If it's "spin" to back up your arguments with bogus facts and statistics, and to dismiss numbers that don't fit in with your preconceptions, then Bill O'Reilly's Fox News Channel show isn't, as he repeatedly claims, a "no-spin zone"-- it's Spin City. During an interview with National Organization for Women president Kim Gandy (O'Reilly Factor, 2/5/02), O'Reilly claimed that "58 percent of single-mom homes are on welfare." When Gandy questioned that figure, O'Reilly held firm: "You can't say no, Miss Gandy. That's the stat. You can't just dismiss it. . . . It’s 58 percent. That's what it is from [...]
Jul
01
2001
Bill O'Reilly's Sheer O'Reillyness
Don't call him conservative-- but he is
Fox News Channel's star performer is undoubtedly Bill O'Reilly. Host of the nightly talk-show The O'Reilly Factor and author of the best-selling book of the same name, O'Reilly epitomizes Fox's in-your-face style. A former anchor for the tabloid Inside Edition whose upcoming contract is reportedly worth $20 million (Boston Globe, 3/14/01), O'Reilly poses nightly as an outraged common man speaking out against the corruption of the liberal elites who run the country from Hollywood and Washington. "We're the only show from a working-class point of view," he once told the Washington Post (12/13/00). "I understand working-class Americans. I'm as lower-middle-class [...]
