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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 26, 2015 12:02:29 GMT -5
The news coverage on Brian Williams seemed a little lopsided. I think it was good coverage, but it seemed odd that no one was coming to Williams' defense. The right naturally wanted to crucify him while the left (not so predictably) also wanted to crucify him. One side wanted only the truth while the other side might have had additional motivation along with their zeal for the truth. Williams' news career is probably over, and that's probably the right outcome. After all, a news anchor lying about his involvement in a battle zone is pretty serious stuff.
And then there's Oh'Really. The nature of his lie is almost exactly the same as Williams' lie, with perhaps just a tad more embellishment. Add to that his lies in his Killing Kennedy book, repeated on TV, and his lies about seeing nuns being executed in El Salvador. The left naturally wants to crucify him while the right defends him.* In this case the left may have additional motivations along with their zeal for the truth, but the right seems to want anything but the truth.
* I've seen nothing but support for Oh'Really from the right. I haven't dismissed the possibility that some from the right are calling for Oh'Really's head, that what was right for Williams is right for Oh'Really, but I haven't found any evidence of it yet.
So anyway, I'm starting to think that the people here who keep talking about asymmetrical treatment in the press might be on to something.
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Post by dradtke on Feb 26, 2015 12:30:26 GMT -5
Jim, they treat all news people the same. Your post supports that.
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Post by factorychef on Feb 26, 2015 13:00:32 GMT -5
I watched 2 clips of him saying what he said and I'm watching him now saying something different. But he did say what they are saying he said. Doesn't he know they have all that on past videos to disprove him?
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Post by Chesapeake on Feb 26, 2015 13:38:40 GMT -5
My only explanation as to why he isn't being hounded out of his job like Williams is, is O'Reilly always had a reputation as something of a bloviator, to use his term. So somehow maybe this doesn't sound quite as serious as the same kind of mendacity coming from someone who had more credibility to begin with. By the way I'm not an O'Reilly basher - I think he's smart (smart enough to hold his own with the likes of Jon Stewart), anything but a kneejerk conservative - his views are really all over the map, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. (Although I watch CNN far more than I do Fox, and so don't catch every show).
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Post by billhammond on Feb 26, 2015 13:47:15 GMT -5
I just like that he called his accuser a "guttersnipe." There is something delightfully archaic about that.
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Post by millring on Feb 26, 2015 14:05:51 GMT -5
He's also not a news anchor.
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Post by dradtke on Feb 26, 2015 15:15:01 GMT -5
He's also not a news anchor. Or a journalist. Or a reporter. Or a news person. |
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Post by david on Feb 26, 2015 15:39:54 GMT -5
Jim, I agree that I never trusted or necessarily believed anything O'Reilly said, so his lie is not surprising. On the other hand, I did trust and believe Brian Williams. His lie shocked me.
But it is odd that O'Reilly's lie did not get much publicity. As to his support from the right or Fox News, I am not aware of it, but then, I do not pay attention to Fox broadcasts.
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Post by millring on Feb 26, 2015 15:44:28 GMT -5
I am not aware of it, but then, I do not pay attention to Fox broadcasts. bingo. |
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Post by millring on Feb 26, 2015 15:45:06 GMT -5
He's also not a news anchor. Or a journalist. Or a reporter. Or a news person. b i n g o |
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 26, 2015 16:06:15 GMT -5
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 26, 2015 17:43:22 GMT -5
Yeah, from the opening post you'd think this was a big deal. Since I hadn't heard anything about it either I looked around the interwebs to see what the big deal was. Can't seem to find anybody in journalism that thinks O'Reilly's words were that big a deal and his explanation seems reasonable. It appears to be the liberal wet dream of Rachel Madcow and Mother Jones (who originally spawned Michael Moron) that turned out to be just a piss spot on the sheets. |
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 26, 2015 18:02:04 GMT -5
I'm reluctant to spend hours of my life that I'll never get back on this, but a quick read-through of O'Reilly's answer to the charges manages to skate around what he has actually said: that he was "in the Falklands" and "in combat," and when he walked that back to mean that he covered a Buenos Aires riot that was like a combat zone, he also claimed that there were fatalities, that he rescued his injured cameraman, and that then-colleague Eric Engberg never left the hotel but stayed behind ordering room service. (O'Reilly says that Engberg's nickname was "Room Service Eric.") None of those assertions have been backed up, and the CBS producer he talked to was in Miami, not Argentina, during the events in question. There was a riot, it was scary, but nobody so far has agreed with O'Reilly that there were fatalities. On the CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, Brian Stelter (who O'Reilly calls a "far-left zealot") said, We can find no evidence that anyone from CBS was injured. We’ve been trying all weekend. To the contrary, six other people who were there working for CBS say they are unaware of any injuries. They also say they’re unaware of any civilians being killed in the riot. And O’Reilly has repeatedly claimed over the years that people were killed there. None of these people, none of them agree with O’Reilly’s depiction of it as a combat situation or a war zone.
Some of them remarked to us yesterday and this morning that the event in Ferguson recently were actually more serious and more severe.
Now, Jim Forrest, who worked with O’Reilly as a sound engineer on the day of this riot, told me, “There were certainly no dead people. Had there been dead people, they would have sent more camera crews.” Unfortunately, some of the other staffers we talked are requesting anonymity because they still work in the industry, or because they don’t want to be criticized by Bill O’Reilly. There's an overview here: www.npr.org/2015/02/23/388577819/despite-furious-objections-bill-oreillys-war-claims-warrant-scrutinyOf course, it's from that nest of far-left zealots at NPR. |
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Post by Chesapeake on Feb 26, 2015 18:21:40 GMT -5
From what I can see, it pretty simply boils down to whether you think Buenos Aires was a war zone at the time, and whether the riot was combat. Both seem a stretch to me. But I don't think they rise (sink?) to the level of claiming to have been aboard a helicopter that came under small-arms fire, and was forced down as a result of being hit by an RPG. Now that's just straight-up lying.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 26, 2015 18:41:08 GMT -5
What's different: Williams is presented (and taken to be) a real journalist, while even his partisans would have to admit that O'Reilly is an op-ed guy, a commentator who used to be a reporter. What's the same: Both seem to feel the need to inflate their resumes with hairy-chested I-braved-big-danger stories. What's also different: Williams' persona is genial and good-natured and he apparently wants to be liked, while O'Reilly is a loudmouthed bully who would rather be feared.
I feel a bit sorry for and about Williams; I wouldn't piss on O'Reilly if he were on fire.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2015 18:44:50 GMT -5
There were demonstrations in the UK about the Falklands war. There were similarities. Nobody was shot dead there either and it was not in the Falklands and it was not a war zone. O'Reilly, described by his employers at Fox as host of a "an unequaled blend of news analysis and hard-hitting investigative reporting" , piously denouncing Williams, well that's a bit rich.
O'Reilly lies in print and lies on telly over and over and claims that he is being persecuted by hysterical left wingers for pointing that out with solid evidence. He will not have to leave his programme. The whole network lies a lot of the time and very rarely stands corrected. It is not a news channel it is a propaganda channel whose output does not stand up to scrutiny.
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Post by Fingerplucked on Feb 26, 2015 18:48:35 GMT -5
From what I can see, it pretty simply boils down to whether you think Buenos Aires was a war zone at the time, and whether the riot was combat. Both seem a stretch to me. But I don't think they rise (sink?) to the level of claiming to have been aboard a helicopter that came under small-arms fire, and was forced down as a result of being hit by an RPG. Now that's just straight-up lying. O'Reilly said he was in the Falkland Islands. Whether there was a riot in Buenos Aires and whether that riot was more subdued than protests in Ferguson Missouri is immaterial. O'Reilly was in the Falklands or he wasn't. And he wasn't. He was over 1,000 miles away from the Falklands, reporting on the Falklands. Williams said he was in a helicopter in Iraq that took on fire and he was forced to land. He was in Iraq. He was in a helicopter. And he was only a half hour behind a helicopter that WAS forced to land because it had been hit by enemy fire, and Williams reported on the helicopter. It seems to me that Williams came closer to the truth than O'Reilly did. Williams fucked up, but he went out with a degree of class. Imagine instead that he reacted the way O'Reilly did, calling his outers liars and guttersnipes. Imagine that Williams said those reporters ought to wind up in a kill zone. Imagine that Williams told a reporter he'll go after her with everything he's got if she runs with the story. Imagine that NBC had fully supported Williams, refusing to consider any type of repercussions. And imagine that Williams defended himself on air, night after night, saying that told the truth: he was in Iraq reporting on a helicopter that had been shot out of the sky, as if that answered any questions. It's not hard to imagine what the press would have done to Williams if he had reacted that way. It would have been a bloodbath, and the far left wing zealot media outlets would have been leading the charge. Not so when it's O'Reilly. O'Reilly? Meh. No story here, move along. |
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 26, 2015 19:18:15 GMT -5
Like I said, I hadn't heard about this. Where's the video of O'Reilly saying he was in the Falklands?
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 26, 2015 19:20:26 GMT -5
If I recall, the Williams thing really didn't have a political angle. He wasn't brought down by Fox News, but rather journalism as a profession.
Now that the O'Rielly is largely being pushed by the typical leftist bullshitters without any real consensus among the profession probably goes a long way toward explaining the indifference.
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Post by millring on Feb 26, 2015 19:31:45 GMT -5
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