Last night Bill O’Reilly engaged in a particularly obtuse and angst-ridden defense of himself. His pique was inflamed by critics who brought attention to the commentary he gave on election night when he slammed voters who “want stuff” and seemed nostalgic for a majority white, “traditional America.”
O’Reilly: “The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things? The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America anymore.”
That’s fairly typical for an O’Reilly rant and isn’t newsworthy in and of itself. what’s interesting is that he had the gall to wrap this screed in an attack on left-wing critics who merely reported what he said. This led to him saying even more things for which he surely will be remembered. For instance:
O’Reilly: “There are entire media operations that exist solely to promote ideology.”
Indeed there are. And O’Reilly should know. He is the kingpin host for just such an operation. Fox News was built from scratch to promote the ideology of a lizardly old Australian and is run by the former media guru to Richard Nixon and the Republican Party. There was never any intent for Fox to be anything other than a conservative propaganda machine. So this makes O’Reilly’s remarks drip with irony. And it isn’t the first time he has obliviously wandered off the reservation. A few years ago he was candid enough to make this observation:
O’Reilly: “There are few journalistic standards left these days, as we’ve proven on this broadcast again and again.”
Yes, bill, you have certainly proven that many times over. I can’t think of another program that proves it more conclusively.
O’Reilly’s homage to a bygone era of a “traditional” nation that was predominately white and never asked for handouts is remarkably similar to Mitt Romney’s vision of an America where 47% of the people are moochers who won’t take responsibility for themselves. Romney even reiterated that thought post-election when explaining to his fleeced donors that he lost because “the President’s campaign focused on giving targeted groups a big gift.” To Romney, the race was determined by loafers whose votes could be bought by promises of federal swag – inconsequential things like health care and food. It’s funny that Romney neglected to note that his own campaign also promised big gifts to targeted voters, except the voters he targeted were wealthy folks who yearned for lower taxes and federal subsidies.
I suppose we should be grateful that O’Reilly has come forward to admit the existence of ideological media enterprises. If only he knew what he was actually talking about and recognized his own complicity for slinging the most biased hunks of pseudo-journalistic gruel ever broadcast.
I hope Obama never does another interview with this fake journalist. If asked, the White House only need reply that they only do interviews with media outlets practicing journalism.
While you focus on FOX News in general and Bill O’Reilly in particular, you conveniently ignore at least one other “news” organization whose primary objective is ideology.
Come on, Mark. We all know it. I’ll give you the opportunity to actually respond by naming it. Can you do it? Let’s see.
Yes, but certain organizations don’t claim to be “fair and balanced.” And as we all know, Shlox … excuse me, FOX … is neither.
So as long as you don’t claim to be something you’re not, it’s ok. For example, if FOX News removed its “Fair and Balanced” tag line, what they do would be acceptable in your eyes?
On the other hand, other media outlets (and we know who they are), as long as they don’t profess to be “unfair and unbalanced” or “biased and unobjective”, are the virtuous sources of news we should all be taking in.
This is typical deflection to avoid addressing reality, and rationalizing what is otherwise an indefensible position. With all due respect, it’s disingenuous.
My problem isn’t really that Fox is biased. It’s that they are dishonest. Sure, MNSBC is also biased, but they generally report things that are within their ideological framework and are also true.
Fox News makes up shit and presents it as news. Just today they did a report with video of people crossing the border and a caption that said “The Hispanic vote.” They have been accusing the White House of orchestrating the Petraeus affair in order to shut him up – without a hint of evidence. That isn’t news – it’s outright lies.
I’m not defending FOX News as a bastion of objective and accurate journalism. MSNBC is nothing different, just from a Left perspective. Characterizing their reporting as biased, yet true is incongruous.
It’s relatively easy to determine when a media outlet is inaccurate based on the facts that are reported, as you have so ably pointed out. I haven’t seen the reports you refer to, but I would like to know what show did this. To say it’s a lie is a pretty strong statement. Perhaps conjecture or jumping to conclusions (inaccurate ones, you would say) would be more to the point. Showing a video of people crossing the border in the context of “The Hispanic Vote” shows their bias, but it’s hardly a lie.
In the case of MSNBC, there has been little coverage of the Benghazi attack, and the conventional wisdom has been that Republicans politicized it for their advantage. It is MSNBC’s lack of reporting that reflects its bias and its lack of journalistic integrity. You may think it’s all much ado about nothing, but were it not for FOX News with all its “lies”, this would have been swept under the rug by the media.
No media outlet is perfect, and certainly they have their leanings. But with all its flaws (and I do understand them), I prefer to have FOX News report on stories that are either ignored or minimized by the rest of the press.
John, you correctly pointed out that bias is often just the editorial decisions on what to cover and what not to cover. So I can’t understand why you would say that it’s incongruous to be biased, yet true. That’s actually very easy. Choosing to report on subjects that advance your interests is biased, but not dishonest.
MSNBC has not spent as much time on the Benghazi “scandal” as Fox (although they have reported on the embassy attack). That’s a decision that may have been driven by bias, and maybe not. It may just be that they don’t see evidence of a scandal. Nevertheless, they haven’t reported anything that was untrue about it.
Fox, on the other hand, has reported outright falsehoods as indicated above. Another example is the allegation on Fox that calls for help were made to the CIA, but were ignored. The CIA denies that there were ever any calls for help that went unanswered, and Fox has no evidence to support their allegation.
I appreciate your interest in hearing stories that some media outlets decline to cover. I feel the same way. There are stories that I’m interested in that aren’t covered on Fox or MSNBC. But I insist that any news enterprise post reports that are accurate and true. Fox fails that test repeatedly, and I have innumerable documented examples of it on this site. MSNBC may not make the editorial decisions that you (and sometimes I) would like, but they do not lie.
Your assuming his goal is honesty in media – it’s not and never has been. It’s about this clearly conservative media outlet only and it’s because it is conservative – that’s all. There is NO desire to have honest media at this site, just liberal/progressive biased media – Mark is a Fraud and a hypocrite, he has demonstrated it numerous times, but he is too delusional to own up to it or even see it.
Is that why you keep coming back , Steve?
No, he keeps coming back so that he can post incoherent rants that are devoid of any substance other than insulting me. It’s pretty boring actually. And it must be sad for him to go through life that way, so I let him post out of a sense of mercy.
Mark, I appreciate your response, but I believe your general characterization of FOX News as a media outlet that generally lies, is inaccurate and overstating. Perhaps it is just semantics, but I don’t think you see it that way.
I have made comments on this blog about FOX News when it has been obvious they screwed up. You prefer to characterize their reporting as not only biased, but a body of work meant to deceive the public by lying. I believe at MSNBC, they would call their body of work biased with the occasional inaccuracy (because nobody’s perfect).
I wonder if you have anything good to say about any news item reported by FOX News. If so, please let me know. If not, I think your own bias has gotten the better of you.