Jesse Watters

Bill O’Reilly And Jesse Watters Lie About Van Jones

Posted by on May 2, 2012 at 2:23 am. 8 Comments :

Bill O'ReillyLast week Bill O’Reilly interviewed his Fox News colleague Jesse Watters about a video Watters had produced wherein he ambushed Van Jones at a green energy convention. The video itself was a frivolous exercise that succeeded mainly in demonstrating how easy it was for Jones to make Watters look foolish.

More interesting was a part of the exchange between O’Reilly and Watters that included a wholly unfounded attribution by Watters that even O’Reilly found unbelievable:

Watters: He [Van Jones] actually said that the EPA has saved more lives than the department of defense and that Republicans want to poison children.
O’Reilly: Jones said that Republicans want to poison children?
Watters: Yes, he did.
O’Reilly: Was there any reason that the GOP wants to commit homicide?
Watters: Jobs. Poisoning children creates jobs.
O’Reilly: Now wait a minute. This guy was working in the Obama administration. He actually said that the GOP wants to poison children?
Watters: We have it on tape.
O’Reilly: Alright. I want to see that tape on Reality Check on Monday.
Watters: OK.

Well, Monday came and went and there was no video. O’Reilly broadcast his Reality Check segment on Tuesday and there was no video. It should come as no surprise that O’Reilly failed to air the video and didn’t even bother to address the fact that he was breaking his promise to do so. The reason for that is simple: There is no video of Jones saying what Watters alleged he said.

The truth is that Jones never said that Republicans “want to poison children.” He responded to accusations that the EPA kills jobs by noting that the EPA actually saves tens of thousands of lives every year by controlling toxic emissions and pollution. Jones suggested that critics be asked “How many American children are you willing to poison per job?” It was a speculative question meant to stimulate discussion about the relative merits of environmental regulation, not an indictment of the GOP as wannabe children poisoners.

This is yet another example of Fox News making irresponsible and dishonest allegations and failing to back them up with evidence. These phony “journalists” have no problem shamelessly making false statements publicly and then simply letting the whole matter drop and hoping their glassy-eyed audience forgets the part where they promised to provide proof. And judging from the non-reaction from the Fox audience, forgetting is something they do willingly.

Bill O’Reilly Gets Occupied – Brandishes A Lethal Umbrella

Posted by on December 8, 2011 at 7:58 pm. 7 Comments :

The senior eminence of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, demonstrated yesterday just how tender his thin skin is. O’Reilly was surprised by a chance encounter with a “fan” who wondered whether he was attending a fundraiser for Newt Gingrich (he wasn’t). But the encounter got a little out of hand when O’Reilly’s inner bully emerged.

The funny thing about this episode wherein O’Reilly physically assaults someone who did nothing more than ask him a question, is that this is a tactic that O’Reilly has championed for years. It was O’Reilly’s own producer, Stuttering Jesse Watters, who was so often dispatched by O’Reilly to ambush unsuspecting folks in an attempt to embarrass or harass them. When criticized for this cheesy debasement of journalism, O’Reilly steadfastly defends it as rooted in the proud historic tradition of Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes (it’s not).

However, subjected to the same sort of reporting that he favors, O’Reilly proves that he can dish it out but he can’t take it without lashing out and whining to a nearby law enforcement officer. And as the video shows, the only person who engaged in potentially unlawful violence was O’Reilly himself. He deployed his umbrella with such force that he broke it.

On his Fox “Spin Zone” program tonight, O’Reilly sought to portray the curious citizen as a threat who was “armed” with a cell phone camera. O’Reilly said that the man was “running at [him] in the dark, screaming.” Of course the video tells an entirely different story. And for some reason O’Reilly didn’t bother to play the video. I wonder why.

O’Reilly followed his self-serving defense with a discussion of the event with a former police detective. The two of them brazenly misrepresented the video that they refused to play. Clearly they didn’t want the audience to know what they were talking about. And, of course, his guest absolved O’Reilly of any wrongdoing.

At one point O’Reilly conceded that he and his minions have used the same tactic to get interviews, but he lied by asserting that if a subject asked them to leave they would do so. Here’s some pretty conclusive evidence that that was not the case:

So what we’ve learned from this is that O’Reilly is a liar, a bully and, like most bullies, a coward. It’s too bad the fellow who suffered the wrath of O’Reilly’s umbrella doesn’t have his own TV show to set the record straight. However, if any of O’Reilly’s friends watched the video, they now know what to get him for Christmas.

Fox News Producer Won’t Deny That Fox Makes Things Up

Posted by on February 13, 2011 at 10:20 am. 11 Comments :

This is classic:

Last week Media Matters published an interview with a former Fox News “insider” who revealed, among other things, that Fox News is a “propaganda outfit” that “makes things up.” So ThinkProgress sent Ben Armbruster to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) where he ran into O’Reilly Factor producer and “ambush” interviewer, Stuttering Jesse Watters. The result is this video that shows Watters completely unresponsive in his smarmy effort to evade a simple question: Do you think that Fox News just makes stuff up?

Watters weaved and dodged without even approaching a coherent response. Rather, he attempts to school Armbruster on the finer points of ambushing. But what’s truly hilarious is that Watters can’t even muster a denial that Fox News makes things up. That’s about as close to an admission as we’re likely to get.

Equally funny is the spin that Fox Nation puts on this event:

Yesterday at CPAC in Washington DC, a liberal blogger from a Soros-funded smear site attempted to “ambush” Fox News’ Jesse Watters, who was covering the conservative conference for FoxNation.com and whose “ambush” interviews are frequently featured on The O’Reilly Factor. It was an embarrassing disaster for the little left-wing blogger. We’re surprised he posted the video because it was such a failure, but thrilled he did. Watters, who’s been “ambushing” judges, politicians and journalists for years, playfully mocked the “ambush attempt” while it went down, critiqued it “you can’t ambush with a camera phone”) and breezed away smiling.

The Fox Nationalists are actually proud of Watters performance, calling it “an embarrassing disaster for the little left-wing blogger.” That approaches a new level of oblivious for the Murdoch-funded smear site. How can they view this as a victory when their hero is seen in full retreat, ultimately ducking into an elevator to escape? And he couldn’t even defend the accusation that Fox manufactures lies and presents them as news? All he had to say was “No.” Perhaps he has a little integrity after all and couldn’t bring himself to deny the truth?

Nah, he’s just a douchebag.

Jesse Watters Crashes GE Shareholders Meeting

Posted by on April 23, 2009 at 12:50 pm. 16 Comments :

The reigning weasel of news hackery, Stuttering Jesse Watters, is striving mightily to surpass his personal worst. At the GE shareholders meeting, Watters, who did not identify himself as Bill O’Reilly’s attack troll, or even as an employee of Fox News, commandeered the microphone and began lobbing antagonistic questions at GE brass.

Paul Bond’s column in the Hollywood Reporter reports that Watters asked GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt about Janeane Garofalo’s recent appearance on Countdown. There were reportedly several other “shareholders” who rose to ask questions regarding MSNBC’s alleged editorial slant to the left.

It seems somewhat suspicious that a spontaneous collection of objectivity-conscious investors would arise to complain about one of GE’s most successful assets – and one whose success can be directly tied to the work of Countdown’s Keith Olbermann. Would these shareholders prefer that the network had not increased its audience and revenue by record margins over the past couple of years? One complaint focused on Olbermann’s failure to challenge Garofalo’s remarks. Bond then recounts that…

“Immelt told the assembled he takes a hands-off approach to what is reported on the company’s news networks, which prompted a shareholder to criticize him for not managing NBC Uni more effectively.”

That’s a rather curious complaint. Would they prefer that Immelt intervene in the editorial decisions made by NBC’s news production teams? Were he to do so, they would probably complain that he doesn’t permit the journalists to do their jobs impartially. On the other hand, they may indeed have a preference for corporate executives who dictate the editorial content for their networks. Witness their affection for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes, who run a tightly partisan operation at Fox News.

Needless to say, this affair will likely end up on the O’Reilly Factor soon, and O’Reilly will use it in yet another attempt to bash GE (his proxy for Olbermann) and assert that Immelt should be fired for his poor performance. As usual he won’t acknowledge that both News Corp and GE’s stocks have declined about 60% in the past year. And he won’t call for Rupert Murdoch’s resignation either.

Update: As I predicted, O’Reilly spent the first ten minutes of his show tonight on Watters’ adventure in Orlando. Most of it was the typical tripe O’Reilly is famous for, but there was one moment in his Talking Points that was priceless:

“This is obviously a major story. When a powerful corporation which controls a major part of the American media may be using its power and the airwaves to influence politics in order to make money from government contracts.”

He is talking about Fox News, isn’t he?

Bill O’Reilly’s Attack Puppy Jesse Watters Strikes Again

Posted by on March 23, 2009 at 4:43 pm. 3 Comments :

Whenever Bill O’Reilly has some dirty work to do that doesn’t involve a loofah, he sends his trusty minion, Stuttering Jesse Watters. In the field, Watters pretends he is the progeny of Mike Wallace (whose real progeny, Chris, is also a Fox News toady). Watters plots elaborate ambush “interviews” with people who wouldn’t otherwise get within spitting distance of him, or O’Reilly either for that matter.

This past weekend, Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress was literally stalked by Watters while she was on vacation.

Terkel: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours.

This harassment was orchestrated by O’Reilly as payback for Terkel’s reporting on O’Reilly’s appearance before the Alexa Foundation, a rape victims support group. It was a personal assault that had no news value, just the desire to harm someone he believed to be an enemy. The action taken against Terkel violated even O’Reilly’s criteria for ambushing:

O’Reilly: [W]e do not go after people lightly. We always ask them on the program first, or to issue a clear statement explaining their actions.

However, Terkel was never contacted for either a statement or an invitation to appear on the Factor. This is typical O’Reilly behavior. Remember, this is the same guy who pushed an Obama aide and threatened him not to “block the shot.” He is a textbook bully, as well as a paranoid narcissist. Dispatching so-called “producers” to harass people you don’t like is closer to organized crime than to journalism. Perhaps O’Reilly and Watters could be prosecuted under the RICO statutes.

Update: O’Reilly’s segment with the Watters ambush just aired and it was a stunning piece of sensationalistic, libelous, garbage. The encounter with Terkel, whom O’Reilly branded a villain, was edited so as to paint a thoroughly dishonest picture of her, while permitting Watters to spew a running commentary of vile character assassination. Then O’Reilly took a cognitive leap to turn his fire on Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC, without explaining what he had to do with any of this. Clearly, O’Reilly just wants to take every opportunity to bash NBC as a proxy for his nemesis, Keith Olbermann, who also had nothing to do with this.

Also notable in the segment was O’Reilly’s description of the rape trial for the perpetrator of the crime committed against Alexa Branchini, for whom the Alexa Foundation was created. O’Reilly said that the defense put on a case intended to “prove the rape was consensual.” That is, to say the least, a curious phrasing. He did not refer to whether the “sex” was consensual. It appears that O’Reilly thinks that sometimes a rape victim may have consented to being raped, or was otherwise responsible. And that is precisely what Terkel noted in the article that started all of this – that O’Reilly was an inappropriate speaker to a rape victims organization because of his previous insensitivity for implying that some victims are responsible for bringing about their own assault. Somebody needs to tell O’Reilly that rape is NEVER consensual.

Bill O’Reilly Can’t Stop Bashing Homeless Veterans

Posted by on February 1, 2008 at 11:07 pm. 10 Comments :

On tonight’s edition of the O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly resumed his repulsive assault on homeless veterans. This would be a despicable act under almost any circumstances, but O’Reilly engages in his slander in an attempt to defend his own tattered ego.

The trigger for his onslaught was the delivery of a petition signed by 17,000 people who believe that O’Reilly should apologize for his misstatements and disrespect for homeless veterans. The signatures were gathered by producer Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. In the plaza in front of the News Corp. headquarters, the group was met by O’Reilly’s producer, Stuttering Jesse Watters. They were not allowed into the building to deliver the petitions.

On his program tonight, O’Reilly led off by mocking Greenwald for a film he made 30 years ago. Admittedly Xanadu was not a box office bonanza at the time of its release, but it has since become something of a cult classic and it didn’t lose money either, earning $22 million and ranking #28 amongst all films released in 1980. That put it between Raging Bull and American Gigolo. Its soundtrack, however, was a bona fide hit reaching #4 on the album charts and spawning 5 top 20 singles. A stage adaptation is presently in its 7th hit month on Broadway where it broke opening day records for the Helen Hayes Theater. Consequently, O’Reilly’s snide sarcasm about Greenwald not being able to find a job is really just another example of his own mean-spirited and dishonest boorishness. And that’s aside from the fact that it is entirely irrelevant to the sad and serious matter at hand.

O’Reilly goes off on another tangent to criticize Steve Capus, President of NBC News, because his office couldn’t (or wouldn’t) respond to a query as to why NBC sent a crew to cover the event. O’Reilly then advised Capus to “pay attention to his job.” However, the job of the president of a news network is not to trace the steps of hundreds of news personnel in the field. Maybe O’Reilly should ask Roger Ailes if he knows where all of his crews are at any given moment. Then O’Reilly asserts that the reason that Capus is “going after” Fox News is because “we’re kicking their butt around the block.” That is, of course, an unmitigated lie. NBC News is currently the #1 news network with the #1 nightly news program and the #1 morning news broadcast. O’Reilly may have meant to limit his hyperbole to cable news networks, but he specifically referenced only NBC, which he has maligned in the past as a failure even though the opposite is true. He never mentioned MSNBC, which is trailing Fox News in the ratings, but is growing much faster. But again, how does this help homeless veterans?

Eventually O’Reilly got around to expressing his true feelings by seeking to ridicule the participating vets because they did not watch his program and didn’t hear his offensive remarks themselves. It must not have occurred to him that homeless vets may not have televisions or cable TV subscriptions. To the contrary, he believes that they all have color TVs and DVD players and air conditioners and cars and more. He said as much on his program last month in a diatribe riddled with falsehoods and faulty analysis. So because these troubled vets were told about O’Reilly’s insensitive and false comments, rather than seeing it for themselves on their nonexistent sofas in their nonexistent homes, O’Reilly now claims to feel sorry for them. Not because they are living on the streets of a country that seems to have forgotten them, but because he thinks that they are being exploited by the people who are, in fact, trying to help them.

O’Reilly has stated several times now that he would provide help for any homeless vet if only he knew where one was. He has since had numerous responses, including one from Keith Olbermann that included a precise location in New Orleans where more than 200 suffering souls could be found. I wouldn’t put much faith in O’Reilly’s empty promises, though. I hope they’re not waiting for him to show up with blankets and sandwiches and vouchers for shelter. I would rather rely on the incompetence of FEMA than the sanctimony of Bill O’Reilly.