Yes, we bloggers are terrible parasites who get up each morning rubbing our hands with anticipation as we sit down at the keyboard to wage an ideological jihad against well meaning, truth-seeking (and truth-knowing) millionaire cable TV talk show hosts.
Apparently that’s what Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly seemingly believes (and we are SURE that also includes the blogs which praise him…). It’s part of a larger issue Bill O’Reilly has.
Cable TV’s top rated talk show host sometimes shows an unattractive trait on his radio and cable show: if someone goes after him and presses the right buttons, B.O. not only goes after the perceived offender, but sometimes generalizes his ire and denounces a whole category of people or institutions. A whole newspaper. Bloggers.
Take the Los Angeles Times, for instance. Yes, conservatives will say it’s a left wing newspaper but anyone who doesn’t live on Mars rooming with Dennis Kucinich and Alan Keyes knows that an op-ed page with op-ed pieces is just that — an OPINION PAGE with opinion pieces similar to posts on this or any right/left/center weblog.
Newspapers don’t always invite the person being blasted in an op-ed piece to respond to criticism. In fact, look at ANY newspaper editorial page on any newspaper and you’ll see that they hardly ever do.
Yet, a year or two ago, O’Reilly was furious about a LAT op-ed piece criticizing him and went after the “liberal” newspaper, suggesting it distorted the news and charging that they showed their bias by not giving him a chance to respond. He didn’t clarify to listeners that this was in an OP ED PIECE although, in fairness to him, he didn’t try to pass it off as a straight news story either. Later on, when the since departed Michael Kinsley took over the LAT’s editorial pages, O’Reilly was in fact given chance to write a one-shot column (and O’Reilly’s columns by the way are GREAT reads because they are written tightly and exceedingly well, even if you don’t agree with them). But you never heard a big deal on his show about how he was given an op-ed column after all.
Then, of course, there was the case of comedian Al Franken, who enraged O’Reilly with his book that criticized and lampooned him (and other conservative talk show hosts and news personalities), used the word “liar” on the cover, and contained a photo that O’Reilly detested. So, when the sparks between the two flew at a public event, B.O. lashed out at Franken…which became a big entertainment story and was rerun several times on C-SPAN. Thus began a feud.
And thus began HUGE SALES for Franken’s book — pitchforking Franken onto news shows, cable, probably doubling Franken’s speaking fees — and eventually landing Franken a gig on Air America. Fox News tried suing Franken at, many believe, O’Reilly’s request, but the case got more laughs than Franken’s comedy routines.
Franken then called his new show The O’Franken Factor, declaring that he wished Bill O’Reilly would sue him again so B.O. could help his show as he had helped sell his book. When O’Reilly mentions Franken now (if he uses his name at all), it isn’t pretty.
Now we come to blogs.
B.O. is upset over Media Matters fact-checking him repeatedly. They insist it’s fact checking; he insists it’s a personal attack. So Monday night it was announced O’Reilly would take on the insidious and destructive nature of weblogs.
READ THIS AND SEE THIS VIDEO and you’ll see that O’Reilly basically was mad at Media Matters and The Smoking Gun, which had published details of the sexual harassment lawsuit that he eventually settled for big bucks.
Air America’s blog is having a field day with O’Reilly’s latest confrontation — which will probably build B.O.’s audience even more. Why? O’Reilly is “hot” television with an occasional “cool” demeanor. He’s an unmistakable dash of professional journalism with huge portions of political professional wrestling as he fans the embers of controversy just right, ’til they flame up, ending (usually but not always) with him having the last word or looking in complete, triumphant control in the setting…in his world. On the radio, in contrast, he comes across as a bit more low-key.
Media Matters gives their account of this controversy HERE and then there’s this sentence which pretty much wipes away B.O.’s credibility as someone who is willing to debate with people rather then stage polemical settings in which he will invariably triumph:
The O’Reilly Factor has repeatedly declined requests from Media Matters to appear on the show to discuss claims made on it.
Indeed, in the case of blogs, O’Reilly has apparently refused to let Media Matters go on his show to confront him directly but he did have someone from the popular conservative blog Powerline on (VIDEO IS HERE). Has he ever had someone identified with being from a highly critical leftist blog on his show? If not, why doesn’t he invite one of the leading lefty bloggers to talk to him directly? Or set up a lefty/righty blogger debate about his show. He’d definitely garner more ratings and it would boost his credibility among those not already in his camp.
But the worst is yet to come:
There’s THIS POST about blogger Dave Kline about how he was “set up” on the show:
Last night I appeared on the conservative TV talk show The O’Reilly Factor, ostensibly to talk about political blogs and the impact they are having on the American political process.
Or so I was told by the two producers for the show who spent over an hour pre-interviewing me. Unbeknownst to me, however, the show turned out to be a total set-up job in which host Bill O’Reilly and guest Jed Babbin spent the entire time attacking the web site Media Matters for having posted commentary in the past critical of them both.
If you’re interested in how shows like the O’Reilly Factor work, then let me explain how the ambush against Media Matters — and against political blogs in general — came about.
Read the post yourself and you’ll see how he was apparently told one thing before the broadcast, given assurances aobut what the segment wouldn’t be — and on the air he was toast. Here’s his conclusion:
Postcript: When I got back to my office after the show, I had a voice mail from O’Reilly Factor producer Rob Monaco:
MONACO: “We just wanted to thank you for appearing on the show. I realize the segment didn’t turn out exactly the way we had discussed, but we think you did a great job. And Bill was very pleased.”
I’ll bet.
In all fairness to O’Reilly, however, set up “ambushes” are NOT unusual in talk shows or in the news biz. Look at 60 Minutes or any number of local TV broadcasts. And yours truly, in his ongoing entertainment career, was the victim of two of them where he was misled (by a reporter, and by a radio show that misrepresented itself).
The pity is this: O’Reilly does have solid broadcast news background and, even with his strong views on subjects, he’s a vastly better talk show “showman” and interviewer than many. But going after people and institutions because they criticized you, then trying to pass it off as if you’re simply looking at a broader issue, only reveals a simmering desire for retaliation — and ultimately sandbags your credibility.
Watch the video of his show again and re-read the “ambush” blog post again. Can you EVER watch O’Reilly and look at him the same way again?
He is shrinking before our eyes, just as he surely perceives he is growing before his viewers’ eyes.
UPDATE: See TV Newser
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.