{"id":426,"date":"2007-05-02T11:35:01","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T18:35:01","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2007-12-20T13:56:46","modified_gmt":"2007-12-20T21:56:46","slug":"villains-and-victims-in-bill-oreillys-no-spin-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"Villains And Victims In Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nResearchers at Indiana University have published the results<\/a> of a study that documents the intimidation and propagandizing employed by Fox News’ resident bully, Bill O’Reilly. The study, sub-titled, “Revisiting World War Propaganda Techniques,<\/em>” finally paints an academically verified picture1<\/a><\/sup> of O’Reilly’s repulsive modus operandi. Contrary to O’Reilly’s assertion that he doesn’t, “do personal attacks<\/a>,”<\/em> the IU study spells out the truth:<\/p>\n

The IU researchers found that O’Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.<\/span> [See the Stalking Points Memos<\/a>].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This may not seem like news, but we now have data that is backed up by the reputation of researchers from a respectable American university. While it may appear that O’Reilly is a cartoonish character, he is following the model of Father Charles Coughlin<\/a>, the early 20th century American racist\/fascist. There were probably those who thought Coughlin was cartoonish at the time. And like Coughlin, O’Reilly does have a huge audience of blind ducklings that take his word as gospel. The lesson we must learn is that this sort of evil cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

O’Reilly is man that cannot say the word “left”<\/em> without appending modifiers like “far,” “ultra,” “committed,”<\/em> or “looney.”<\/em> He is a man who is convinced that every critic is a “smear merchant.”<\/em> And his opponents are never merely disagreeing with him, they are “vile.”<\/em><\/p>\n

While the researchers never overtly associate O’Reilly with the work of his propagandisitc predecessors (i.e. Goebbels, Coughlin), they do point out some more subtle connections. The study itemized seven propaganda devices as defined by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis<\/a>. O’Reilly was found to have employed six of them nearly 13 times each minute:<\/p>\n