FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Last night on Fox News (12/22/10), Karl Rove and Bill O’Reilly attempted to defend GOP opposition tothe James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, whichwould providehealth care for 9/11 Ground Zero workers. In his final broadcast of the year (12/16/10), Comedy Central‘s Jon Stewart devoted the entire show to lambasting the Republican opposition.Stewart’s […]
Fox host Bill O’Reilly warned viewers on December 3 about “a disturbing development at the FCC”: Commissioner Michael Copps has been criticizing the failure of the media to provide citizens with substantive political information and discussion. O’Reilly zeroed in on these comments Copps made in a BBC interview (12/1/10): I think American media has a […]
Bill O’Reilly‘s recent “joke” about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview. During the cable channel’s 2008 election coverage, in […]
It seems to me that debating Juan Williams’ firing from NPR in terms of the role of “opinion” and “objectivity” in journalism is missing the point. Williams has expressed his opinions on Fox News countless times. Other NPR employees frequently express opinions, too, as when Scott Simon wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal […]
Fox News Channel continues to mislead viewers aboutthe “Ground Zero Mosque.”On the August 18 broadcast of the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly countered the argument that there would be no controversy over a Jewish or Christian house of worship by saying this: Nobody would be complaining because Christians and Jews weren’t involved in the 9/11 […]
Boston TV newscaster Barry Nolan was outraged to learn back in 2008 that Fox host Bill O’Reilly was getting an award from the local chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. So Nolan made flyers documenting various O’Reilly outrages and distributed them at the local Emmys ceremony—and did not do so in […]
At the top of his show last night (7/7/10), BillO’Reillynotified viewers that the Factor had “investigated”how much crime in Arizona is committed by undocumented immigrants,explaining: “What we found may surprise you.” “Telling the truth in the illegal immigration controversy, that is the subject of this evening’s Talking Points Memo,” O’Reilly began hiscommentary. Now that would […]
We’ve rather amply documented Bill O’Reilly’s record of misinformation on Arizona, immigration and crime. It’s not surprising–but nonetheless worth documenting–that O’Reilly would bend reality in order to bash immigrants and defend the new Arizona law. But the way the New York Times handled the matter is worth a look. The paper’s June 19 piece, “On […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has endorsed the draconian Arizona immigration law on the grounds that immigration has caused the state’s crime to skyrocket—a claim that founders on the fact that crime in the state has actually gone down (FAIR Action Alert, 5/17/10). Of late, he hasn’t talked much about the immigration/crime angle, leading us […]
Witless commentary and breathtaking hypocrisy are no strangers to Fox News, but Bill O’Reilly was in rare form on June 1. Discussing Joe McGinniss, the journalist who moved next door to Sarah Palin’s family home in Alaska in order to write about her, O’Reilly declared the move “immoral” and maybe even unconstitutional: “He’s intruding upon […]
Fox host Bill O’Reilly continued his efforts to link Arizona’s harsh immigration law to the non-existent immigrant crime wave. Last night (5/18/10), with Cathy Areu of Catalina magazine: O’REILLY: OK, so you would just sit there and just status quo it? Status quo? AREU: Immigration is down, actually, in Arizona. Status quo’s working beautifully. O’REILLY: […]
You just never know what will set Bill O’Reilly off. Last night, it was a perfectly reasonable remark by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, following the arrest of a Pakistani suspect in the Times Square car bomb plot, cautioned against turning Pakistanis or followers of Islam into scapegoats: I want to make clear […]
Fox host Bill O’Reilly searched around for a reason to support Arizona’s harsh new immigration law, and seemed to settle on the fact that there is a crime wave in Phoenix (5/3/10): Arizona had to do something. In the capital city Phoenix, crime is totally out of control. For example, last year New York City– […]
Like Andrew Malcolm (FAIR Blog, 4/6/10), Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 4/5/10) has a bone to pick with how the “left-wing media” have representing the Tea Party movement. First, he complained, “Tea Party folks were labeled stupid, too dumb to understand complicated issues.” Then the media said that “many Tea Party people are racist and far-right […]
Appearing on the O’Reilly Factor (3/25/10) to discuss being named by Joy Behar as one of the media figures the View panelist (3/22/10) says are inspiring hate among Tea Party activists (“There is a difference between free speech and hate speech, and we’ve been listening to it from Beck and Limbaugh now. And these people […]
Last night on the O’Reilly Factor (3/16/10): What I’m about to tell you is simply stunning. A new survey published by the New England Journal of Medicine, a prestigious magazine, says that nearly half of primary care doctors in America could leave the medical profession if Obamacare is passed. According to the Journal, 63 percent […]
On the January 15 edition of his show, while chatting with Ray Stevens, who recorded the song “Ahab the Arab” nearly 50 years ago, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly seemed to become nostalgic for a time when making fun of Arabs was acceptable: Forty-eight years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. […]
While many are opening their hearts and purses to Haiti’s suffering, it’s important to note the corporate media’s high profile exceptions. Televangelist Pat Robertson, carried on Disney‘s Family Channel, suggested Haiti invited the disaster by making a deal with the devil 200 years ago (FAIR Blog, 1/14/09). Radio big Rush Limbaugh discouraged donating to Haiti […]
Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated visit to Fox News Channel‘s O’Reilly Factor saw the famously tough-as-nails host ask the tough questions of the right-wing leader: O’REILLY: OK. The latest poll has you with a 23 percent favorable, 37 percent don’t know. You do the math, OK. And you’re up at 60 percent of people who could […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, commenting on a tax increase in California: That could happen on the federal level. Already Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That’s not capitalism. That’s Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn. Setting aside the truth of […]
