Bill O'Reilly's partisan critics stepping up attack
1. Bill O'Reilly's partisan critics stepping up attack
Bill O'Reilly's partisan critics stepping up attack - Yahoo News
NEW YORK (AP) " Following several stories questioning Bill O'Reilly's past reporting, a liberal media
watchdog has ordered its researchers to comb as a result of years of the Fox News Channel host's
writings, radio and television displays and public appearances to come across examples of
inconsistencies.
O'Reilly is squarely in the crosshairs of Media Issues for America, an illustration of how the media is
topic to the identical political campaigns as politicians. Fox is standing behind O'Reilly, but the
extent to which cable news' most well-liked personality is damaged might depend on how numerous
extra stories come out.
"It really is a moving target," said Bradley Beychok, Media Issues president, on Friday. "It truly is
also early to tell what the finish of this is."
The work started a week in the past, right after Mother Jones magazine reported that O'Reilly
claimed to be in a "war zone" though reporting on the Falklands War in Argentina a lot more than 30
many years in the past for CBS Information, when as a substitute he covered an anti-government
demonstration far more than one,000 miles away from the front.
Other reviews soon followed:
"Media Matters quoted police reports, witnesses and former O'Reilly co-employees to rebut
O'Reilly's assertion that he was outdoors the house of John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's
pal when the good friend killed himself by shotgun.
"Media Matters said O'Reilly advised he witnessed the assassination of 4 nuns in El Salvador when
he had not.
"The Guardian quoted former O'Reilly colleagues who explained he had exaggerated an incident the
place he said he'd been attacked by protesters for the duration of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. As a
substitute, they explained he had argued with one man.
Media Issues, an organization formed eleven many years ago by David Brock, has an $eleven.two
million operating spending budget and a mission devoted to combatting conservative media. It has
45 researchers on employees and, as initially outlined in Politico, assigned most of them to O'Reilly's
dossier right after the Mom Jones short article hit.
"This is not beneficial to his brand," Beychok stated. "His brand is that he's a reality-teller and we
have had numerous examples of wherever he's not telling the truth."
Provided O'Reilly's prominence and Media Matters' mission, it can be relatively surprising the group
hadn't dug into O'Reilly's record like this in advance of. Beychok stated the Media Issues is a
"speedy response investigation organization" that follows the information.
Media Issues has not actively followed the situation of NBC's Brian Williams, suspended for
misrepresenting his experiences when reporting in Iraq in 2003, simply because it isn't central to its
2. political mission. On the other side, the conservative Media Investigate Center, which explained
Williams had gotten off uncomplicated with a 6-month suspension, did not respond to queries about
O'Reilly on Friday.
O'Reilly's publishers have backed their author, reiterating that level on Friday. O'Reilly is the co-
writer of a prosperous book series on the deaths of prominent historical figures like Kennedy,
Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ.
"This is practically nothing additional than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates Mother
Jones and Media Issues," Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti explained. "Responding to the unproven
accusation du jour has come to be an work out in futility. Fox Information maintains its staunch help
of O'Reilly, who is no stranger to calculated onslaughts."
For his part, O'Reilly has reacted differently to the stories. He quickly went on the assault following
the Mother Jones post, calling it a "political hit job" in quite a few interviews and saying that the
violence in the Buenos Aires demonstration he covered justified his description that it was a fight
zone. He explained his statement about the nuns' assassinations by saying he noticed pics of the
aftermath. He hasn't responded to the stories about the Kennedy figure or Los Angeles riots.
The only way O'Reilly can be seriously broken is if additional allegations about his statements come
forward from sources other than partisan organizations, explained Joe Muto, a former O'Reilly
producer fired by Fox just after he began creating an anonymous site as the "Fox mole."
"Eventually, he'll survive this since he's not held " by his bosses, or the public, or himself " to the
similar standards of truth-telling as Brian Williams is," Muto explained. "People today assume a
selected degree of hyperbole and exaggeration from O'Reilly. It's baked into the occupation
description. It is portion of his persona."
His attackers are the liberal organizations that O'Reilly and his followers locate fantastic foils, he
mentioned.
"The only way that checklist of nemeses could be a lot more perfect for him is if it integrated Al
Franken, Ward Churchill and the total state of Vermont," stated Muto, who now edits for actuality
television applications. "Bill is under no circumstances happier than when he is underneath attack."
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Stick to David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His perform can be located at
http://bigstory.ap.org/material/david-bauder
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