Ailes, the former Fox News chairman, was ousted last month from the network over charges of sexual harassment.
Source: Ousted Fox News chief Roger Ailes is advising Donald Trump ahead of presidential debates
Category: Fox News
Rupert Murdoch has reportedly appointed two co-presidents to run Fox News and the Fox Business Network after the departure of founder and CEO Roger Ailes.
Source: Rupert Murdoch appoints two co-presidents to run Fox News after departure of Roger Ailes
The controversy facing Roger Ailes over allegations that he sexually harassed a Fox News reporter has deepened after anther, high profile female journalist said he also made unwanted sexual advances to her.
Source: Megyn Kelly ‘claims Fox CEO Roger Ailes sexually harassed her too’ | People | News | The Independent
Butts being grabbed, women being kissed against their will, female employees being ogled at work, promotions being offered in exchange for sex, and the looming threat of being fired for anyone who complained about the degrading harassment.Is it just me, or does the recent ugly portrait of Fox News these days in the wake of Roger Ailes’ de
Following the ousting of former Fox CEO Roger Ailes amid allegations that he sexually harassed former network anchor Gretchen Carlson, The New York Times reported that a culture of sexual harassment and intimidation in Fox News may extend beyond Ailes. According to the Times, interviews with current and former Fox News employees revealed “instanc
Source: Report: Sexual Harassment At Fox News Goes Way Beyond Roger Ailes
Nearly 11 years to the day since Fox News supremo Roger Ailes, drove Lachlan Murdoch into the wilderness, it is Lachlan who is negotiating Ailes’ exit after a sexual harassment scandal.
Source: Lachlan Murdoch set to get his revenge on Fox boss Roger Ailes
The Guardian highlighted the long and widespread sexism and misogyny of Fox News following the reported firing of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, amid charges of sexual harassment made by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson.On July 19 it was reported that Ailes was given until August 1 to resign or be fired. This ultimatum came as a result of a law
Source: The Guardian: Firing Ailes “Can’t Turn Around The Mess Of Misogyny That Is Fox News”
The conservative Drudge Report is reporting that Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes is leaving the network. New York magazine writer Gabriel Sherman reported today that parent company 21st Century Fox had given Ailes a deadline of August 1 to resign or be fired in light of its investigation into his alleged sexual harassment.The Drudge R
Source: UPDATED: Media Reporting That Roger Ailes Is Leaving Fox News
After Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox CEO Roger Ailes, Fox News personalities have rushed to defend Ailes while disparaging Carlson’s character, dismissing her allegations, and accusing her of having ulterior motives. Their response mirrors the false tropes the network hosts push in their sexual assault coverage.
“How do you stop a lunatic? … This is not a political issue.” Andrea Tantaros on Fox News in 2012 after a racist skinhead shot a police officer in Wisconsin during a rampage.Stampeding their way to the Blame Game starting gate, Fox News commentators have been relentless in their recent claims that President Barack Obama himself des
Source: For Fox News, There’s No Collective Blame When Political Cop Killers Are White
Bill O’Reilly ignored the fact that Donald Trump’s campaign May financial report showed the campaign paid his own businesses and family for campaign events, instead choosing to debunk a controversy regarding a payment to what some initially believed to be a fictitious advertising firm.During a June 22 discussion with Fox contributor Martha Ma
Source: O’Reilly Ignores The Most Embarrassing Aspects Of Trump FEC Report
Fox News legal analyst Arthur Aidala, also a criminal law attorney, shot down his cohosts’ obvious hope that Hillary Clinton will soon be indicted. Not one of them seemed willing to acknowledge that maybe there is no criminal case to be made against her.
On May 26, Fox News aired an hour-long special, Meet The Trumps, in which On The Record host Greta Van Susteren spent the hour asking flattering questions of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump and his immediate family. Multiple critics compared the special to the state-run media of a dictatorship. This is what the special looks like when you
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dominated his former rivals for the nomination in interview airtime on Fox News. From May 1, 2015, through Trump’s decisive victory in the Indiana primary on May 3, 2016, the businessman garnered more than 49 hours of interview airtime on the network, more than twice as much as second
Source: STUDY: Trump Won The Fox Primary, Doubling Any Other Candidate In Interview Airtime
Michael Clemente, seen as a leading contender to replace the Fox News chief, was moved to a new division.
Source: Fox News Shake-up Complicates Ailes Succession — NYMag
During a segment on drug incarceration, Fox News’ Eric Bolling suggested the higher incarceration rates for African Americans are not about race, but instead because “blacks committed more of the same crimes.” From the April 22 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor:BILL O’REILLY (HOST): I feel very
Source: The O’Reilly Factor Peddles Racist Myths About High Incarceration Rate For Drug Violations
Misinformation spreads rapidly — and intentionally — in right-wing echo chambers. Here’s how they do it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiKPKGENLwwYou can’t handle the truth!
Source: Watch Bill O’Reilly Lose It After A Fox News Poll Delivers Terrible News For The GOP (VIDEO)
Fox’s Sean Hannity responded to criticism of his coverage of GOP front-runner Donald Trump by publishing data showing that he has dedicated more than over four hours of interviews to Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and more than 30 interviews to each on his Fox News show. Hannity also explained that his softball interviews were based on his agre
They don’t even try to hide their participation in influencing elections any more.
Source: Fox News Reportedly ‘Finished’ With Marco Rubio | Crooks and Liars
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Megyn Kelly is garnering another wave of misplaced praise, benefiting from Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s latest attacks on her. But outside of the debate scene, Kelly’s role on Fox News is little more than to shill for conservative misinformation.
Journalists and pundits across the political spectrum are stepping up to defend the Fox News anchor after Trump labeled her a “lightweight journalist” leading up to Fox News’ January 28 GOP primary debate, which he declined to participate in. Kelly’s defenders have called out the sexism in Trump’s attacks while lauding her as a “real journalist willing to stick her neck out to defend the vulnerable.” But in doing so, they have bought into the distorted persona she has carefully crafted for herself — that of the credible journalist, distinct from other Fox figures who are more obviously partisan.
That image has been bolstered by a series of glowing profiles of Kelly that describe her as a “take-no-prisoners newswoman” who “isn’t afraid to throw hardballs at Republicans” and have called her “the brightest star at Fox News” who “transcends politics with her skillful skewering of windbags of both parties.” Fox helped Kelly reinforce that image in Fox’s first GOP primary debate, where Kelly posed a series of tough questions to the candidates — most notably challenging Trump on his history of sexism — and persuaded many of the 24 million viewers that she is a serious journalist. Fox’s January 28 GOP debate will likely provide yet another opportunity for Kelly to amplify this deceptive image by deviating from her usual bigotry and right-wing misinformation to ask tough questions while all eyes are on her.
The media is right to call out the sexism of Trump’s attacks on Megyn Kelly, but to argue that she is a serious, legitimate journalist while doing so misses the mark.
Outside of Fox’s debate scene, Kelly has repeatedly used her authority to prop up conservative misinformation from The Kelly File‘s anchor desk. In the first two weeks of 2016, she spent over 1 hour and 22 minutes promoting Michael Bay’s myth-filled Benghazi movie as “the gripping new film that may pose a threat to Hillary Clinton’s hopes for the White House.” Kelly regularly hosts the leader of an anti-LGBT hate group, and has a long history of offensive, discriminatory comments about minorities.
Kelly has also used her primetime Fox show to push falsehoods about Planned Parenthood, most recently asking whether the grand jury indictment of two members of the group that released deceptively edited smear videos to attack the organization was a “political hit job.” Kelly once told Charlie Rose she’s “not an opinion maker,” yet she has repeatedly advocated for conservative causes and spread misinformation — and has gotten away with it because there are journalists willing to call her credible.
Sean Hannity despises him. Actual Fox atheists want his autograph. David Silverman takes the fight to the enemy
Remember when Fox News attacked the left for politicizing tragedy? That was so Charleston shooting ago!
Source: Fox News Pundits Rush To Politicize Paris Terror Attacks | Crooks and Liars
After reports surfaced that Rupert Murdoch planned to step down as head of media giant 21st Century Fox, many were left to wonder where the shakeup would leave Fox News Channel and its longtime head, Roger Ailes.
CNBC broke the news last week that the billionaire CEO of 21st Century Fox was to step down as head of the media conglomerate, leaving the management to his two sons, Lachlan and James. It seemed like a bad omen for the right-wing network: Murdoch’s sons reportedly detest it.
But Ailes, the evil genius behind Fox News, was said to be left unaffected by the change, somehow managing to continue to report to Murdoch directly despite his impending departure.
Well, who said that? Fox News, of course:
Rupert Murdoch would continue to serve as executive chairman, according to Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch, according to Fox News Channel.
Nope. Not true. Not happening. Just more Fox fiction.
“Roger will report to Lachlan and James but will continue his unique and long-standing relationship with Rupert,” 21st Century Fox spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter
Ailes will not actually get any special arrangement to continue reporting directly to Rupert. Instead, Ailes’ new boss will be an environmentalist.
Ailes biographer and veteran Fox News watcher Gabriel Sherman describes a scene at Fox last Thursday that reminds me of the infamous on-air Karl Rove meltdown after getting word from Megyn Kelly that Mitt Romney had lost Ohio and the 2012 election:
According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. “Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say,” the source said. “In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert.”
That’s the Roger Ailes way, just make stuff up to feed to your anchors who enthusiastically repeat the baseless claims on-air. News.
Well, it finally appears to be blowing back in Ailes’ face now. Sherman writes of the impact of Ailes’ “demotion“:
For much of the past 15 years, Roger Ailes has operated with virtual impunity inside Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Nothing, it seemed, could induce Murdoch to rebuke Ailes publicly, even if Ailes forced Murdoch to choose between him and his sons. Such was Ailes’s power that he has been able to run a right-wing political operation under the auspices of a news channel.
This week, for the first time, there are signs that this remarkable era may be entering its twilight. Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion.
[…]
No one I spoke to in the hours after the news broke could remember a time when Ailes has been so publicly diminished. “History was made,” a longtime Ailes associate told me. “It is terrible for Roger,” said another. “It is a public contradiction. Roger takes these things personally. Worse, it shows that Rupert did not give him a heads-up of the management change in advance. That alone was a slight to his ego.”
Ailes is set to begin reporting to 42 year-old James and 43 year-old Lachlan Murdoch on July 1.
Where’s Charlie Pierce when you need him to take apart the most ridiculous Politico screed yet?
In this installment of Politico Is Not Neutral Ever, senior media writer Jack Shafer takes liberals to task for criticizing Fox News. But he doesn’t stop there. He also hammers Bruce Bartlett’s study proving Fox News is bad for Republicans.
But Fox in its current incarnation is neither a help nor a hindrance. Fox News—and its Svengali Roger Ailes—aren’t the Republican kingmakers they’re made out to be. I explored this point last month, noting that the network is better at employing presidential candidates than electing them. Whatever ambitions Ailes and Fox chief Rupert Murdoch may have to elect a president—in 2012, Ailes had his heart broken by Chris Christie and David Petraeus, both of whom declined his invitation to run—their first priority has always been to make money, which Fox News does, clearing a reported $1.2 billion a year. If you think of Fox News as a news-entertainment hybrid designed to make money, its combative programming style begins to make more sense.
Oh, I see now. We’re just supposed to look at Fox as entertainment wrapped in newspaper. Gosh, when you look at it that way, then of course it stands to follow that no viewer actually believes the crap Fox spews, right?
For Shafer, it’s all a big joke. I’m guessing he hasn’t actually had the pleasure of sitting down to a family dinner with brainwashed Foxites and crazy Uncle Liberty, to borrow a phrase from driftglass.
Like many Fox critics, Bartlett inflates the network’s power. Fox’s most popular program, The O’Reilly Factor, pulls in about 3.3 million viewers on its best nights. In a country whose voting-age population exceeds 234 million, 3.3 million ain’t squat. What’s more, the O’Reilly/Fox audiences aren’t even uniformly Republican! According to a Pew survey from 2012, 45 percent of O’Reilly viewers (and 55 percent of Fox viewers) self-identify as independent or Democrat, which means many of the eyes and ears absorbing the Fox message are only tangentially connected to Republican politics. It’s comic to think of Democratic and independent Fox viewers pushing the Republican Party further to the right.
Well, then. Since they self-identify as Independent or Democrat, there isn’t a damn thing to worry about, am I right? Shafer missed the part in that survey where they broke down the Indie/Dem split. 30 percent Independents, which we can reasonably translate to the Tea Party/Libertarian side of the Independent grouping, and 15 percent Democrat, which likely translates to the last few remaining Southern Democrats who haven’t re-registered. Or the LaRouche contingent, though I doubt they number in the double digits on any scale. Hardly your mainstream definition of those two groups.
That same Pew survey shows that 60 percent of Fox viewers self-identify as conservatives, which blows the rest of Shafer’s statistics right out of the water.
In a much quoted television interview five years ago, conservative Republican David Frum said, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.” Bartlett repeats Frum’s quip as his paper’s kicker. But catchy as the Frum line remains, it’s just not true. The Fox tail does not wag the Republican dog.
Sure, it doesn’t. That’s why the crowded Republican primary field is elbowing each other in the teeth while saying more and more outlandish things for attention in order to land that coveted spot in the first Fox News debate in August. Any candidate facing the prospect of being bumped after one lousy poll knocks their average down to 11th spot isn’t going to agree with that statement.
And that’s all before we get to the nonstop hate pouring out of that place, the unending echo chamber Fox News has spawned to churn out right-wing hate memes faster than the mashed potato bowl can be refilled at said family dinner, and the outright lies they’ve spread about policy.
Does anyone think Mike Huckabee would have a prayer in the primaries without that six-year gig at Fox News? Would Sarah Palin have been as influential as she was during the health care debate without Fox News? How about Betsy “Death Panel” McCaughey?
Fox News serves up hate and propaganda on a daily basis, for one purpose only: To keep conservatives angry and hateful so they’ll support policies that actively work against their own interests. I don’t care if the average Fox News viewer is age 68, because that 68-year old votes. Ailes and Murdoch know it too.
“Many conservatives live in a bubble where they watch only Fox News on television, they listen only to conservative talk radio — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, many of the same people,” Bartlett told CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday. “When they go onto the Internet, they look at conservative websites like National Review, Newsmax, World Net Daily.”
“And so, they are completely in a universe in which they are hearing the same exact ideas, the same arguments, the same limited amount of data repeated over and over and over again. And that’s brainwashing.”
Mr. Shafer is arguing that brainwashing is a good thing, as long as you remember that it’s just entertainment wrapped in newsprint. What sane human being argues that point seriously?
On a more serious note, Fox News is responsible for far too many interventions into our policies and politics, going all the way back to the 2000 election when they called Florida before California polls had closed. That wasn’t entertainment. It was intervention.
Fox News wasn’t the only cable station to sell the Iraq War hard to Americans, but they’re certainly the top cable station pounding the drums for more war now. That’s not entertainment. It’s warmongering.
Fox News has done more to promote billionaire-funded think tanks as legitimate than any other media outlet online or on air. That’s not entertainment. It’s propagandizing.
Apparently Politico doesn’t require its media writers to actually watch that thing they’re defending, or Shafer would have backed away from his keyboard slowly before writing that kind of apologist tripe.
http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2015/04/27/39737/fbn-dobbs-20150427-obamatoblame
Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and Fox News contributor Keith Ablow blamed President Obama and his administration for violence in the wake of the mysterious death of Freddie Gray, who died a week after suffering an unexplained injury while in the custody of Baltimore police officers.
On April 19, 25-year-old Freddie Gray died of a reported spinal cord injury that he mysteriously suffered after being arrested on April 12 by police officers. After Gray’s funeral on April 27, the governor of Maryland declared a state of emergency in Baltimore and activated the National Guard to respond to violence and looting in the city that resulted in injury to at least 15 police officers.
On the April 27 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox host Lou Dobbs responded to the events by blaming the violence against the police on Obama, asserting that “there is a war on law enforcement” that is being “corroborated if not condoned by this administration.”
Later during the show, Dobbs invited Fox contributor Keith Ablow to comment, and he also blamed Obama for the violence, adding that people who want to tear down the system like the people in Baltimore “might be taking [their] cues from this president” (emphasis added):
DOBBS: I’d like to begin with what drives, in your judgment, a police department and a mayor, who basically have given a free pass to those who are tearing up property, and injuring others, including law enforcement?
ABLOW: What drives them is a lack of respect for the foundation of governing and foundation of law upon which this nation rests. Contempt for such things and a kind of tacit acceptance, that protests can be violent because people are so frustrated. But the bottom line Lou, is that if you want to change things, you work within the system, that is the way it has always been. If you want to tear down the system, you might be taking your cues, by the way, from a president who has given the appearance that there is every justification for any level of anger at our country because we’re such despicable people.
While reporting on the protests earlier in the day, Fox News’ Shep Smith urged his colleagues to report on the protests objectively by “for now, just covering what happens,” instead of indicting the community
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly continues to insist that he never misrepresented or embellished his wartime reporting experiences and other previous episodes—even after CNN, the Washington Post, the Guardian, Media Matters, and Mother Jones reported significant discrepancies between O’Reilly’s accounts and what actually occurred. Last Tuesday, O’Reilly appeared on David Letterman’s show, where he maintained he had always been “accurate” when discussing his journalistic exploits and had never “fibbed” on air. (“Not that I know of,” he said.) Yet O’Reilly’s characterizations of his reporting during the Falklands war, El Salvador’s civil war, the troubles in Northern Ireland, the Los Angeles riots of 1992, and the 1977 re-investigation of the John F. Kennedy assassination have been repeatedly challenged, in several cases by former colleagues. Now a principal character in one of O’Reilly’s more dramatic tales—in which the Fox commentator plays a heroic role—says this particular story is not accurate.
In recounting his experiences as a CBS News correspondent reporting from a “war zone” during the 1982 Falklands war, O’Reilly has said that he rescued a CBS colleague during a violent protest that erupted near the presidential palace in Buenos Aires after Argentina surrendered to the British. During a 2013 episode of the O’Reilly Factor, he recalled:
I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I’m looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.
O’Reilly told a similar version in a 2009 interview: “The camera went flying. I saved the tape because it was unbelievable tape. But I dragged him off the street because he was bleeding from the ear and had hit his head on the concrete.” In this account, O’Reilly claimed that soldiers had fired into the crowd with live ammunition, “gunning down” civilians, and that a soldier pointed an M-16 at him as he tried to assist his injured cameraman. In a 2001 book, O’Reilly reported that “many” people had died during this melee.
“I was not beaten at any time during my Buenos Aires assignment. I do not even recall Mr. O’Reilly being near me.”
The record is clear, and O’Reilly’s own report for CBS News confirms this: Argentine soldiers did not massacre civilians during this protest. And now the cameraman who shot the video that O’Reilly filed from this demonstration says another part of the Fox host’s account is untrue: O’Reilly never came to his aid, nor was he in need of rescue.
Ignacio Medrano-Carbo says he was the cameraman on O’Reilly’s crew that night. Jim Forrest, the crew’s sound man, confirms Medrano-Carbo was paired up with O’Reilly. “I worked with Ignacio during the surrender riots in Argentina during the Falklands war,” Forrest says in an email. “We were O’Reilly’s crew the night of the riots.” (O’Reilly has identified another CBS journalist named Roberto Moreno as his cameraman, but Forrest, Medrano-Carbo, and another former CBS journalist who worked in Argentina say that Moreno was a sound man at that time; Moreno has turned down requests from reporters to talk about the episode.) Medrano-Carbo certainly was shooting video in the middle of the tumult. A BBC documentary (at the 56:28 mark) captured him filming scenes that appeared in O’Reilly’s report.
Medrano-Carbo has sent the following statement to Mother Jones:
After a call from a cameraman friend, I watched Bill O’Reilly’s report filed in 1982 from Buenos Aires for CBS during the Falkland War posted a few weeks ago on the Mother Jones web page. The part that caught my attention was Mr. O’Reilly’s claim that he helped his cameraman to safety who was bleeding out of his ear after he fell when chased by the army.
Ninety-nine percent of the footage in that report was shot by me. Does that make me his cameraman? I never fell nor was I bleeding out my ear at any time during my Buenos Aires assignment. I do not even recall Mr. O’Reilly being near me when I shot all that footage nor after I left the unrest at Plaza de Mayo that evening. But it is not uncommon to be separated from your reporter during a disturbance such as that one.
I also read that some colleagues were accusing Mr. O’Reilly of negligently asking his cameraman to turn on the camera light for his stand up. In his defense, I will attest that he never asked me to turn on the light for any reason. I turned on the camera light at my discretion and possible folly. I also never shot a stand up for Mr. O’Reilly.
In another report…Mr. O’Reilly states that his cameraman that night was Roberto Moreno. Mr. Moreno was indeed there but at that time he was a sound man and working with seasoned CBS cameraman Carl Sorensen. Mr. Moreno, who became my friend, did not pick up a camera until years later. My last name is Medrano perhaps Mr. O’Reilly got confused since Mr. Moreno went on to shoot for CBS News? Medrano? Moreno?
Lastly, I can confirm that no one I know of who worked with me in Buenos Aires during the Falkland War ever heard of any CBS crew member getting beat or hurt. Nor did any demonstrators get killed that night at Plaza de Mayo—to quote a colleague, “or we would’ve been following up at the morgue and interviewing family members.”
Fox News and O’Reilly did not respond to a request for comment.
UPDATE: After this story was posted, O’Reilly told TheWrap, “I never worked with Ignacio Medrano-Carbo. This is nothing more than yet another coordinated attack which predictably comes on the heels of my appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.” In response, Medrano-Carbo tells Mother Jones, “I don’t know what to say… Ninety-nine percent of that footage in his report was mine. How’d he get that footage, if I’m not his cameraman?…I have the footage to show.” Medrano-Carbo shared with Mother Jones the raw footage he shot that night, and it does match the video in the report O’Reilly filed. He adds, “You can see me in the BBC report. Why would I lie? You used 99 percent of my stuff, and I’m not your cameraman? I certainly did not get beat up. You did not help me.”
—factchecked.
The Fox News host still hasn’t gotten back to us, but here’s his monologue
On Thursday, Mother Jones published an article by Daniel Schulman and me documenting how Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has mischaracterized his wartime reporting experience. It noted that he has repeatedly stated that during his short stint as a CBS correspondent in the 1980s, he was in the “war zone” during the Falklands war between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982. He once claimed he had heroically rescued his cameraman in “a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands,” while being chased by army soldiers. Yet no American journalist reached the war zone in the Falkland Islands during this conflict. O’Reilly and his colleagues covered the war from Buenos Aires, which was 1,200 miles from the fighting.
O’Reilly responded to the story by launching a slew of personal invective. He did not respond to the details of the story. Instead, he called me a “liar,” a “left-wing assassin,” and a “despicable guttersnipe.” He said that I deserve “to be in the kill zone.” (You can read one of my responses here.) And in his show-opening “Talking Points memo” monologue on Friday evening, he continued the name-calling.
In a way, it’s impossible to win a debate with O’Reilly because he is not bound by reality. In response to the article, he told Fox News’ media reporter, Howard Kurtz, “Nobody was on the Falklands and I never said I was on the island, ever.” Yet our article included video of O’Reilly saying in 2013, “I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us.” Note the words “war zone” and “in the Falklands.”
Part of our article examined his depiction of a protest in Buenos Aires after the Argentine junta surrendered to the British. O’Reilly covered that event, and in a 2001 book, he wrote, “A major riot ensued and many were killed.” He has called it a “combat situation.” In a 2009 interview, he recalled how soldiers “were just gunning these people down, shooting them down in the streets” with “real bullets.” Yet no media reports of the event that we found referred to such dramatic violence or any fatalities. Not even the CBS News report on the protest that O’Reilly contributed to mentioned soldiers shooting and killing civilians. Erik Wemple, a media critic at the Washington Post, has examined this part of our article in detail. He, too, found that there were no news reports matching O’Reilly’s description—and that this was not “combat.” He concluded that this “appears to be a a Brian Williams-level embellishment.” (Wemple is married to a Mother Jones reporter. You can watch this Washington Post video and decide if his assessment is fair.)
Another part of the story concerned O’Reilly’s portrayal of a reporting assignment he had in El Salvador in 1982. In a book, he described a harrowing trip to a village that “was leveled to the ground and fires were still smoldering. But even though the carnage was obviously recent, we saw no one live or dead. There was absolutely nobody around who could tell us what happened. I quickly did a stand-up amid the rubble and we got the hell out of there.” Yet the 1982 news broadcast he filed and that aired on the CBS Evening News showed residents walking about this hamlet and only one or two burned-down structures.
But now O’Reilly continues to insist that he has not embellished or mischaracterized anything—and that he is the victim of a smear campaign. So let’s turn to his “Talking Points memo” monologue, as published on the Fox News site, with my responses in italics.
TALKING POINTS MEMO
2-20-15
Hi, I’m Bill O’Reilly … thanks for watching us tonight … more proof the American media is corrupt. That is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points memo. This man … 56-year-old David Corn … who works for the far left magazine … Mother Jones … smeared me, your humble correspondent, yesterday … saying I had fabricated some war reporting. Mother Jones … which has low circulation … considered by many the bottom rung of journalism in America. however … in this Internet age … the defamation they put forth … gets exposure. and so I have to deal with this garbage tonight. I’m sorry.
Mother Jones did give O’Reilly a chance to “deal with this” earlier. Before posting the article, we sent him and Fox News a detailed list of questions and asked for comments and clarifications. They chose not to respond at all.
basically David Corn … a liar … says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War … and Salvadoran War.
The article did not use the word “exaggerate.” It noted that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record.
Here’s the truth … everything I’ve said about my reportorial career … everything … is true.
See above.
33-years ago in June … Argentina surrendered to Great Britain … ending the Falklands War. I was covering the conflict from Argentina and Uruguay for CBS News.
In his own 2001 book, The No Spin Zone, O’Reilly says he arrived in Buenos Aires just before the war ended.
After learning of the surrender … angry mobs in Buenos Aires … stormed the presidential palace … the Casa Rosada … trying to overthrow the government of General Leopoldo Galtieri.
News accounts, including the CBS News report, noted that a crowd numbering in the thousands had gathered to hear the president, but people grew angry after learning Galtieri would not speak, with many denouncing him and his junta as traitors for surrendering to the Brits. Media accounts do not describe the scene as a mob storming the palace, but angry protesters who set fires, broke store windows, and jostled reporters.
I was there on the street … with my camera crews.
In a 2009 interview, O’Reilly claimed other CBS journalists were too fearful to cover this event: “I was out there pretty much by myself because the other CBS news correspondents were hiding in the hotel.” Yet veteran CBS News reporter Bob Schieffer, who was then the lead correspondent in Buenos Aires says, “We were all out with our camera crews that day to cover the protest. I’d been out there with a crew too.”
The violence was horrific. … as Argentine soldiers … fired into the crowd … who were responding with violent acts of their own. My video of the combat … led the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather that evening. and later on … I filed a report … that ran nationwide. That’s what happened.
In tonight’s account, O’Reilly doesn’t say—as he has previously said—that Argentine troops gunned down civilians and many were killed. So is he standing by those prior assertions? He does still refer to the protest as “combat.”
I never said I was on the Falkland Islands… as Corn purports … I said I covered the Falklands War … which I did.
See above. O’Reilly said on his own show in 2013, “I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands.” In his 2001 book, he wrote, “I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands.” The “active war zone” in the Falklands war was 1,200 miles from Buenos Aires, far out in the Atlantic ocean.
Now … in what I consider to be a miracle … I found this CBS internal memo from 33 years ago … praising my coverage that day. The cable was sent to the CBS bureau chief in Buenos Aires … by the news desk here in New York City: “Doyle, O’Reilly didn’t have the time last night but would like to say many thanks for the riot piece last night. WCBS-TV and WCAU-TV both took the entire piece, instead of stripping it for pix. They called to say thanks for a fine piece.” “Thanks again. Your piece made the late feed, a winner last night.”
No one has suggested O’Reilly did not cover the protest or that the footage he obtained was not valuable for CBS News.
Want more? … here it is: Shortly after my crew and I … escaped grave danger on the streets of Buenos Aires … I wrote to CBS News boss Ed Joyce … praising the crew’s bravery. I have the letter: “The crews were great … the riot had been very bad, we were gassed, shot at, and I had the best vantage point in which to report the story.”
No one has suggested that O’Reilly and his crew did not perform well while covering a protest that turned ugly.
So we have rock solid proof … that David Corn … smeared me … and some websites that picked up his defamation … did as well.
Actually, no.
Now … I had to spend hours last night … on the phone with various reporters … and crawling around my basement covered with dust to find documents from 33 years ago. Again, it was a miracle I found them. all because an irresponsible … guttersnipe … a far left zealot … who has attacked Fox News many times before … spit this stuff out on the net. and you know what? … nothing is going to happen to David Corn.
O’Reilly neglected to mention that during one of those interviews he said, “I expect David Corn to be in the kill zone. Where he deserves to be.” In an email to Fox News executives, Mother Jones’ editors in chief asked O’Reilly to renounce this remark and apologize for responding in a violent tone. So far he has not done so.
Mother Jones and the far left websites …couldn’t care less about the truth. They are in business to injure. This is a political hit job. At this point … TV coverage has been scant, but CNN tried to exploit the situation because a guy over there named Brian Stelter … is another far left zealot … masquerading as a journalist. CNN can do a lot better than this guy.
You can watch that CNN spot here and decide for yourself.
Real journalists … knew this story was B-S from the jump. They knew Corn was trying to take the Brian Williams situation … and wrap it around my neck … for ideological reasons … because he has a history of attacking Fox News. In addition … Corn actually wrote that I hammered Brian Williams … when everyone knows … I went out of my way on Kimmel and the Factor … to be compassionate to the man.
The first paragraph of our story noted that after Williams was suspended, O’Reilly declared that the American press isn’t “half as responsible as the men who forged the nation.” He decried the supposed culture of deception within the liberal media, and he proclaimed that the Williams controversy should prompt questioning of other “distortions” by left-leaning outlets.
Corn must think the folks … are as dumb … as he is.
In one interview yesterday, O’Reilly declared, “Everything I said about my reportorial career—EVERYTHING—is accurate.” Which would be more problematic: If he really believes that, or if he doesn’t?
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Cassius Methyl
January 20, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) A series of Fox News segments were recently deemed to be inaccurate, and they were widely mocked in French media for being far from the truth, and for inciting hatred towards Muslims.
The news segments suggested that there were parts of Paris and other cities in Europe where ‘Islamic law was practiced’ and police and non-Islamic citizens were ‘fearful’ to go into these areas. Surprising to no one who is aware, Fox News was torn apart for making false claims about these alleged dangerous Muslim neighborhoods.
In response to this genuinely dangerous propaganda, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, seeks to sue Fox News.
According to CNN, a rival propaganda outlet, “One Fox show, for example, displayed an inaccurate map of the alleged “no-go zones” in and around Paris. On another show, a guest who was identified as a security expert claimed that Birmingham, England is a “totally Muslim city where non-Muslims don’t go in.”
This was such a blatant lie that British Prime Minister David Cameron had to admit it was false. He said “When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools Day.”
Here’s another example of “experts” on Fox News playing no objective role, but the role of an agitator. They have assumed the role of seeking to justify war, homophobia, and Islamophobia.
A generic response was given by Fox News, saying it’s unlikely they would face consequences for lying.
“We empathize with the citizens of France as they go through a healing process and return to everyday life,” said Fox executive vice president Michael Clemente. “However, we find the mayor’s comments regarding a lawsuit misplaced.”
Fox has since publicly apologized for this “mistake” on various shows including Justice with Judge Jeanine. The repulsive clip, for sake of reference, can be viewed here.
Please share this with as many people as possible, especially those remaining few who still believe what Fox News or any other corporate media outlet says.
Max Ehrenfreund points to an interesting tidbit this morning. A pair of researchers have released a working paper that attempts to figure out if watching Fox News makes you more conservative. They do this by exploiting the fact that channel numbers on cable systems are placed fairly randomly throughout the country, and people tend to watch channels with lower numbers. Thus, in areas where Fox has a low channel number, it gets watched a little bit more in a way that has nothing to do with whether the local viewers were more conservative in the first place.
So does randomly surfing over to Fox News tend to make you more right-wing? Yes indeed! “We estimate that Fox News increases the likelihood of voting Republican by 0.9 points among viewers induced into watching four additional minutes per week by differential channel positions.” And this in turn means that we owe the Iraq War to Fox News: “We estimate that removing Fox News from cable television during the 2000 election cycle would have reduced the average county’s Republican vote share by 1.6 percentage points.”
And what about MSNBC? It had no effect until the 2008 election, after it had made the switch to liberal prime-time programming. At that point, it becomes pretty similar to Fox in the opposite direction. But the effect is subtly different:
The largest elasticity magnitudes are on individuals from the opposite ideology of the channel, with Fox generally better at influencing Democrats than MSNBC is at influencing Republicans. This last feature is consistent with the regression result that the IV effect of Fox is greater than the corresponding effect for MSNBC.
….Table 16 shows the estimated persuasion rates of the channels at converting votes from one party to the other. The numerator here is the number of, for example, Fox News viewers who are initially Democrats but by the end of an election cycle change to supporting the Republican party. The denominator is the number of Fox News viewers who are initially Democrats. Again, Fox is more effective at converting viewers than is MSNBC.
The difference in persuasion rates is significant: the study finds that in the 2008 election, a full 50 percent of Fox’s left-of-center viewers switched to supporting Republicans. For MSNBC, the number of switchers was only 30 percent. That’s a big difference.
Now, in real-world terms this is still a smallish effect since neither channel has a lot of regular viewers from the opposite ends of their ideological spectrums in the first place. Still, this is interesting. I’ve always believed that conservatives in general, and Fox in particular, are better persuaders than liberals, and this study seems to confirm that. But why? Is Fox’s conservatism simply more consistent throughout the day, thus making it more effective? Is there something about the particular way Fox pushes hot buttons that makes it more effective at persuading folks near the center? Or is Fox just average, and MSNBC is unusually poor at persuading people? I can easily believe, for example, that Rachel Maddow’s snark-based approach persuades very few conservative leaners to switch sides.
Anyway, fascinating stuff, even if none of it comes as a big surprise. Fox really has had a big effect on Republican fortunes over the past two decades.
THE CABIN ANTHRAX, MURPHY, N.C. (CT&P) – A shocking new Fox News poll has revealed that approximately 80% of imbeciles living in the continental United States think that President Obama has destroyed America. The poll was taken on December 30th. Participants were randomly chosen from imbeciles currently listed on the National Idiot’s Register in Washington, D.C.
The poll consisted of two simple statements that imbeciles were required to complete. The statements were followed by a comment section where each imbecile was given the opportunity to voice his or her views on the subject.
Participants were first given the opportunity to complete the following sentence:
President Obama has
A. not destroyed the country.
B. somewhat destroyed the country.
C. really, really destroyed the country.
D. completely and utterly destroyed the country.
Those imbeciles that answered “B,” “C,” or “D” were then asked to complete this sentence:
President Obama has destroyed the country because
A. he is black.
B. of Obamacare.
C. of Benghazi
D. he is a member of the worldwide communist conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.
E. All of the above
Fox researchers found that over 80% of imbeciles polled thought that Mr. Obama had in some way ‘destroyed the country,’ with over 90% of those imbeciles answering “E” to the second question.
Paradoxically, the researchers also discovered that although imbeciles thought that the country had been destroyed, they continued to insist that it was the greatest country on earth and was humanity’s last, best hope for the future.
Perhaps the most revealing part of the poll was the comments section, which illustrated just ignorant imbeciles in this country are.
Billy Bob McSneed, an imbecile from Running Sore, Arkansas said: “That negra wants to give poor people medical care and let a bunch of infected foreign kids into the United States. He’s a disgrace, and it’s only a matter of time before he lets the United Nations come and get all our guns!”
Jean “Genius” Mims, an imbecile from Melanoma Beach, Florida said: “I may not be able to read, but I darn shore know destruction when I seen it, and let me tell you, this country had been destructed!”
Billy Frank McDim of Rabid Beaver, Minnesota said: “That man is downright insane. He’s bent on destroying all of us with his gay marriage and enlightened foreign policy. The next thing you know it’ll be legal to marry your goat! Everybody knows that big business and Jesus are our only hope. I just thank God every day for smart people like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin!”
One of the few imbeciles that thought that President Obama had not destroyed the country was Tampaxia Reynolds from Mobile, Alabama who said: “I really have not noticed that the United States has been destroyed, but maybe that’s because I don’t watch Fox News. I really don’t know.”
The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry—especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies—from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program—that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus. – See more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2010/08/how-can-we-boycott-murdoch-koch-brothers-businessesthey-support-tea-party-fox#sthash.zXI7CaDr.dpuf
Only 8% of what Fox broadcasts has been found to be true. is that ‘Fair and Balanced’
Protester Confronts Fox Affiliate That Deceptively Edited ‘Kill A Cop’ Chant.
THE CABIN ANTHRAX, MURPHY, N.C. (CT&P) – Fox News anchors and pundits reacted angrily to the recent passage of H.R. 5739, or the “No Social Security for Nazis Act,” which sailed through the House and Senate with unanimous votes last week. The bill was an attempt to close a loophole that has been around for decades which allowed former Nazis to receive Social Security benefits.
Bill O’Reilly called the act an “absolute outrage,” and Sean Hannity told his dozens of viewers that the act was “just another example of President Obama taking matters into his own hands and acting like a king” by pushing the “prejudiced and racist” legislation through Congress.
It seems that after World War II the U.S. government offered many ex-Nazis social security benefits as long as they agreed to move and live outside the U.S. on a permanent basis. Many ex-Nazis took the deal and have been living in countries all over the world for years while receiving taxpayer money courtesy of the State Department.
The bill was obviously very popular with legislators as no one wanted to be seen as supporting retired concentration camp guards and members of the Waffen SS.
However, the bill will also have the effect of denying benefits to any current Nazi Party members, which includes up to 90% of Fox News’ on air talent.
Fox News CEO Roger Ailes told Reuters that the legislation was almost surely unconstitutional.
“We at Fox believe that denying a minority group social security benefits simply because of their beliefs or form of employment is un-American and undermines the foundations of this great country,” said Ailes. “There is nothing we can do about this legislation, but I firmly believe that the broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. Therefore in the long run we will prevail and reverse this miscarriage of justice.”
Ailes went on to say that he believed that “through the clever and constant use of propaganda, the American people would be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched form of life as paradise.”
Ailes also said that he would like to see the United States annex the Sudetenland sometime early next year.
olddogthoughts 
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