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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)

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Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly (born September 10, 1949) is the host of a popular American cable television news analysis program, The O'Reilly Factor on the FOX News Channel. O'Reilly also hosts a radio program syndicated by Westwood One called The Radio Factor and has authored four books, one of which is a novel. As a self-proclaimed political independent, his social and political views vary widely. Most recently, he has voiced concern about what he sees as the negative influence of gangsta rap on children, the mismanagement of charity funds for 9/11 victims, and the alleged liberal bias of the media.

Personal background

O'Reilly was born in New York City, New York. He and his family moved to Levittown, New York, located in Nassau County, New York on Long Island when he was a toddler.

O'Reilly attended Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, an all-male Marianist school where he played goalie on the ice hockey team. After graduating from Chaminade, O'Reilly advanced to Marist College, a small, co-educational private school in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, O'Reilly played quarterback, place kicker, and punter on the football team, and also was a columnist for the school's magazine, The Circle. He also played semi-professional baseball during this time, pitching for the Brooklyn Monarchs. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London.

O'Reilly married in 1995 and is the father of one young daughter and an infant son. He does not discuss his family publicly due to security concerns, including past death threats.

Early career

After graduating from Marist, Bill O'Reilly moved to Miami, Florida, where he taught English and history at a Jesuit high school for two years. After leaving Miami, O'Reilly returned to school, earning a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University in 1976. O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions in Scranton; Dallas; Denver; Portland, Oregon; Hartford; and Boston. In 1980, he anchored his own program on WCBS-TV in New York and later became a CBS News correspondent. While at CBS News, O'Reilly covered the wars in the Falkland Islands and El Salvador, amongst others. During his stints in Dallas and Denver, he won two Emmy Awards for journalistic excellence. In 1986, O'Reilly joined ABC News as a correspondent on ABC World News Tonight. In three years, he appeared on the show over one hundred times, receiving two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting.

Some of O'Reilly's stints at local news stations did not go well, especially when it came to his relationships with management and other on-air talent. Former coworkers have called "obnoxious", "self-centered", "dishonest", and "paranoid".[1] At news bureaus and stations he worked for, O'Reilly frequently made what he has called "political mistakes" such as criticizing management decisions and story selections for news broadcasts that contributed to his leaving various positions along the way.

In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated Inside Edition, a tabloid television program (also known as "infotainment"). He started as senior correspondent and backup anchor for David Frost, but soon took over the anchor chair when the viewers found him more appealing. In 1995, O'Reilly left Inside Edition to enroll in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he received a Master's Degree in Public Administration. Upon leaving Harvard, Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, hired O'Reilly to anchor The O'Reilly Report, which was soon renamed to The O'Reilly Factor as O'Reilly was quickly gaining a reputation as a tough interviewer.

The O'Reilly Factor

O'Reilly's television show The O'Reilly Factor discusses political and social issues of the day featuring both conservative and liberal guests. His show is famous for its direct, combative approach, with O'Reilly often getting into heated debates (and sometimes shouting matches) with guests.[2] While he tends to turn some people away from his show with his brash attitude, he has attracted millions of viewers with his self-described confrontational interviews.[3] O'Reilly has pundits and elected officials as guests and doesn't hesitate to interrupt them or to disagree. He decrees on his show that it is a "no spin zone" and that "the spin stops here." O'Reilly often challenges spin from guests more aggressively when they hold views opposing his own (see below for example views).

O'Reilly ends each episode of The Factor by reading viewer e-mail. The mail read by O'Reilly is usually divided between viewers who either agree or disagree with his views.

In 2001, The O'Reilly Factor passed Larry King Live to become the most watched cable news program in the United States. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, O'Reilly was honored by The National Academy of Arts and Sciences for his coverage and analysis of the events. He has also received praise from viewers and readers, most notably his being named the third most popular U.S. television personality of 2003 in a Harris Poll, behind Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman. [4] He led the voting among people over age 65, as well as Republicans.

Political opinion

O'Reilly disagrees vehemently with the common belief that he is a conservative, preferring to call himself a traditionalist and a populist. In his book The O'Reilly Factor, he describes his political affiliation this way: "You might be wondering if whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what... See, 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."

However, Bill O'Reilly acknowledged that from 1994 until December 2000 he was registered to vote as a Republican when the Washington Post was about to expose his party registration. O'Reilly said it was the result of a clerical mistake, which has since been corrected, and he is now a registered independent. "I've always been an independent," he says. "I always split my ticket. I vote for the person I think is best." [5]

Although O'Reilly emphasizes that he is an independent, this claim is intensely disputed. Critics attest that O'Reilly has close ties to the Republican Party and other conservative groups. Arguments include O'Reilly's voter registration, which was changed from Republican to Independent when reported by the Washington Post in 2000. Also mentioned was O'Reilly's keynote speech at David Horowitz's conservative "Restoration Weekend" event, taking place at the Republican convention in Philadelphia. Nevertheless, O'Reilly's opinions contain a mix of traditionally conservative and liberal positions.

Notably, O'Reilly's position on illegal immigration does not follow a traditional conservative standpoint. Rather, it is based on protecting national security.

A viewer once wrote to give O'Reilly a rough statistical analysis of his political viewpoints and found O'Reilly to take more conservative viewpoints roughly 60% of the time, more liberal viewpoints 30% of the time, and completely moderate viewpoints 10% of the time.

Traditionally conservative views

Traditionally liberal views

Criticism and controversy

Disputes with individuals

Bill O'Reilly has a long-standing dispute with left-wing comedian and political commentator Al Franken. This dispute reached its peak in 2003, when Franken published a book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, featuring a photograph of O'Reilly on the cover. Franken accuses O'Reilly of lying and distorting to make himself look better. For example, Franken says O'Reilly implied the television show Inside Edition won two Peabody Awards for journalism while he was there, when it actually won the George Polk Award over a year after O'Reilly had left. O'Reilly first denied the misstatement, but then later corrected it.

Fox News sued Franken for trademark infringement over the use of the phrase "fair and balanced" in the book's title. The judge dismissed the lawsuit as "wholly without merit." O'Reilly later claimed he had considered personally suing Franken for defamation but was told that as a public person the standard of proof would be too high to sustain a lawsuit.

Franken, the Washington Post, and others have also claimed that O'Reilly did not grow up in Levittown, but instead in its more affluent suburb, Westbury. However, O'Reilly maintains that he grew up in the Westbury section of Levittown, a claim that was confirmed in October, 2003 by the vice president of the Levittown Historical Society. [6] O'Reilly also points to the fact that he was not eligible to attend Westbury High School as evidence of his Levittown roots, since he did not live within the Westbury school district. In an interview in September of 2003, O'Reilly stated that while the section of Levittown he grew up in was formerly called Westbury, it is now called Salisbury. In April of 2004, O'Reilly released the deed to the house his parents bought on Long Island in 1951, which shows the address as being in Levittown, NY.

In March 2004, Franken launched a radio talk-show named The O'Franken Factor on the Air America Radio network. Franken joked that he hoped O'Reilly would sue Air America for trademark infringement because it would generate publicity for Franken's new program. O'Reilly never publicly commented on Franken's choice of title and Franken renamed his program to The Al Franken Show in July 2004.

Bill O'Reilly has criticized Bill Moyers, the host of NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS, on multiple broadcasts of The O'Reilly Factor, and Moyers has in turn accused O'Reilly of lying. In 2002, O'Reilly said Moyers called him a "warmonger," implied that Moyers was making big money by selling videotapes of his program — and that Bill Moyers made contributions to the Columbia Journalism Review to buy the duPont-Columbia Award. Bill Moyers responded in print that he never called O'Reilly a warmonger, that his share of distribution money from the show is minuscule, and that the Columbia Journalism Review doesn't pick the winner of the duPont-Columbia Award [7]. In 2003, O'Reilly criticized Bill Moyers again, saying that Moyers' position that taxes should be raised is "classic socialism" and that he "can't understand why Bill Moyers just doesn't move to Havana." [8]

Guest Jeremy Glick accused O'Reilly of using 9/11 to fit his own needs, and stated that President George H. W. Bush trained the Moujahadeen in Afghanistan, suggesting the attacks would not have happened without the U.S. government's previous involvement with extremist militant groups. [9] He also referred to the "alleged assassinations" of 9/11 victims, something which did not sit well with the host and which O'Reilly still uses as his prime argument against Glick and his opinions. O'Reilly demanded that Glick "shut up, shut up," and asked the director to "cut his mic." O'Reilly apologized for the guest's behavior as soon as the show returned from a commercial break, saying he did not know Glick would present himself in such a manner [10].

Criticism from organizations

Media criticism of O'Reilly, about both his politics and his style, has come more often from liberal or left-wing outlets such as Slate, Media Matters for America, and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), but conservative or right-wing outlets such as AIM have criticized O'Reilly for much the same reasons.

Some critics contend that O'Reilly often makes up facts and figures to support his points. FAIR, a left-leaning media watchdog group, published a book, The Oh Really? Factor, documenting alleged false accusations and inaccurate statements O'Reilly has made on his show. FAIR complains that O'Reilly distorts the news by framing it through his bias.[11] For example, after the Supreme Court ruled that public hospitals could not test pregnant women for drugs and send the results to the police without consent, O'Reilly said "Coming next, drug addicted pregnant women no longer have anything to fear from the authorities thanks to the Supreme Court. Both sides on this in a moment" (O'Reilly Factor, March 23, 2001).

During the 2000 election, O'Reilly suggested Al Gore was running "on a quasi-socialistic platform" with "work and production being supervised by the government." FAIR claims O'Reilly had been extremely tough on President Clinton during his tenure in office, but refrained from criticizing the Bush administration when it first entered office. "President Bush ran on the slogan 'reformer with results,'" he said, "That sounds good to me."

O'Reilly also claimed to be a registered independent when he was actually a registered Republican. When newspapers published this fact, O'Reilly claimed it was a clerical error and attacked the newspaper publishers as liars. Finally a copy of his 1994 Nassau County voter registration form was found, showing a box labeled "Republican" clearly checked.

Apology to the nation

Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on 18 March 2003, O'Reilly made the following promise: "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." In another appearance on the same program on 10 February 2004, O'Reilly responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to never again trusting the current U.S. government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time."

Bibliography

Books by O'Reilly

  • Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Murder and Television (1998), ISBN 0963124684
  • The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life (2000), ISBN 0767905288
  • The No-Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America (2001), ISBN 0767908481
  • Who's Looking Out for You (2003), ISBN 0767913795
  • The O'Reilly Factor for Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families (scheduled for publication October 2004), ISBN 0060544244

Books about O'Reilly

  • The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (2003), ISBN 158322601X
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