Obviously, that kind of public mistake has to smart a man with as big an ego as his mouth. So it is with no little irony to see him mention the Peabodys on his Thursday broadcast, talking about Bill Moyers receiving one. Funny enough, while I can think of no one in journalism more deserving–and Moyers has been awarded 10 Peabodys over his career –Moyers was not on the list of winners this year. So why the slam on the Peabodys?
You may have heard about the Peabody Award, the prestigious prize given by the University of Georgia to journalists. Seems every few minutes our pal Bill Moyers wins one of those. And we’re very happy for him. So happy, in fact, that we looked into the political leanings of the Peabody board. Interesting. There are ten liberals on it, two conservatives. Sounds like Newsweek magazine. Horace Newcomb, the director of the Peabody deal, and a Democrat himself, says he’s not concerned. Nor are we, because we’re sure the judging is … fair and balanced. Party on, Peabody guys.
Indeed. Actually, there are 16 members of the Peabody panel, not twelve, and their respective political affiliations seems less than obvious by the list, nor particularly relevant to their bona fides as members of the Peabody board. But hey, why deal in facts when you can get a nice little librul conspiracy action working. You know why I think Bill O’Reilly’s miffed at the Peabodys? Because guess who won a Peabody this year, basically for acting like Bill O’Reilly?
Sometimes, the irony is so overwhelming, I have to wonder if it’s some kind of satirical performance art, and I’m just not in on the joke. Consider this fascinating exchange between Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove on Fox News last night:
There are two key angles to this. First, the NYT article did, in fact, identify the CIA interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The article characterizes him as one of the good guys, gaining information through non-abusive means. Indeed, the interrogator, who refused training on how to waterboard a detainee, established a rapport with the terrorist — which “astonished his fellow C.I.A. officers” — by talking and bringing KSM food. The article, in other words, wasn’t a slam job.
So why include his name? It was a judgment call, but the Times explained that the interrogator “had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article.” Whether one finds this responsible or not is open to debate.
But for Karl Rove to have the chutzpah to lambaste the Times for this is extraordinary.
Bill O’Reilly uses typical tabloid journalism tactics to sneak up and sandbag you so you will be off guard and a bit unprepared to answer his questions. Usually he seeks out people that refuse to appear on his show or are unavailable for commenting on a particular topic. He’ll send his team to your house or apartment—someplace that used to be off limits so you will be vulnerable. That’s the type of interviews his ambush producers—including flunkie Jesse Watters revels in. Not many of us would have the grace to handle it the way Bill Moyers does here. So back to my simple guide on how to deal with this level of un-professionalism:
1) When Watters and crew jump out of a bush or from behind a parked car and surprise you, don’t be shocked. Instead just smile and say, “You must be Jesse Watters from the O’Reilly factor, so nice to see you…” This will momentarily knock him off guard because he’s expecting you to cower from the sight of his microphone and cameras. That’s nonsense. The microphone and cameras are your friends—remember that. Repeat. The microphone and cameras are “your friends”
2) Look directly into the camera and say, “Hi, Bill, how are you? I’m so glad you tracked me down at my super market (or gas station, bank, local mall, but most probably in your parking garage or front door.) My wife/child/friend is very sick and I’m on my way to help them.”
3) Now comes the critical time. When he asks you his misleading or false question about a bogus issue that Bill O’Reilly has trumped up to his FOX news audience, say:
“I’ll be happy to answer your questions, Jesse, but can I ask you something first? Are you embarrassed to be working for a man that got sued for sexual harassment by Andrea Mackris and lost millions of dollars?
Jesse will look puzzled at first, so repeat this phrase.
Aren’t you embarrassed to be working for a man that got sued for sexual harassment by Andrea Mackris and lost millions of dollars? Don’t you have any decency? Aren’t you ashamed by that?”
4) Watters will try to avoid the question by saying ‘I’m here to ask the questions,’ after he gets over the shock of your initial response to him. Remember, the camera is your friend. They can–and will–edit out anything they want, so he may hang in there for some time to try and get some usable footage. Stay strong. Ask him over and over again the same question until he responds. He may stop rolling the camera but you can’t trust him because they may try to make it look like they aren’t recording. That’s dangerous territory so here’s a basic rule:
Once Jesse Watters jumps into your space, everything is being recorded. Period. He may stop and look around and say, “I get it. You’re trying to play with me.” Just smile and say that you’re only trying to understand Bill O’Reilly. Remember, the tape is always rolling.
Billo can hardly contain his disdain for the National Conference for Media Reform. The concept of “media reform” being apparently a radically leftist idea that can only take shape with funding from George Soros and America-haters like MoveOn and Robert Greenwald. (Have I got all the stereotypical smears in?) His proof that they are radical leftists? Their unanimous contempt for FOXNews. (Bill, bubbeleh, NCMR wants to reform the media–obviously the biggest violators of the separation between journalism and propaganda showing up to their conference to do the kind of smear job you proved you would do is going to bring out some hostility. I wouldn’t be offering you any m-fing iced tea if you showed up on my doorstep either). How can you tell that FOX News has nothing to work with? They bring out the body language expert. They actually try to claim that Moyers’ was physically dominating Porter Barry by patting him on the shoulder. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Bill.
During his Wednesday night broadcast Bill O’Reilly called Dan Rather’s attendance at this week’s Minneapolis conference proof positive that the former CBS anchor was farther than far left. “These people are crazy! Crazy!” O’Reilly said of the more than 3,000 people attending the conference. “He’s hanging with real nuts!”
What O’Reilly is afraid to admit is that the media reform movement encompasses everyone who thinks our mainstream media — that means you, Bill — could do a lot better.
Doing your job well and honestly? On Fox??? *snort*
At the National Conference for Media Reform, Bill O’Reilly producer Porter Barry ambushes journalist Bill Moyers and asks him why he won’t appear on The O’Reilly Factor. Moyers, a class act to the last, makes Barry look like the small and petty man he is. But the joke is on Barry, because other journalists, including Uptake correspondent Noah Kunin, who got this raw footage, turned tables on ol’ Porter and gave him a little taste of the FOX News-style ambush journalism. I don’t think he liked it much.
Scott McClellan got the Judge Judy treatment from Bill O’Reilly over his new book which rips the Bush administration on a host of issues. In this extended clip, BillO took exception because Scott had the audacity to indict the press over their horrid coverage of the run up to the Iraq war. And poor Bill tries to spin him into the ground over his admissions that the Iraq war was sold to American people using—propaganda. (rough transcript)
O’Reilly: You said they used propaganda and that is a loaded word
McClellan: The White House Iraq group, the White House Iraq group was set up, it’s a marketing arm for selling the a war. That was a specific purpose that I talked about in the book
O’Reilly: Because they fervently believed that the guy was a danger and could hand his weapons off.
McClellan: No because the President had a bigger driving motivation which was to transform the middle east.
O’Reilly: You telling me that President Bush didn’t believe they had the,
McClellan: No, he did too. He believed that too.
O’Reilly:That’s not propaganda then, that’s not propaganda.
McClellan: It is when you package it all together—over sell it and over state it to the American people. That is propaganda.
In Bill’s mind it’s A-OK that the WHIG was formed to set up a one stop shopping mart to shoot war propaganda directly into the veins of the press which would be passed on to fool the American people into thinking we needed to attack Iraq. However, in BillO’s mind it was no big thing because Bush felt it justified. Unbelievable. Scotty was unflappable.
If it’s true that an unexamined life is not worth living, there has to be a whole sub-corollary that an unexamined life is absolutely necessary for FOXNews pundits. Or we can cut the philosophy and just call Bill O’Reilly the most comically hypocritical talking head on the airwaves today. At least, it would be comical if I wasn’t afraid he was about to stroke out. Temper, temper. Obviously, He Who Must Not Be Named has gotten under Billo’s incredibly thin skin. But rather than call him out directly, O’Reilly opts to declare a jihad against the whole of the NBC News Department. Scott McClellan’s revelations in his book that he felt the media was too soft on the White House during the run up to the Iraq invasion has given Bill O’Reilly the ammunition he imagines he needs to target NBC:
O’REILLY: I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t work, Bernie, and I don’t think you would either—I don’t know about Jane—for any organization like NBC which is in the tank, dishonest, has been dishonest, and doesn’t deserve any credibility. You’re working for them, you’re part of it!You’re part of it!
GOLDBERG:What do you want?You want everyone to quit?
O’REILLY:Yeah! I would! I would!
HALL:Bill, I still think you can differentiate—you never want to hear me say this—I think he will have a tough interview.The Today Show was okay.That’s different from what he’ll hear on MSNBC.I just think there’s a difference there.I know you don’t agree with me.
O’REILLY:You’re wrong.There’s no difference.It’s the same guys running both.There’s no difference, Jane.I know who these people are.You gotta make a decision in life. If FOXNews ever did what NBC News is doing.In 12 years, FOXNews has never told me what to say, how to say it, and never allowed any org…any of us…any of us! to go in the tank and attack one candidate and give the other a pass.That’s what they did at NBC.They allowed Hillary Clinton to get carved up, and they let Obama go.That’s a stain that will never go away.
I swear, Freud would have a field day with Bill O’Reilly. He’s just one massive projection after another.
On his radio show on Wednesday, Bill O’Reilly said that the world is made more dangerous by the internets because we’re all haters being amplified by haters, like child molesters.
We have a lot of crazy people in America.And the internet encourages the craziness and the hatred. Hatred in this country is ratcheted up now, 100 times more than it was 10 years ago, because of the internet, which provides haters with sanctuary and encourages them, because other haters can say, “oh yeah, you’re just like me, you’re not alone.” So it used to be there were isolated nuts like the killer of John Lennon the killer of Martin Luther King, who I believe had a lot of help, by the way, James Earl Ray, which has never been solved and should be. Um, now these people, just like child molesters, can get comfort from the internet, so all people in the public eye are in danger.
Oh Billo, go have a falafel and get back to us when you make sense.
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather)
When it was announced that pseudo-journalist Bill O’Reilly was being awarded a local Emmy award, real journalist Barry Nolan, who calls O’Reilly a