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The O'Reilly Factor

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O'Reilly Factor promotional image from FoxNews.com

The O'Reilly Factor is a television talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who discusses current political and social issues with guests from opposing ends of the political spectrum. The show premiered in 1996 along with the Fox News Channel. It was previously known as the O'Reilly Report, and O'Reilly's first guest was General Barry McCaffrey, then the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (or "Drug Czar").

The show is well-known for its confrontational approach, as O'Reilly often gets heated during arguments with guests which has created much controversy. O'Reilly ends each episode of The Factor by reading a selection of mail received from viewers, generally presenting an equal number of letters that support him and those that oppose him. In this selection, he usually includes an equal proportion of letters accusing him of having a left-wing bias and letters accusing him of having a right-wing bias, and the selection of such letters often may include an extreme right, extreme left, and a more neutral point of view of the subject. Despite the mix of views in the letters selected for on-air reading, columnists and news broadcasters routinely call him a conservative pundit, a label whose accuracy he denies.

Format

The program is done "live to tape", meaning that unlike other Fox News Channel programs at night, The O'Reilly Factor is prerecorded. The program is live for breaking news or special events. The show usually tapes between 5 and 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, although some guests are interviewed before the "live to tape" period and are slotted in the program as appropriate. (Some guests have suggested that interviews are edited after taping, although O'Reilly's producers insist that editing happens only when an interview exceeds the available length in a program of which the total is 43 minutes for an hour-long slot, once commercials and news breaks are added.[1][2])

O'Reilly and his producers discuss potential topics twice a week. [3] A producer will research the story and book guests for O'Reilly, and an information packet will be produced with possible angles for O'Reilly to explore. The producers will often "pre-interview" the guest so that they know what potential points he will make. [4] For each show, O'Reilly with the assistance of his staff will produce a script with the words for the "Talking Points Memo" and "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" segments, and points of discussion and questions for the guests that will appear on the program.

O'Reilly divides his show into titled segments, appearing in the following general order. Not all segments appear in all programs, and occasionally segments will repeat.

  • Talking Points Memo: O'Reilly's commentary on a current event or the state of the country. This does not appear when there is a substitute host although John Gibson has done it on occasion.
  • Top Story: O'Reilly covers one of the most important stories of the day, with interviews with newsmakers, noted analysts, or Fox News Channel reporters. If there is nothing breaking, the Top Story will often expand on the subject covered in the Talking Points Memo with a guest that either rebuts or concurs with the memo.
  • Impact: O'Reilly focuses on issues of crime and the law in this segment. Updates on criminal investigations, trials, and lawsuits are highlighted. Other times, issues relating to government relations and agencies are featured, as are stories about the Iraq War.
  • Unresolved Problem: O'Reilly focuses on an issue which he feels is not sufficiently covered by other media.
  • Personal Story: O'Reilly invites an author of a best selling book, a newsmaker thrust into the spotlight, someone who has experienced an event currently in the news, or someone who has interviewed a newsmaker. The goal of this segment is to have the guest relate his or her personal experiences about the topic.
  • Factor Follow-Up: O'Reilly revisits an issue discussed in a previous edition of the Factor.
  • Back of the Book: Various interesting topics will be placed in this segment, which is one of the last segments (hence the name). The tone can range the gamut from extremely serious to light hearted.
  • The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day: a brief segment highlighting something O'Reilly finds absurd.
  • Factor Mail: O'Reilly reads brief snippets of electronic mail sent to him.

Occasionally, the following segments appear:

  • Children at Risk: O'Reilly covers issues relating to the health and well-being of children and adolescents.
  • Factor Investigation: O'Reilly invites guests who have investigated a person or organization that O'Reilly dislikes.
  • Fridays with Geraldo: Geraldo Rivera, of the Fox News-produced and syndicated Geraldo At Large, discusses a topic of interest to O'Reilly. Often, Geraldo comes on Thursdays, because O'Reilly frequently takes Fridays off. Sometimes its own segment; other times rolled into one of the above segments
  • Bloviating with Bill: A regular viewer gets a chance to debate O'Reilly.

When O'Reilly cannot host the show, Fox News Channel selects his replacement. Depending on the substitute's time frame, the program may be live more often, especially with John Gibson. Sometimes a previous show is rebroadcast but this has become more rare to the point of not happening anymore. A notable interview will usually reair filling up one or more segments in a show with a guest host.

O'Reilly has had two call-in segments to his show: one immediately following and in response to Connie Chung's interview with Gary Condit on August 23rd 2001 and the other on September 29th, 2001 with Gary Bauer as his guest, pertaining to terrorism.

Vocabulary

After reading the viewer's e-mails, O'Reilly usually ends by encouraging the viewers to contact him, but requests them to keep their comments pithy and not to bloviate (adding with tongue in cheek: "That is my job"). However, O'Reilly uses words that are out of the standard vocabulary of the average viewer, telling them to "run to the dictionary". Below is a list of uncommon or obscure words used by O'Reilly with their definitions:

  • Bloviate – to discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner
  • Clinchpoop - a moronic person, an idiot
  • Garrulous – trivial or rambling talk
  • Jackanape - an impertinent or conceited person
  • Ninnyhammer - a simpleton, a fool
  • Opine - speak one's opinion without fear or hesitation
  • Perspicacious - acutely insightful and wise
  • Poltroon - a spiritless coward
  • Popinjay – a vain, talkative person
  • Province - range of one's proper duties and functions
  • Scaramouche- a cowarldy buffoon
  • Truculent - defiantly aggressive
  • Vituperative – marked by harshly abusive criticism

Regular guests

Frequent topics

  • National Security vs. the Infringement of Constitutional Civil Liberties
  • Iraq War
  • Jessica's Law - O'Reilly is pushing for legislation in all 50 states to pass the law. He has states shaded based on which ones are supporting it and those that resist it.
  • Traditionalists vs. "Secular-Progressives" - O'Reilly discusses a "culture war" between these two lines of thinking.
  • Illegal Immigration

Parodies

File:Colbert word.jpg
Stephen Colbert spoofs Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" segment.

On October 17, 2005, The Colbert Report premiered on Comedy Central. The show, hosted by Stephen Colbert, is a satirical spoof of The O'Reilly Factor, spoofing both its format and the mannerisms and ideology of O'Reilly, whom Colbert calls Papa Bear. Colbert makes no secret of his spoofing O'Reilly: upon hearing the news that O'Reilly said he likes The Colbert Report, Stephen declared on-air that "I like you too. In fact, if it wasn't for you, this show wouldn't exist." Many of Stephen Colbert's attitudes, actions, or program segments are directly inspired by O'Reilly's show.

The O'Reilly Factor has also been spoofed on Saturday Night Live, first by Jeff Richards and later on by Darrell Hammond. On Mad TV it was Michael McDonald doing the honors.

Allegations of bias

During discussions about controversial subjects, The O'Reilly Factor typically features guests with opposing viewpoints. Regardless of Mr. O'Reilly's assessment and opinion, he often grants airtime to both sides of the spectrum on most issues. However, he has been known to interrupt a guest when he feels that the guest is "spinning" the subject, and he often interjects his opinion during the debate. At times, O'Reilly will cut off the guest's microphone and/or abruptly end the interview if he feels the guest is "spinning" too much. [5] O'Reilly acknowledges his show is an editorial program rather than a strictly neutral news report. [6]

Regardless of the content of the show, O'Reilly always presents an equal number of letters from conservatives accusing him of being too liberal, and from liberals accusing him of being too conservative. It is unknown whether this equal proportion is indicative of all the viewer mail he gets, especially since criticism of O'Reilly over being a conservative is far more widespread, particularly on the Internet, in numerous newspaper editorial columns, and even by politicians.

Some claim the show has a tendency to exclude guests who are neither Republican nor Democrat, thus showing O'Reilly's bias in favor of the two-party system. During the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, O'Reilly's show allegedly reneged at the last minute on granting Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik air time. [7] However, Ralph Nader has been a guest during both his 2000 and 2004 campaigns for president and also after the 9/11 attacks. [8][9]

A study performed by Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group, found that over a period of 4 months, the percentage of conservative guests varied from 35% to 42%, liberal guests varied from 14% to 19%, and neutral guests varied from 40% to 47%. This report would seem to contradict the claim that O'Reilly excludes independents, while reinforcing the claim of his conservative bent. [10]The study did not take into account guests of either affiliation who were invited but declined to appear on the show.

On Bill O'Reilly's off days, the show is guest-hosted by openly right-of-center or sometimes outright conservative Fox News personalities like John Kasich, Tony Snow, and John Gibson, and rarely hosted by a liberal (Geraldo Rivera being the exception). This adds to the perception that Fox News Channel considers The O'Reilly Factor to be a conservative show, and tries to maintain this image through the show's guest hosts. Most recently right-wing radio talk show host Laura Ingraham guest hosted.

Peter Hart, a media analyst for the liberal watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, said that "the O’Reilly factor is probably the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with Fox News Channel. They have stories that are selected primarily to upset liberals and Democrats and prop up Republican Party. You have a hostility towards guests that disagree with the host and you have a host who in service of his conservative politics will distort facts, will misrepresent things, and will in some cases, just fabricate." [1]

People who decline to appear on The Factor

O'Reilly has invited people who have been critical of him (or vice versa) and/or dealing with a controversial situation that have declined or ignored the invitation. O'Reilly may say they are "hiding under their desk" or "dodging" or may just say the invitee declined. He has even referred to them as cowards at times. Some guests may have initially not gone on the show but then end up appearing later.

Some that have been invited but have not gone on include:

  • Hillary Clinton: O'Reilly has been critical of Clinton since she was First Lady. He believes that she never answered truly tough questions and has on occasion said that he will have Hillary as a guest on for the entire hour. In an interview, Clinton once said that she felt sorry for him.
  • George Clooney: After 9/11, O'Reilly investigated why charities like the American Red Cross were not giving the money that was donated immediately to the victims. He asked celebrities who helped raise money for the victims to also look into this and make sure the donations would get to the victims. Clooney responded to O'Reilly and was subsequently asked to come on and debate. Clooney declined but said that he would debate O'Reilly on Larry King Live. O'Reilly claimed that he never heard such an offer. Clooney was later criticized for his charitable work during the 2005 Indian Ocean Earthquake. Often O'Reilly has criticized Clooney for being the voice of "liberal Hollywood". Clooney appeared on Charlie Rose to respond to the pundit. He believes that if he was to ever to appear on The O'Reilly Factor, he would not be able to get any of his talking points mentioned. He requested O'Reilly to appear on other television shows to debate him. O'Reilly refuses.[citation needed]
  • Al Gore: Gore did not appear on the show when he was running for president in 2000. O'Reilly has claimed that Gore may have been put over the top in a close race for president if he appeared on the show and did well.
  • Jesse Jackson: O'Reilly investigated Jackson's tax exempt status to see if he was violating separation of church and state. Jackson was invited to explain himself but never came on.
  • John Kerry: Like Gore, did not go on while running for president. O'Reilly ended up asking another guest the questions that he intended to ask Kerry. Two years later, Kerry did appear as a guest on The Factor. The interview aired on June 29, 2006.
  • Nicholas Kristof: New York Times columnist. Kristof challenged O'Reilly to pay more attention to the situation in Darfur and actually visit there rather than focusing on the War on Christmas.[11] O'Reilly has invited him to come on and discuss the situation. Kristof has indicated that he would be willing to go on the show provided that O'Reilly would commit to only discussing Darfur, but this was apparently unacceptable to O'Reilly.[12] On CNN's Reliable Sources on 4/23/06, Kristof said he does not believe any intellectual significance would come out of being on the show even though it would be entertaining.
  • Cindy Sheehan: Sheehan has been on an anti-war protest against the 2003 War in Iraq. After O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin criticized her views as being "manipulated by far-left elements," Sheehan, who originally agreed to be on, refused to be featured on his show. Later, Sheehan would criticize O'Reilly as being an "obscenity to humanity", in which O'Reilly referred her as "clueless" and "cut and runner" in many of his talking points.
  • VH1: O'Reilly was critical of VH1 for producing the show Music Behind Bars. No one came on from VH1 to defend their position.[13]
  • Cavalier Daily: The independent student-run newspaper from the University of Virginia declined an interview concerning the publication of offensive cartoons. [citation needed]

People whom O'Reilly does not allow on The Factor

  • David Brock: President of Media Matters for America has written a letter asking to be a guest on The Factor after O'Reilly repeatedly criticized him on the show. [14]. O'Reilly has not responded. [15] Media Matters also quoted O'Reilly as saying: "I have no respect for that organization. They will never set foot, not only in my program, but at Fox News Channel, because they are dishonest, inherently dishonest. They take stuff out of context, they use smear tactics. They're paid assassins by George Soros." [16]
  • Alan Dershowitz: O'Reilly proclaimed that Dershowitz is banned from The Factor because O'Reilly questions his honesty. [citation needed]
  • Jeremy Glick: Actually appeared on The Factor, but in the course of the interview, O'Reilly abruptly ordered his staff to cut off Glick's microphone, and then threatened Glick with violence if Glick did not leave the studio. After the interview, O'Reilly stated: "If I had knew [sic] that guy Jeremy Glick was gonna be like that I never would have brought him in here."[17]

The following people have expressed an interest to appear on the show but, as of now, O'Reilly has not stated any response to their requests.

  • Michael Badnarik: Libertarian candidate for President who O'Reilly allegedly cancelled while Badnarik was en route to the studio, in June 2004. O'Reilly has not rescheduled Badnarik to appear on The Factor. [18]
  • Stephanie Miller: Host of The Stephanie Miller Show said on her show that she was contacted by a producer from The O'Reilly Factor, but O'Reilly's producers never followed up with her after the initial interview, in which she indicated she would be willing to be a guest on The Factor. [citation needed]
  • Westboro Baptist Church: Members of the Topeka-based cult have repeatedly requested to appear and defend themselves against guests that regularly speak out against the Phelps clan. The group has not been on the show. [citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Outfoxed (Transcript pgs 49-50)
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