The Bill O'Reilly Thread

Speaker's Corner
1

I have no admit, I was very surprised to see DD put down that he respects Bill O’Reilly in the podcast thread, so much so that he listen’s to Bill’s daily podcast. Personally I see Bill as a pundit who’s gaming the system. I’ll clarify that a bit. I think Bill has decided what the best course of political action is, and then filters the news, and literally everything he says through a filter of “how can I win more people to my way of thinking” and that he believes in a “ends justifies the means” and that he lies, misleads, and tricks his way to further his cause. If he was actually “right” in what he was saying, no amount of trickery or misleading would be necessary, because the facts would support his side.

Now, I have no problem with anyone speaking their mind on anything, in fact, I think that discussion and debate are very near the most important things there are in society. But I do not appreciate it when anyone misleads or twists the facts to make their case. I think this sort of intentional confusion results in some of the worst stunting of progress and spread of knowledge there is, and YES EVERY POLITICAL SIDE HAS PEOPLE WHO DO THIS. But I think Bill is second only to Michael Moore in his deception, so much so that you really can’t take anything he says seriously.

So this thread will contain examples of how Bill is misleading/misconstruing/twisting the facts/ or lieing, and anyone who has any interest in responding is welcome. I’m not trying to pick on DD, or anyone in specific, but I was shocked to see someone who I respect as much as DD actually list Bill O’Reilly as someone he respects. All I’m looking to do is prove my point that Bill O’Reilly is a shyster who cannot and should not be taken seriously by anyone. So I welcome anyone to try to defend O’Reilly as he is repeatedly tripped up by people actually listening to what he says. You can even defend him as devil’s advocate if you want.

That said, here is Exhibit A:

http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/2009/02/10/jon-stewart-nails-oreilly-on-right-to-privacy/

I’d be perfectly happy to have a Micheal Moore thread, or a (he’s getting less objective by the day) Keith Olbermann thread. I’m all for calling everyone on their bullshit, and what we have to break down is the two party “divide and conquer” tactics that are mostly achieved by both sides being mislead about the other side.

2

bill O slammed Helen Thomas also which I found really funny

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/10/bill-oreilly-calls-helen_n_165696.html

if you read the comments one of the first ones is a Q&A

Q: What is the difference between Bill O’reilly and Helen Thomas ?

A: Helen Thomas is a journalist

LOLOLOLOLOL fucking owned

and also wasn’t the Witch of the east the good one ? hahahahaha

he can’t even get that minute fact straight welcome to the far right wing of America

3

http://tvbythenumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/100908oreillyolbermann.gif

A preview to my longer rebuttal. (sorry, studying like crazy this semester. everyone: don’t be a math major.)

4

Holy Crap, is that accurate? Over 75% of O’Reilly’s viewers are 55 or older?

If true, that is a wonderful thing. Apart from that, I don’t see the relevance.

Its a busy time of year, so no rush on the response.

5

the unfortunate thing is most of his viewers think of him as an anchor not an entertainer.

wow America is a country of fucking tools

6

I think both shows suck and try to sensationalize the news by pandering to their core viewers. Rather than portraying their point of view in an informative matter and maybe having a discussion or debate to put off the other side, they just try to cram their self-righteousness down everyone’s throats. Neither of them are journalists.

7

Well, said.

Now, what to do about it. Many people take them seriously. :-\

8

This really shouldn’t be surprising, for two reasons.

-The results shown here are Friday nights. 25-54ers have a much greater likelihood of being out at 8 EST any night, much less a Friday night. With a little research done (sorry Zera, didn’t mean to steal your persona) over at TVBythenumbers.com, I found that last week the average of 18-49 viewership for Monday-Thursday of the four major broadcast networks was a Nielsen rating of 3.7. Friday’s Nielsen was 1.8.

  • I have class in 15 minutes so my next point will be shabby, but probably obvious anyway. It’s that 25-54 year olds aren’t uniformly the type you’d expect a news program to have a high viewership. Take a look at least week’s broadcast ratings. 60 minutes is what I want to speak of specifically. 60 minutes is the last bastion of evening news relevance in the age of cable, which is already losing out to the internet–specifically mobile news. Even so, it was the second most watched TV show last week, allowing that the Grammy’s were a special event and American Idol can’t be first twice. Despite this, its 18-49 ranking was a paltry 25th. 18-49 is an immense amount of our population, yet, television news simply doesn’t work for them. The difference is a mixture of indifference and the appeal technology such as the internet has over 18-49 (hopefully much, much more of it is the latter. Hopefully.)
9

Ruck, no one can read your avatar.

10

tx i will change it

11

Okay, I recognize that you aren’t finished making your point, but I wasn’t talking about ratings at all. The only reason ratings factor in at all is to see how many people might actually be believing him.

If your point is that FOX is just a business trying to turn a profit and that they put on literally whatever results in higher ratings, then I’ll concede that, but that doesn’t make them immune from this discussion.

12

dammit, dammit, dammit.

I did it again. When I login from school I forget to check “keep me logged in” and invariably I get logged out at some point. Then I try to submit my message and it says I need to login. ZAP, there went my post. Oh well, I’m sure some brevity from my end would be appreciated by anyone reading.

In summary, I had a post that said:

-Bill is much, much less right wing than the caricature Stewart, Letterman and the print media paint him as. I had several examples with details, now they’ll just have to be examples.

Bill was very protective of Obama from right wing hate machine attacks during the election. There were “swift boat attack” stories that circulated about Obama in the months leading up to November. Bill wasn’t having it.

Bill has consistently hammered the oil companies for “war time profiteering.”

Bill is frequently listed amongst right wing journalists and tv and radio personalities such as Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Michael Savage. However, right wing publications never list Bill as an ally in the same vain. Savage, in fact, famously (for the right) and comically refers to O’Reilly diminutively as “The Boston Leprechaun”.

As a note to my next point, The O’Reilly Factor is the second most watched news show on television, behind a broadcast news show, 60 Minutes. That said, bear this in mind: The only candidate to accept Bill’s invitation to be interviewed on The O’Reilly Factor was Senator Barrack Obama*. If Obama had picked a venue like Hannity’s America or shudder whatever piece of garbage show Lou Dobbs does, he would have had nothing to gain and lots to lose. Why, if O’Reilly is such a right winger, was this not the case on The O’Reilly Factor?

*Note O’Reilly’s ratings for 9/5. It explains the peak.

The Ambush clip has a good explanation. Stewart never bothered to ask who the people being “interviewed” are or what they’ve done to warrant a visit from The O’Reilly Factor. The audience is left to assume the motives. An audience like Stewart’s will default to the common explanation for Bill’s caricature: that they have said something Bill doesn’t like, and Bill is obtaining vengeance. He even, mathematically to my glee, confirms this graphically to any who haven’t quite caught up.

I hope there’s more Exhibits because this hardly qualifies Bill for being a liar, misleader or trickster for a malevolent cause in any case.

13

DD: First of all, yes, when Bill saw Bush going down in flames he had to jump ship, because 1.) a popularity rate declining to an eventual 6.8 percent isn’t a wise thing to associate yourself with, and 2.) Bush actually was doing stupid shit that the majority of conservatives began to resent him for.

You can say this is him being “fair and balanced” but this is survival, and it’s easy to not be in lock step with a President who has gone so incredibly far off the “conservative” path.

Your second main point; Hannity and Savage are further off the deep end so, to say that Bill is more prudent than they are, makes sense if he wants to not alienate his “broad” audience. Plus, hints of objectivity can legitimize an otherwise extremely slanted message.

Your third main point;

[quote]The Ambush clip has a good explanation.
[/quote]
Let’s hear it! Why is Bill not a hypocrite on this subject? You say that Stewart is misleading his audience, to come to their own conclusion, but you don’t finish your thought on how Bill ISN’T being a hypocrite.

[quote]I hope there’s more Exhibits because this hardly qualifies Bill for being a liar, misleader or trickster
[/quote]
Agreed, being a hypocrite is chump change, but I figured we’d start somewhere defensible. Additional “Exhibits” will be slow in coming, as I’m not going to dig around for them, just post them as they happen, or as I happen to stumble across them.

14

While working in Northern Virginia this past summer I listened to the bigtime D.C. talk radio channel all the time. It had Glen Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity and Bill O’s radio shows on it. And some Left winger woman at 10am I can’t remember her name but she was hilarious !!
I listened to him for 2 weeks straight. Absolute right wing propaganda if I’ve ever heard it. He called himself a centrist and a libertarian the entire time. While praising Bush at every breath. In 2 weeks he prolly disagreed with Bush once. It was such a train wreck I listened everyday from like 1 to 2 pm and yelled at the radio. hahaha

15

Bill O’Reilly is less right wing than Hannity, but Hannity is almost a human cartoon. Bill is right wing, he’s just not a hardcore conservative.

He never called O’Reilly fair and balanced, he just showed he’s not a hardcore conservative.

16

O’really ? ok I would have to agree with that.

He was so sexist on NPR's "fresh air" show that the host (forget her name) had to turn his mic off    lolol
17

I assume you are referring to Glen Beck? Yes, Glen Beck, and another jackass named… (had to look this up) Neal Boortz both go on their respective shows claiming to be “libertarian”, and while it is true, maybe 10% of what they say has some sort of libertarian truth to it, they are WAAAAYYYYY not libertarian. They misinform people as to what libertarianism is by calling themselves that, and I think they are a result of the two party system trying to secure their place by tearing down “libertarianism” from the inside.

I get SOOOOOOO pissed off listening to either of them.

joel: yes, I wasn’t saying that DD said Bill was “fair and balanced”, I was just continuing the logical argument of “why would Bill defend Obama on a certain issue” (for example)

18

Boortz is another one

One thing about it though, it was entertaining :slight_smile:

19

Something that got lost in my original post is my apology for steering the discussion into ratings. It’s just, as an O’Reilly fan, I did a mental chuckle at the suggestion of the creation of an Olbermann Thread as balance. Nobody watches Olbermann.

20

Zera, I hate when you do this. :expressionless: Why should we assume that Bill has some malicious intent in everything he does? Who should we believe that of, ever? Sometimes I have to shift my eyes left to make sure I haven’t read too far and I’m into Ruckus’ posts now. It’s all so conspiratorial. Like Bill wakes up in the mornings, checks the Pres’ polls and says “hmm…I better shift my viewpoint.” The man’s in his 60s with a ton and a half of money. I don’t see or hear a man looking to become richer and more powerful at all costs. O’Reilly’s written 7 books to date. I read 5. His viewpoint hasn’t changed, with minor exceptions, in 20 years (ex. Bill used to be all about severe amounts of gun control. After Katrina he loosened his stance significantly.) It’s arrogance to assume others lack any more or less purity in intent than yourself. This post is some crusade demanding the press stop contriving an artificial war between differences of opinion for ratings? Why don’t you start by not pitting everyone against O’Reilly via a subjective opinion of his intent? See a human being for once.