unafraid to express them, even while he is interviewing a Very Important Person, such as the president of the United States of America.

My takeaway from the pre-Super Bowl interview is that O’Reilly is love with the sound of his own voice and doesn’t care to hear what others have to say. He has demonstrated that countless times in the many years he has been on TV.

Obama noted also that Fox has been “unfair” in its coverage of his administration, which of course should come as no surprise either.

Yes, I know the pendulum swings widely in that regard. Liberal-leaning MSNBC has been none too kind to Republican officeholders and would-be officeholders. The folks at that network are shills for the left, just as O’Reilly and his Fox brethren are shills for the right.

And that brings me back to my favorite TV “news” slogan, which is how Fox proclaims itself to be the “fair and balanced” network.

A news network that keeps saying such things about itself usually is neither.

Uncategorized

Loudmouth O’Reilly makes news

One of the many things I dislike about contemporary broadcast “journalism” is when the so-called journalist becomes the newsmaker.

Such was the case prior to the Super Bowl on Sunday when Fox News loudmouth Bill O’Reilly interviewed Barack Obama — and tried to steal the thunder from the president of the United States.

As he has done before when the men have met, O’Reilly interrupted the president repeatedly. He cut him off. He wouldn’t allow him to answer questions, many of which were excellent and pointed.

I don’t mind one bit journalists digging hard for answers to questions that linger out here in Viewer Land. I do mind, though, when journalists seek — by virtue of their outsized personality and ego — to become part of the story.

That ain’t their job.

Their job is to ask questions, to collect answers and to allow consumers of the news and analysis to decide for ourselves what we believe to be correct or incorrect. This consumer, me, cares not one bit what the interviewer thinks about anything. Just ask the questions and get the heck out of the way.

Once again, O’Reilly demonstrated that news and entertainment have melded into some new form that — in my view — is hard to watch.