A week ago, Mother Jones published a piece called “Bill O’Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem.” The Brian Williams Problem being “a newscaster is a fantasist and a liar and has openly told lies on camera.” Which, if you have an even passing familiarity with Bill O’Reilly, is the opposite of shocking. The Brian Williams thing was awful because he was a network news anchor, on a network with one of the most expensive and organized news divisions in the world. With O’Reilly, he’s a primetime anchor on a cable news station, Fox News, which might have high ratings but they also have a reputation for telling outright lies on the air.
In any case, I’ve been loosely following the controversy even though I think most people already knew that O’Reilly was full of it. The reason O’Reilly’s history of untruths is being unearthed now is because A) the Williams stuff is making every media figure suspect and B) Bill O’Reilly went after Williams repeatedly as BW’s lies were unearthed. In the past week, various accounts and stories taken directly from O’Reilly’s show and interviews have been called into question. Like, was O’Reilly really on the ground during the Falklands War? Probably not. But he’s repeatedly claimed just that. Mother Jones fact-checks many of O’Reilly’s claims over the years involving all of the times he’s faced down death and riots and war. And most of it is probably… lies and half-truths. Oh, and did O’Reilly lie about witnessing the murder of nuns in El Salavador?
But does it even matter? The Daily Beast did a summary/analysis of the O’Reilly situation, which you can read here. Some people think that O’Reilly should be seen as merely an “entertainer” and not really a journalist, so the standards are different. But one of the big problems is that O’Reilly is going crazy now that his record is being questioned, and he’s attacking anyone trying to fact-check his history. He said – ON THE RECORD – to a NYT reporter this week: “I am coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat.” Damn. Now I’m kind of hoping everyone continues to pile on.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Bill O’Reilly would never lie or bend the truth for his own personal benefit . Eye roll……
His Fox fans won’t care if he’s a liar, but the other shows he’s guested on, like Daily Show and Letterman, might not want to give him any air time.
If they do, he’ll probably have QUITE the grilling, so I can’t picture him going there.
Just like his sex scandal, this makes him look WORSE.
I didn’t know he was embroiled in a sex scandal! Do tell!
@deehunny:
Google O’Reilly & Andrea Mackris
Or Google O’Reilly and loofah or falafel (He allegedly & hilariously mixed up the two during his attempted ‘sexy talk’ with Macrkris. Mr ‘married at the time who owes his career to judging and moralizing about former POTUS Clinton’s own sexual issues’ was so high and mighty but involved in a hush hush settlement due to a sex scandal with a former FNC employee.)
There is one HUGE difference between the Bill O’Reilly situation and Brian Williams. All of the O’Reilly stories go back years….even decades and he was at another station. The whole Brian Williams situation erupted because he perpetuated his lies from decades ago while on the same station into 2015 on the same station by taking a war veteran to a Rangers game and repeating his lies in real time. And there were lots of war vets to refute these real time lies. Get Bill O’Reilly taking a soldier from the one of his stories to a Knicks game next week and we might be talking about something.
Bill O’Reilly has a Bill O’Reilly problem
+1
Exactly.
Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly don’t have the same job description. Bill O’Reilly isn’t getting paid to read the news, he’s getting paid to talk about the news and give his input and opinions. He’s not allowed to lie, per se, but telling a big old lie in the talk news world is a bit different than the anchor of NBC news essentially fabricating his experiences to make himself seem more interesting. Bill won’t suffer the same consequences. He’s being paid to big fish it up for ratings.
But what was his job during the Falklands war? Doubtful commentators and pundits were being sent to Argentina
They can’t fire him from a job he’s no longer doing, can they? I’m just saying his job description isn’t the same, and he won’t face the same consequences as Brian. Also, Brian is held to higher standards, and should be. A Fox News controversial entertainer guy, isn’t going to cause as big of a stir when caught lying. Brian Williams can’t successfully do his job without the trust and support of the public; Bill can.
as the right likes to say, it’s all about character #falafel
He was reporting the news, when he lied about the Falklands War and hearing the man commit suicde.
and when reporting about the LA riots.
At the time of his many lies he was a reporter and we was presumably supposed to be factual.
But today he is a paid commentator (not a journalist/reporter) on his own show on the Fox News Network. His integrity or truthfulness will not be questioned nor his behavior sanctioned by his employer. Fox pays him to espouse views that support their agenda. If it requires a few embellishments, or even big, fat lies, that’s O.K. He will not held accountable for lies or embellishments by Fox viewers either. No one is watching Fox news to get unaltered facts about any given situation. They’re watching to gather snippets of opinions to validate their own. IMO the difference is that ABC News wants their work to be viewed as truthful and unbiased journalism (whether it is is debatable). Fox News doesn’t care about that. A million and one journalists can write stories chock full of facts proving that O’Reilly is a liar, but if they think those facts will harm O’Reilly’s career….they’re mistaken.
Bill O’Reilly is not a journalist…he is an arrogant, narcissistic, ignorant, bully! I hope people keep digging and find all kinds of lies and bs (which I’m sure they will) and he gets booted off the air…Can’t stand him!
All of the above, but since his employer likes and encourages the lies and BS (his and just about everyone else’s on that channel), he is going nowhere. Having that type of job security must be great.
Faux will never get rid of him; they obviously don’t care about the truth.
He really burned a lot of bridges; so many former co workers are saying he’s full of it.
And he called out Bob Schieffer, of all people? Sorry Billo, you have no credibility to do such a thing.
Of course he lies, it’s just that people expect it from him unlike BW. Besides its not a lie if you believe it 😉
http://i.imgur.com/OI3I1eJ.jpg
Bill Orilley and Fox News don’t even qualify as news. The entire content of the organization is sensationalized commentary. They are a discredit to themselves and fall back on “oh well, we must have been given information incorrectly” when their fabrications are called out. He’s a glorified street preacher, at best.
Yes but the entire network advertises itself as a NEWS network, and those shows purport to be news shows…therefore they should be held to some standard.
If they get to claim they are reporting news but then when they screw up everyone says “oh we shouldn’t hold them to the same standards as a real news show/anchor” then they can just do whatever they want without any consequences. Which…granted, they are…but they need to be held to some kind of standard or rules or something. It’s infuriating that they basically spew all kinds of nonsense and outright lies and there is no recourse for them to be punished or taken off the air. It’s insane.
I totally agree, but how do you do that? If the news network claims it’s entertainment as a back up to not reporting responsibly or standing up to the integrity of their journalist, what repercussion is there? It’s a kind of a dangerous corner to paint yourself into. I have no idea, but would love to hear from someone who has insight.
inthekitchen, yes, totally agree with you. We should not cut Fox News any slack. They call themselves a news network, and their slogan is something like “we report, you decide” (I think). Besides their creepy mothership, they also have small local newscasts in various cities that report on local news. I love seeing that loathsome toad O’Reilly finally get the shame he deserves. Karma!
so I must ask, what do you qualify as news? cnn? msnbc?
BBC and Al Jazeera.
I think the big lie is that he said he was on the doorstep when Lee Harvey Oswald’s friend* (I think?) murdered himself
Loofer boy, will spin this as usual, the Liberals are coming after him.
To call him a Journalist would be joke, anyone who can’t be impartial, is just a talking head.
To hold him to journalistic standards assumes he’s a journalist. He is not. Haven’t there been a series of “mistruths” he’s told as factual experiences that others have flatly denied? That’s like going in to have your teeth cleaned and then retelling every experience from the perspective of a dentist. (Terrible metaphor?) oh well, the man is clearly not credible anyway. He’s an ego driven, pathological nutcase who has been lucky enough to live in a time where he can find employment and cash in.
Are you ladies seriously giving him a pass on lying because he has always lied and is is best known for Fox News? When these events happened, he was a working journalist/reporter. He claims to have won journalist awards. His show is on what claims to be a news channel. I agree that he does nothing but distort the truth or outright lie. The real reporters are sick of him and his ilk. I think this is fabulous, and would love to see this headline the news every night for the rest of the year. Why not call out all of Fox News lies? Let the games begin!
and he has yet to refute any of the charges leveled against him (the only comment has been “this is coming from far-left attackers and extremists”), and plenty of his former colleagues have disputed his accounts, too.
let’s not forget the “witnessed the suicide of a JFK assassination figure”, and “was bombarded by rocks and concrete being thrown by an angry mob during the LA Riots” lies.
Can’t believe I’m about to work for Bill here, but yes, he did refute the claims on his show. My BF tunes in (he also tunes in to liberal media as a saving grace) so I caught a bit yesterday. I can understand all the Bill hate to a degree, but since most lIberal folks aren’t viewers, I kinda think that leaves them with nothing to say on the matter. Unless you truly know your sources, and in the same vein that Fox News is hardly a news network, MSNBC should get the same treatment. It helps to be fully educated (meaning both sides VP) to have a true opinion, otherwise one is just lumping “facts” in to fit their agenda. I’m a liberal myself, but sometimes I cringe at how mindlessly we attack the other side. The “news” pundits are just that, so if someone takes them really seriously, I would question their intelligence; all news is biased. I echo the sentiment here that BBC and Al Jazeera are the best news sources out there currently.
just saying they’re not true and implying that it’s a “vast left-wing conspiracy” isn’t refuting them. to truly refute them, he needs to offer some sort of proof that what people are saying isn’t true.
has he done that? because I’ve seen nothing reported.
Let me preface this by saying I’m claiming no political affiliation. That said, It seems to me, you missed my point. You haven’t heard anything on it because it’s likely you’re not looking at All sources, be they liberal OR conservative. That’s what I take issue with, is people spouting opinions without all the facts.
I don’t much care what he said, didn’t say. I honestly don’t think his points offered definitive proof that he DIDNT exaggerate, but I’m just calmly asking people to check your sources. It’s no surprise that Huffpo, the Guardian and Mother Jones would be the anti Bill O’Reilly, that’s just too obvious. On the other side of that, they wouldn’t report otherwise (in proof of his point). I just flat out don’t trust hardly any media anymore. Keep on with your one sided arguments, but to me, being educated is ALL the facts, whether they fit my agenda or not.
“You haven’t heard anything on it because it’s likely you’re not looking at All sources, be they liberal OR conservative.”
wrong.
“That’s what I take issue with, is people spouting opinions without all the facts.”
I’m not “spouting an opinion”. I am stating fact. I have not seen that he has offered proof, to anyone or any news outlet, that what people are saying is untrue. Even Fox, where you would expect something to be reported…nay, shouted from the rooftops if they had ANYTHING…has not reported or made a statement on the subject beyond their usual “this is all coming from an extreme left wing blah blah blah” and “we stand by Mr. O’Reilly”. other sources that have reported on O’Reilly’s (bogus) claims have offered first hand accounts of people who worked with him during those times. why have none of those people, who are armed with facts, come out to support his claims?
“Keep on with your one sided arguments, but to me, being educated is ALL the facts, whether they fit my agenda or not.”
how is my argument “one-sided”? Because I haven’t heard a peep from O’Reilly’s side, perhaps? I’m open to hear O’Reilly’s “facts” to refute these claims, but he hasn’t offered anything. nor has anyone he was working with during those times. so, I’d like to educate myself with all of the facts, and the only facts that have been offered up so far support the claim that he’s a liar.
Well he at least lied about the Oswald shooting. There are multiple accounts written at the time and also a throwaway in an autobiography of a JFK writer (and his notes) written some years past that Oreilly called for verification of the suicide and that his station didn’t even break the news–which you think would happen if he was on the porch/in the next room.
But he’s got a big ego and he used that story when selling his book Killing Kennedy. Now he didn’t apparently tell tales when he was actually a journalist ala BW. His embellishments seem to have occurred over the last decade or so as he’s become more of a commentator/celebrity. He once was a pretty good journalist and he revered Peter Jennings but his ego and bombast has gone unchecked for a long time now.
My point is about viewing all sides, and checking the media. That all. I’m not shilling for Bill at all. PROOF should be required from both sides, for now, both sides only have conjecture, and people backing each claim from both sides. I haven’t seen proof one way or the other. Are you the sort to say guilty before proof? This is what the media will do.
He very well could be lying, that I can agree with (but I’ll wait til it plays out and get all the facts/opinion/ conjecture/speculation, making it at the very least an EDUCATED reponse of opinion). You seem to really be hammering me about Bill in particular- look at the bigger picture. Clearly Doofus is a fitting avatar.
Keri, you’re making no sense. You seem to have caught a snippet of O’Reilly’s show where he says “These charges aren’t true at all” but where he’s offered no actual evidence and are taking that as being up to date on both sides. Viewing both “left wing” and “right wing” media doesn’t make you well versed and “fair” it just means that you’ve wasted a lot of time.
Doofus, again, I think you missed my point. You say you would be open to Bill O’Reilly refuting these claims, yet you haven’t yourself sought it out. It certainly wouldn’t be reported in the broader media (which is largely liberal), unless it was likely released by conservative pundits. That’s the only point I wish to make, simply that media would dictate the “facts” for you. I’m not in defense of Bill, just against the idea for the media to go so ‘tit for tat’ in matters like these.
I’m very aware of his other embellishments Kori (again, reported through liberal media). I never made any claims as to what truth he said or didn’t say, simply that he offered up his own remarks on his show (doofus, this would be the people “armed with the facts to support his claims” you mentioned). I don’t think they quelled suspicion altogether, but at least he addressed them. Again, not an O’Reilly fan, but I do encourage you to at least watch/hear his viewpoint. It’d be a pity to continue with your argument without all the available facts, that’s all I’m saying.
“Doofus, again, I think you missed my point. You say you would be open to Bill O’Reilly refuting these claims, yet you haven’t yourself sought it out.”
wrong again. I HAVE, myself, sought it out. wouldn’t O’Reilly himself, on his OWN SHOW, offer some proof? not a general denial, but PROOF that what he claimed was true? wouldn’t FOX themselves be offering some proof, if it existed? the only thing offered is a general denial and the attacking of the source as “an extreme left-wing”. I’ve looked and have not found. I’m starting to think you’re deliberately missing MY point.
“It certainly wouldn’t be reported in the broader media (which is largely liberal), unless it was likely released by conservative pundits.”
and yet, it hasn’t been released, by anyone. because it (apparently) doesn’t exist. and I’ve been watching/listening for it. addressing the accusations with remarks IS NOT PROOF. THAT is what I want. I know he’s addressed the issue with a denial, but he has not REFUTED the claims.
oh, and claiming you were on the doorstep of a guy’s house when you were actually in A DIFFERENT STATE ALTOGETHER is not an “embellishment”. it’s a lie.
Keri, in your attempts at being “fair” you’re simply not making any sense. It’s very easy to tell if O’Reilly has offered any proof, and implying that there won’t be adequate coverage on O’Reilly being exonerated were he to actually provide this proof (which he has not in fact) because of a liberal bias on the part of the news media is a cop out. If that were the case, Dan Rather would still have a job.
It is just that every place but Fox actually has evidence. His own writings in some cases and reports from then–not now where there could be some gotcha bias. Nothing has been refuted–just denials. And threats. I’ve often watched Oreilly going back to 1999 or so. Sometimes I think he’s a jackass and other times I think he’s pretty, dare I say it, fair and balanced and with some humor. But he’s also always had a thin skin and a temper. It’s gotten him bounced out of more than one job. I’m all for him releasing any proof but I really think these embellishments are true. Just like I believed with BW and thought the misrembering was a bunch of BS. I think Bill should be suspended–maybe not as long as BW since his embellishments didn’t occur during his active reporting time– but some discipline is warranted. I doubt it will happen though.
So there really isn’t a War on Christmas?
Of course there is!!! It’s a giant leftist conspiracy funded by foreign governments and the clintons to upset the American way and turn power over to the Easter bunny. #thanksobama
What part does the Great Pumpkin play? asks the Catholic liberal who puts a tree in every room and collects Nativity sets
Clearly he’s here to reclaim national margarita day and prove the pagan celebration of earth day is nothing but a platform for climate change scientists to recruit small children.
Don’t even get me started on that bastard, the thanksgiving turkey. *whispers* he’s after our European Valentine’s Day candy…..
Ha!!!!!
ROFLLLLL!
And now I have a hankering for a falafel.
Have some cheeze-its instead.
Wow. Somebody on Faux News LIED?!?
O’Reilly is a fool and it’s mindboggling that he even has a show to spew his lies to America.
When I knew I was going to communicate somehow for a living, I was so attracted to journalism – and, to this day, still believe that true journalism is a noble & necessary practice.
But I soon realized a few things about myself – that I couldn’t just document or photo a problem without trying to help… that I did not believe in my heart that any human being can be ‘objective,’ and I would never be able to remain or present myself that way… that the yarns and suppositions and extrapolations I could spin usually interested me far more than the pure facts… Well. I ruled out journalism for a career.
Today, I find my concerns and soul-searching almost quaint, considering what passes for ‘passing information’ now.
I think sometimes the process & thrill of telling the story gets in the way of the story itself – and that it’s awfully difficult for some people with that kind of power to keep from inserting themselves as truth-teller and action hero (oh, Mr. Hemingway 🙂 Happily, that’s not the same kind of problem in fiction and drama that it is when you purport to be the angry oracle bloviating realness from your own “No Spin Zone,” or a straight-up journalist given enormous power on a national news anchor desk.
Also, when you start full-on ‘branding’ & marketing the teller of the tale – be it an anchor, a tv commentator or an author – you’ve already begun selling the teller, too.
To answer the question posed in the header, in a word: YES!
But since when has Fox News been about truth?
There have been books that have gone over O’Reillly’s lies before. I think was called The O’Really Factor or something like that, and Al Franken prominently featured him on his book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.”
Also, I have seen people refer to him as “O’Lielly” about a million times on political blogs. Yes, everyone knows he lies, but its fun to finally see him called out on it and get national attention.