You’ve got to enjoy a clip of a Bill O’Reilly interview in which the guest is prepared for O’Reilly belligerent ranting and raving. Between calling Dawkins a Fascist and that there are people much smarter than him who disagree with Dawkins’ point of view, O’Reilly really comes off as a jerk, not a “journalist.” But, really, that’s nothing new…

DAWKINS: Science is, at least, working on the problem.

[...]

O’REILLY: “Science doesn’t advance the human condition in any moralistic way”

Look at Dawkins’ reaction to that statement (see 1:45 to 1:52). Of course, science has little to do with morality, aside from allowing us to make informed and ethical decisions, but has advanced the human condition in many ways i.e. sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health. Also, check out Dawkins telling O’Reilly to stop shouting at him at about 3:50 into the video.

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While discussing Alabama’s current political and economic needs and its future, Charles Barkley had this to say about Fox News Channel‘s Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck:

“I just feel so bad for poor people in this country,” Barkley said. “They’re like pawns in a game that they have no control. I wish they were smart enough to understand that instead of watching television and listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs.

“I wish they had their own brain and would realize that these people have sold their souls.”

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ThinkProgress.org was able to catch up with Jesse Watters and ask him a few questions before he was able to hop in an elevator. He tried to avoid the questions, having had them asked numerous times, and was caught in a few lies. First he stated that he didn’t know who ThinkProgress.org was. Then he stated that he sat down with Amanda Terkel. And as he got in the elevator, he stated that he didn’t refuse to comment for the NY Times.

Of course Watters knows about ThinkProgress – he said he called them, though nobody at ThinkProgress agrees, and he followed Amanda Terkel for hours and then she stopped on the street to talk to him. She never “sat down” with him. As for the NY Times claim, reporter Brian Stelter stated, “I called Mr. Watters repeatedly at his office #, and he referred my calls to Fox’s PR people. He refused to comment.”

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Here’s something you don’t see every day… A Fox News personality, Bill O’Reilly, endorsing a public health care option.

O’REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it’s not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they’re going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?

OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don’t necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.

O’REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.

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You can now find some show-specific lists of sponsors for The O’Reilly Factor, Fox & Friends and the Glenn Beck Show at the pages below.

• Bill O’Reilly Sponsors
• Fox & Friends Sponsors
• Glenn Beck Sponsors

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Rounding out today’s stories about so-called “czars” is a history lesson involving Bill O’Reilly. Everyone from the O’Reilly Factor guest-host Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck to Sean Hannity to Fox & Friends is on the attack against “czars” under the Obama Administration, regardless of the fact that many of the positions existed under previous administrations, they’re confirmed by the Senate, or that they are simply advisers. What did Bill O’Reilly have to say in 2001 & 2002? Let’s take a look…

O’REILLY (October 4, 2001): Yeah, there should be somebody appointed by the federal government, a disaster relief victims family czar, to do it.

O’REILLY (October 21, 2001): So things are moving in the right direction, but are still far too chaotic. Talking Points continues to ask for the appointment of a charity czar to coordinate all the money and organizations.

O’REILLY (March 13, 2002): A presidential counsel should be appointed immigration czar and clean out the INS once and for all. This pitiful government agency has put all of us in danger. It simply does not perform, and all the excuses in the world don’t cut it. Shut it down, start again. The INS is a dangerous failure.

O’REILLY (June 11, 2002): It’s time for Congress to act and for the president to appoint a charity czar to oversee the money and hold the charities accountable.

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Bill O’Reilly‘s web site currently has a poll asking, “Which news agency do you trust the least?” Fox News Channel is conveniently missing…

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You may recall back in June when President Obama slammed Fox News for consistently attacking him. On Monday’s edition of The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly and Major Garrett discussed this:

GARRETT: As to the strategy now, I would say it’s not a strategy now other than the one time the president mentioned it in the White House, when he was interviewed by John Harwood of CNBC, and he specifically labeled us as a network that wasn’t adequately favorable to him. That was the way he put it.

O’REILLY: No, that’s ridiculous. I mean, no network should be favorable to President Obama. It’s our job to be skeptical of the powerful.

Actually, this is the quote from Obama:

OBAMA: It’s very hard for me to swallow that one. First of all, I’ve got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration. I mean, you know, that’s a pretty –

HARWOOD: I assume you’re talking about Fox.

OBAMA: Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone. And you’d be hard-pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front.

See the difference?

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Bill O’Reilly, apparently, needed to further prove his racist tendencies, so he went on a bitter, hate-fueled, rant about the deceased Michael Jackson and Jackson’s grieving fans. Granted, the media coverage has been extreme, but what O’Reilly says is pretty disgusting in this debate with Columbia University professor Dr. Marc Lamont Hill…

O’REILLY: Okay, then why is he being held up by the African-American community as a pillar of black America when he blanches his skin? [...]

But answer me this, if he is such a black American icon, why did he have his kids with white men?

HILL: That’s a personal matter. That doesn’t make him less black. There’s no blackness meter here. You don’t become less black when you have a white kid.

O’REILLY: You don’t become an African-American icon when you do something like that.

HILL: No, you become an African-American icon for producing the greatest music and being the greatest entertainer ever for being extraordinary humanitarian and for.

O’REILLY: No. You just become an American icon for that, not a black American icon. [...]

HILL: It’s not — oh, he is an American idol — icon. He is quintessentially American, but he’s also undeniably black. You can’t take black from him just because he has white kids.

Who the hell is Bill O’Reilly to tell anyone who can or cannot be their icons? He seems to think he has some right, or ability, to speak for black people, regardless of whether or not race was a factor in the memorial(s) and tribute(s). The only person who made this a racial issue was Bill O’Reilly.

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Bill O’Reilly, one would hope, may have learned something about not projecting the idea of vigilante justice, but Geraldo Rivera may want to think about not following in O’Reilly’s footsteps. While discussing the extremely questionable one year sentence handed down to child rapist, David Earls, Rivera gets extremely close, if not over the line, to suggesting that it’s okay for someone to leave Earls to be “found sometime on a country road.”

O’REILLY: If Earls ever walks out of jail and gets killed, who are they going to blame?

RIVERA: … I can only tell you ladies and gentlemen, that I will not weep if something happens to David Earls. I do not encourage vigilantism. I think it is something that puts your own life at risk. I do not advise it, I do not counsel it. I will not, however, weep if David Earls is found sometime on a country road.

O’REILLY: We obviously don’t want anyone to do anything. That would be as morally wrong as what Earls did—to take Earls’ life. You can’t do that.

RIVERA: I don’t agree quite with your moral reasoning. You’re more moral than I am.

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While attempting to discredit a poll taken by the New York Times, Bill O’Reilly lets his true feelings about freedom of the press be known…

OREILLY: The most frustrating part about this is that nothing can be done. The Times has an ombudsman, but he’s a joke, and no outside agency has any power over the paper. It can pretty much do what it wants, and does.

How hypocritical considering Fox News’ history of regurgitating “news” from the GOP, while bad mouthing other networks every time they run a positive piece about Barack Obama. Of course, this is nothing new from O’Reilly… Here he is going ballistic about those media people he disagrees with:

O’REILLY: [T]here is a huge problem in this country and I’m going to attack that problem. I’m going to attack it. These people aren’t getting away with this. I’m going to go right where they live. Every corrupt media person in this country is on notice, right now. I’m coming after you…I’m going to hunt you down [...] if I could strangle these people and not go to hell and get executed…I would.

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John Cook from Gawker.com finally met up with Jesse Watters, a producer for The O’Reilly Factor,  outside of his Huntington, NY house on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, they didn’t get an interview as they avoided confrontation and allowed Watters to leave, without incident, or a word spoken.

After two months of tracking and waiting for such an opportunity, the result is a disappointment, but the nonconfrontational nature of the “ambush” goes further in showing how much of a coward Watters is. If he can dish it out, he should be able to take it. But alas, he wasn’t even asked to take it. He was given courtesy, but he had none to give in return.

Are any of us really surprised?

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Renowned film critic Robert Ebert, who has previously mocked Bill O’Reilly, addresses O’Reilly’s behavior, which, Ebert says, is like a “schoolyard bully.”

EBERT: When his guests disagree with him, he shouts at them, calls them liars, talks over them, and behaves like a schoolyard bully… I am more concerned about the danger he and others like him represent to a civil and peaceful society. He sets a harmful example of acceptable public behavior.

Ebert provides numerous examples and cites the Indiana University study that showed O’Reilly’s use of propaganda. He even compares O’Reilly to talk show host Jerry Springer, who is, at least, honest about “selling his soul” for higher ratings.

Perhaps the most important conclusion that Ebert addresses is that Bill O’Reilly is preaching to the choir, yet needlessly and dangerously raising the bar by shouting, using anger to express opinions, and having the general effect of communicating “there’s unfinished business to be done, and its up to them to do it.”

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Based on a 2007 article from Indiana University School of Journalism:

Starting where the Institute for Propaganda Analysis left off in 1930, Indiana University professors Mike Conway and Maria Elizabeth used a system of coding speech that analyzes the use of propaganda in determining whether or not Bill O’Reilly uses propaganda instead of merely “providing facts,” as he claims.

The following are the seven elements of propaganda previously identified by the IPA:

• name calling
• glittering generalities
• transfer
• testimonial
• plain folks
• card stacking
• band wagon

Bill O’Reilly is guilty of using all seven elements and was found to have called people names 8.88 times per minute. It also showed a pattern of using references to Americans, the U.S. Military and the Bush Administration as victims.

Conway stated that the point of the study was to get past the partisan labeling, but he has still been branded as a liberal based on the results of the study.

A related study, according to Conway, shows that only 11% of surveyed journalists think of Bill O’Reilly as “very close” or “somewhat close” to a journalist.

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The following contest is from Salon.com:

Contest: Can you spin better than O’Reilly? See if you can edit the full-length video of Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Joan Walsh (here’s Part 1 and Part 2) down to the 45 seconds or so that best captures Bill O’Reilly. 1). Upload it to YouTube or the video sharing site of your choice. 2). Post it on Open Salon, or link to it in the comments section here. We’ll feature the best submissions as they come in, and name the winner at the end of the week.

The best submissions will be featured here and on Joan’s blog — and the winning submission will be featured on the cover of Salon.

If I had the slightest idea how to edit and manipulate video, I’d love to give this a try. So, I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you all come up with – be sure to link to your submission in the comments below as well!

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