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November 16, 2005 in Media Orchard, Politics by Scott Baradell
Is Bill O’Reilly Headed for a McCarthy-esque Meltdown?

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I can’t explain my fascination. Maybe it’s like watching a car accident. Or an al Qaeda attack on San Francisco.

But I’m really starting to think that Bill O’Reilly is having an apoplectic meltdown. He’s imploding — saying he needs bodyguards, attacking as “liberal” this conservative newspaper and then that one, and then, Pat Robertson-style, practically calling on terrorists to blow up San Francisco. And finally, in true O’Reilly fashion, refusing to admit he’s wrong about any of this.

My prediction: within the next year, he’ll be off the air.

I’m not the only one who thinks O’Reilly’s gone off the deep end. He’s reaching a critical mass of derision in the same way that Joe McCarthy did in the ’50s before Edward R. Murrow put him away — and methinks he’ll meet the same fate.

Update: Bill has promised to publish an enemies list, but nothing’s posted yet.

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November 11, 2005 in Media, Media Orchard, Politics by Scott Baradell
The Thrilla in Billa: Mapes vs. O’Reilly

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Mary Mapes’ appearance on The O’Reilly Factor last night — “The Thrilla in Billa” — was highlighted by Mapes’ bobbing and weaving when the host questioned her political affiliation.

O’Reilly: Now the right wing thinks you’re a raving liberal, you and Rather contrived to put Bush in the worst possible light. That’s what the right, far right believes.

Mapes: When they’re at their nicest, that’s what they say.

O’Reilly: All right. So are you a liberal?

Mapes: Well, I’m not sure what a liberal is. I’m more liberal than some people. I can tell you my eight-year-old son thinks he’s being raised by the most conservative parents in the world.

O’Reilly: No, but politically you know what I’m talking about.

Mapes: Well, I think like a lot of Americans, I’m all over the map and it’s something, I mean for me like who I vote for –

O’Reilly: Are you a registered Democrat?

Mapes: You know, I don’t know.

O’Reilly: You don’t know?

Mapes: I don’t know if I’m independent or Democrat. I know I’m not … in Texas, I’m not sure how I’m registered.

O’Reilly later accused Mapes of “dancing” in response to a question about Cindy Sheehan and explained to her with slight exasperation: “I’m just trying to define how you see the world.”

While conservative bloggers are shocked — shocked! — by Mapes’ cagey responses, they see no problem with O’Reilly claiming (far more incredibly) that he has no political affiliation.

He wrote in the O’Reilly Factor book:

You might be wondering whether I’m conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what … I don’t want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn’t have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That’s my political position.

But he was registered as a Republican for years, only dropping the affiliation when he learned The Washington Post was going to report this fact in 2000.

Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, pot.

But Mapes is on higher ground in this cage(y) match. Why? Because Mapes, as part of her job description, is asked to set aside her political leanings.

What’s O’Reilly’s excuse?

Update: Mapes discusses the O’Reilly interview and other topics in this Washington Post online chat.

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November 3, 2005 in Media Orchard by Scott Baradell
O’Reilly to Tampa Tribune: "You Gotta Knock It Off"

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Apparently tiring of perennial target The New York Times, Bill O’Reilly has been taking on some rather unlikely newspaper opponents of late.

In August, he got into a heated battle with The New Hampshire Union Leader. Last month, it was The Dallas Morning News. This week, it’s The Tampa Tribune. All three papers are conservative; the Tribune hasn’t endorsed a Democrat for president since FDR.

But that didn’t stop O’Reilly from lumping the Trib in with the rest of the liberal media elite in a segment on his Nov. 2 show.

O’Reilly’s ire was stirred by Daniel Ruth’s column, “Bill O’Reilly’s Lies, Lies, Lies Strike Again!” Ruth was irritated by O’Reilly’s coverage of the decision by Hillsborough County schools to eliminate days off that coincide with three religious holidays.

Said O’Reilly in his “Talking Points Memo” –

I was attacked in the Tampa Tribune newspaper, called a liar in the newspaper and viciously smeared by the paper’s far-left character assassin columnist.

Now, this disgraceful exhibition isn’t unusual .. the far-left forces in the USA will say and do pretty much anything. But I’m holding Tampa Tribune publisher Gil Thelen, who is too cowardly to talk to us, personally responsible for this shameful course of events…

The anti-religious zealots in America have powerful allies in the media, and have succeeded in intimidating their opposition using vile tactics…Only you, the folks, can stop it.

In a later segment, O’Reilly was joined by Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms, who explained that the Tribune has “lurched left for the last five years.” She also bashed columnist Ruth, stating that his “intelligence (is) probably beneath you, and very far beneath you.”

Concluded O’Reilly, “This is an out-of-control situation.” He said “the folks” need to tell the Tribune: “You gotta knock it off.”

O’Reilly displayed a pic of Thelen, whom he’d obviously like to coax onto the air as he did the Union Leader‘s publisher.

If Thelen does go on, here’s a line he can use (if he doesn’t mind that it’s been used before): “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

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October 31, 2005 in Celebrity, Media Orchard, Politics by Scott Baradell
The Fox News Channel Throughout American History

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As a general rule, Media Orchard attempts to be as nonpartisan as possible, because we believe that labels like “Republican” and “Democrat,” “Red State” and “Blue State” are a lazy shorthard that often hinders reasoned discussion of important issues.

But because we’re history buffs, this Fox News Channel parody was just too funny not to post.

If it makes FNC loyalists feel any better, Media Orchard has criticized CNN using a similar approach in the past.

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October 19, 2005 in Celebrity, Media, Media Orchard by Scott Baradell
Bill O’Reilly Goes After The Dallas Morning News

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First Norman Mailer blasts poor Esther Wu. Now Bill O’Reilly is attacking Macarena Hernandez, and trying to bring down The Dallas Morning News in the process.

Hernandez, a Morning News opinion columnist, criticized The O’Reilly Factor in a weekend column. On Tuesday, O’Reilly called on both his radio listeners and TV viewers to boycott the paper — a crusade that he continued on Wednesday, and one that is likely to go on until O’Reilly’s spleen is fully vented.

O’Reilly told his television audience:

A few weeks ago six Mexican farm workers were murdered in Georgia. The town’s mayor responded by flying the Mexican flag in sympathy, and apparently some residents complained about that.

Enter Dallas Morning News columnist Macarena Hernandez, who wrote these astounding words: ‘Were the complainers angrier about the red, white and green Mexican flag fluttering in the Georgia air than they were about the horrific murders? Do they watch Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, where the anchor and the callers constantly point to the southern border as the birth of all America’s ills? … such rhetoric gives criminals like those in southern Georgia license to kill.’

What Ms. Hernandez is telling her readers that this program preaches hate and encourages murder. That’s what this dishonest woman is doing … Shockingly, the Dallas Morning News allowed the column to be printed. Talk about promoting hate! The publisher has dodged our calls and Hernandez refused to appear. Talking Points realizes that American journalism is disintegrating quickly. But for Ms. Hernandez to write a column this vile is beyond the pale.

O’Reilly enlisted a number of allies Tuesday night, including Dallas radio host Darrell Ankarlo, and Geraldo Rivera on Wednesday night to join him in his anti-Morning News riffs. Said Ankarlo:

The Morning News has slowly become a liberal paper. If these kinds of stories continue unabated without shows like yours calling attention to it, The Morning News will continue to slip in that direction. Illegal immigration is a huge problem in this area, but you have the paper refusing to call them criminals or ‘illegal.’

On both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, O’Reilly called “for people to stop subscribing to The Morning News if they don’t apologize.”

Media Matters for America, meanwhile, blogs that O’Reilly misrepresented Hernandez’s column.

Rod Dreher, assistant editorial page editor for The Morning News, offered this perspective in the paper’s editorial-board blog:

Well, I just watched “The O’Reilly Factor,” and was floored that our own Macarena took up two segments of the program! I know I must be a jaded media guy, because my first thought was, “Dang, I’ve been writing opinions for print for years, and nobody’s ever gone after me like that on a national program. I’ve got to get Macarena to tell me her secret!”

I know it’s got to be hard to be raked over the coals like that on national TV, but look at it this way: there are hundreds of opinion writers in this country, Macarena, who would do anything for this kind of exposure. I have, in fact, been attacked at a much less conspicuous level, and the worst are the hate e-mails you’ll receive from people who wouldn’t have the guts to attack you to your face. I remember the email I got from a guy who said he hoped my newborn son died. All because he disagreed with my opinion. There’s no accounting for people. Anyway, I suspect you’ll also learn that you have friends and supporters you never thought you had.

Now that I’ve heard O’Reilly’s side of the story, it does seem to me that he has a point when he says that your column blamed him and his listeners for creating a climate that led to the murders of those immigrants. O’Reilly says those immigrants were robbed for their money, not killed in a hate crime. According to this USA Today story, that is true … I don’t think it was at all fair to blame O’Reilly and his callers for the murders of these immigrants, when the cops say it was not a hate crime, but a straight-up robbery.

O’Reilly obviously wasn’t aware of Dreher’s post, didn’t consider it apologetic enough, or just needed an “elite media” mule to whip this week come hell or high water.

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