Gawker speculates that Fox News is backing off its defense of Bill O’Reilly as more evidence comes to light that O’Reilly lied about being on the scene of so many world-shaking events. I’m not so sure; O’Reilly is their top cash cow, so they’ll keep him off the spit as long as possible.
But as Fox New’s experiment with Glenn Beck proved, it is possible for even a prodigious moneymaker to become so ridiculous that he threatens to blow the network’s “news organization” cover. That’s the real danger to Murdoch Inc. media properties — not that their credibility will be diminished with their audience of elderly rage-o-holics but that the corporate media hacks who do “straight” news will stop pretending Fox News is a legit colleague.
And if that happens, who knows? Maybe corporate media entities will stop treating anti-science lunacy and political nihilism as just another valid viewpoint that deserves a fair hearing.
serge
The “anti-Zelig!!”
JMG
Dream on.If Fox slips, all the other TV news operations will just intensify their efforts to snag a share of the elderly rage-o-holic audience.
JPL
Fox news is an entertainment channel. They unfortunately have a warped view of what entertainment is.
O’Reilly said that when he saw the nuns murdered, he meant he saw an image of the nuns. Good luck with that one liar.
btw This is good news for Brian Williams because at least he was in a war zone.
JPL
Fox will keep him. If they didn’t let him go after a little telephone sex, why would they let him go for lying.
Mustang Bobby
He was there on the grassy knoll, and in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in June 1968, and the only reason he didn’t stop Sirhan Sirhan was because he was looking for his loofah.
chopper
@JPL:
fox turned into the tv version of AM talk radio a long time ago. they (and others) just refuse to admit it.
MattF
You jest.
aimai
They don’t have anyone to replace him with for that particular demographic–the over 72-dead demo. So they won’t drop him until they have a replacement. Look at how hard the regular networks tried to hang on to Russert’s corpse, even go so far as to hire his son to try to fill his shoes. Look for them to try to promote Bill O’light somehow.
Denali
What I fail to understand is why O’Reilly still has a job after threatening a reporter.
Morzer
@JPL:
That telephone was asking for it by dressing all slutty in plastic!
JPL
@Denali: Well duh! It was only a reporter from the NYT. His audience applauded.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Well, I admit it’s highly unlikely, but I’m not entirely kidding. The most pernicious effect of Fox News isn’t the drivel they peddle to their viewers but their influence on so-called straight news outlets. They’ve been highly successful at working the refs, no?
MattF
@Denali: “Pugnacious” is in his job description. That means threatening people.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I guess so, although I think their real success is that they’ve become the refs. I remember, back in the day, when you’d see honest-to-goodness leftist commentary on the air. That doesn’t happen any more, because.
Morzer
@Betty Cracker:
How many years has it been since CNN could be taken somewhat seriously as an informed and honest news source?
debbie
I expected Glenn Beck to lead with a defense of Bill O’Reilly. Instead, his head’s exploding over net neutrality, Obama (“he doesn’t love America, he only loves himself” and every old complaint from back in 2008), and Soros. So much for looking forward to the next election.
debbie
@Morzer:
January 20, 2009.
Morzer
@Mustang Bobby:
Never forget, Bill O’ Reilly was the hero who fired on Fort Sumter in defense of the Southern Motherfuckingland.
MattF
@debbie: Bear in mind that all the RWNJs are after the same audience, and that audience has a limited attention-span. Beck isn’t going spend much time or energy defending O’Reilly.
debbie
@Mustang Bobby:
Even better, he was at both places at the same time! He’s that amazing!
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I agree with you totally re Fox’s effect on “straight” corporate-owned news.
And they’re helping to take the industry down. We need a full and free press. We have “he said she said” journalism, most of it owned by large for-profit corporations.
Gin & Tonic
@Morzer: Probably since Bernard Shaw retired.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
The refs want to be worked. I will always remember the anchorman on CNN covering 2012 election night, when told Obama won, exclaiming in surprise that this didn’t make sense because America is a center-right nation. There was no extended rant like Rove’s – which I then flipped to watch out of an uncharacteristic case of schadenfreude – but the mask slipped.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF: when you’d see honest-to-goodness leftist commentary on the air
Could you remind me who that was, and when?
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
That fits fairly well with my memory of when CNN began to slide over into chasing the custom of the dementia and incontinence ward.
Mr. Prosser
@JMG: @MattF: You both are absolutely correct; Ailes thought of the schtick first but the rest would pick up the slack if Faux collapsed.
Eric U.
if they work it right, his resignation will bring extra outrage.
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Well, once upon a time, the PBS news hour (in its McNeil-Lehrer incarnation) would do that. But that was before the current ‘if I only had a brain’ epoch.
Marmot
@chopper: When was that? As far as I’m can remember, they’ve always been a right-wing propaganda outlet.
Big ole hound
Papa Bill is doing what all bullshit republicans do….attack the attacker so as to discredit the story. Nothing has changed.
Morzer
Clearly the abyss has decided to take a long hard look back at America.
Bobby Thomson
@Morzer: since Ted retired.
Marmot
@Betty Cracker: Totally. I was awestruck throughout the ’90s as every news outlet chased this trendy new demographic, the outraged right-wing conspiracy theorist. MSNBC for awhile tried to steal FOX’s viewers, before discovering liberals.
Alienating the rest of the news outlets from FOX is the big prize.
ruemara
I’d love the news organizations to go back to news. But I fear they’ve forgotten how to news, just like people have forgotten what news is.
Elizabelle
@ruemara:
If only a comedian would lead us to “news.”
PS: suggested you try posting on Craigslist to find lodging for the Comic Con. Maybe you can find a fellow fan who would love to host you.
Bobby Thomson
@Gin & Tonic: Bernard “Hey, what if someone raped and murdered your wife, you fuckin’ hypocrite” King? Yeah, fuck that guy.
Botsplainer
@Mustang Bobby:
“Pleased to meet you; hope you guessed my name! But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game”.
Iowa Old Lady
Much to my surprise, Iowa just enacted a 10 cent hike in the state gasoline tax. I guess we’re not Kansas yet.
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I just heard someone on the radio refer to chickens as the gateway animal. Thought you might need the warning.
The Moar You Know
He stays. There’s no way Fox is getting rid of their flagship property, no matter how off the rails he goes.
Hate to be that guy, but the reason the media loves both those things so much is that the citizenry who pay their handsome, large bills are both violently anti-science and political nihilists.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be on TV.
Samuel Knight
Fox will keep on making stuff up – and may or may not keep O’Reilly.
The real battle is precisely th one outlined here – can you get the rest of the country to laugh at the fools?
Maybe heh He was in the no-o zones in Paris!
The left would be much better off laughing and making fun of the all the stupid media people. Not just Fox, but Dowd, Friedman, Cohen, etc.
bemused
Aaron Brown’s show on CNN was cancelled in 2005.
Michael Savage had a show on MSNBC in 2003, fired after a few months.
Legitimate news hasn’t been a priority for cable news for many years if ever.
Rumors MSNBC is dumping most of the “liberal” shows, perhaps only Rachel Maddow staying. I shudder to think what they will replace them with.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Did you make the illustration? It’s wonderful.
Mike in NC
Still hoping to see that book “Killing Bill O’Reilly” show up on Amazon.
catclub
@MattF:
Then why are they willing to listen to Benghazi reports ad infinitum? They have the opposite of a short attention span. They do not want to hear new things, they want their old fears to be confirmed.
TriassicSands
I don’t think much of NBC’s journalistic standards, but neither do I believe Fox News can be held to the same, admittedly low, ethical standard that holds for NBC. Therefore, the idea that O’Reilly, a well-known liar, hyperbolist, and serial bully should be suspended or fired for what he’s done seems silly. If Fox News had any ethical standards it would have to close up shop immediately.
I get a lot of email requests to sign petitions, and one of the latest topics is calling on O’Reilly to be sanctioned for his misrepresentations regarding his “war” experiences in South America. At this point, I haven’t signed any of these petitions, because I think his entire job consists of misrepresenting facts and reality. Why would he be punished for what is more likely a bullet point on his CV?
SenyorDave
There was an TV show called “You are There” that was hosted by Walter Cronkite. Maybe O’Reilly could host an updated version called “I was There”. He could re-enact his role in covering the Falklands war. Then he could move on to all the other major stories he covered, including JFK’s assassination, the time he was an embedded reporter with the first group of soldiers who hit the beaches of Normandy, his amazing coverage during Gettsyburg. I’d particularly love to see how he struggled through the crowds to get the last interview with Jesus at the site of the crucifiction.
Iowa Old Lady
@bemused: I watch MsNBC online the next day and at the moment, I can’t get to Hayes or O’Donnell, only Maddow. If you want to restrict the influence of these shows, that’s the way to do it.
gelfling545
@Mike in NC: Or “Killing Bill O’Reilly’s Career”.
catclub
No love for Baba O’Reilly?
MattF
@catclub: I think ‘listen to’ makes unwarranted assumptions. Cries of “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” are a soothing reminder that Obummer is a Kenyan Muslim Soshalist– and a signal that it’s time for a nap.
The Ancient Randonneur
I shudder to think how different the world might be if BillO had not been in that belfry-lanterns lit-waiting to signal Paul Revere.
Glidwrith
@ruemara: OT, ruemara, have you found housing yet for Comic-con? Mr. Glidwrith and I have a queen-sized air mattress with your name on it, if you want.
If so, we can exchange contact info through one of the front pagers, since I don’t want to advertise to all and sundry.
I’ll also try the thread upstairs.
priscianus jr
“they’ll keep him off the spit as long as possible.”
I think you just said the magic words. “As long as POSSIBLE”. Sure, but the way things are going, that may not be very long. Let’s hope.
bemused
@Iowa Old Lady:
Those online sites were extremely annoying to begin with.
I suppose msnbc will keep Scarborough while getting rid of “liberal” shows.
Calouste
@The Moar You Know: Well, it’s also possible to create a market for a product if there isn’t one there already.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Haha, yeah, my mad Photoshop skillz! Thank you.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
The “PEW-PEW” cracked me up. I sent link to a couple of relatives who totally loved it.
Petorado
Maybe he should just change his name to Forrest Gump. It would make sense of the whole “Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.”
muddy
He also said he saw nuns get gunned down in El Salvador, when really he looked at a picture afterwards.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/25/another-fabrication-oreilly-never-witnessed-the/202667
WaterGirl
@Glidwrith: I left a note for you in the other thread, but I forwarded your kind offer to ruemara by email, so she is sure to see it one way or another.
jl
I think we need to teach the controversy on how the tides work and what causes them.
And just who were these Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Laplace guys anyway? Laplace was French!
What were their real motives?
O’Reilly has said so much ridiculous and false garbage on air, it will be hard to make a list and investigate every item.
Elizabelle
@bemused: Yeah, the PEW-PEW is somehow authentic sounding.
And it’s good to be able to laugh at the meme, because otherwise so much of current events seems like a downer. I need to step back a bit from following politics and cut back on internet time. It’s sapping my morale. The stupidity of our very serious people, the cray cray of the rightwing and the media industrial complex they control more than we’d like to admit. The pettiness and greediness and duplicity that we see too much.
It’s exhausting. I don’t give a flying fuck what Ron Fournier is saying. I’d probably be happier if I did not even know who he is.
Which might be why MSNBC is contemplating a major programming change. Libtards, moderates, and the intelligent and sane** are wired differently than conservatives. Good for the first set, but not as profitable for the news industrial complex, perhaps.
** these first four groups are not mutually exclusive
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
I laughed at that. I wouldn’t have laughed if you had written that last week, but I presume that was a clarification in honor of the recent oscar firestorm?
bemused
@Elizabelle:
I didn’t think it was possible but there really seems to be an uptick in the crazy lately, so much so that I gave up on sending all the links to my favorite liberal friends. It’s a tsunami.
The really depressing thing is that much of it is coming from legislators: cancer is a fungus, swallow a camera to check on a pregnancy and on and on.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I have happily missed the Oscar firestorm. Is it about lack of diversity, or Patricia Arquette? What’s this particular firestorm?
Elizabelle
@bemused: Maybe it is peak wingnut approaching. I just know that I feel bombarded by bad and cray cray news, and there’s got to be some silver out there too.
I wonder if stuff is shaking loose and we’re seeing some of the fallout.
SRW1
@Morzer:
And he was at the Alamo, though the details of how he made it out alive there are a bit hazy.
dww44
@bemused: You’re doggone right. All those GOP controlled and run state legislators are doing the real damage. Like today mine is voting to prevent local governments from passing restrictions/prohibitions on plastic bag aimed specifically at a little touristy island on the coast that is trying so hard to keep plastic bags out of the marshes, tidal inlets, and such. So the plastic bag manufacturers have paid for legislators to block local entities from doing that.
There’s also new legislation to further cut early voting. Local paper wrote a lead edtiorial about that, but betcha they are all gonna pass with flying colors and be signed into law by the GOP governor. Easy to get depressed;better to get angry and do something about it.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Patricia Arquette. I was just too lazy to google to see how to spell her name.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Scanned the thread; got the gist. Gag.
bemused
@dww44:
I am hoping that the more middle ground, rational Republicans (I know they are out there) will finally revolt against the insanity of the tea party, lunatic Republicans. They have got to be embarrassed and alarmed by all the kooks running loose in their party and legislators now.
MCA1
Nothing happens to O’Reilly, and this whole thing evidences just how much FOX has fully-realized its ultimate goal: creating an alternate reality for its customers. O’Reilly can defiantly continue telling the same brazen lies, and go and call David Corn and whoever else the real liars and the Liberal Inquisition and get haughty, and his viewers will simply accept it on faith because they will not go and see what all the fuss is about at Mother Jones or the NYT. Those places are vile and treasonous and dens of angry Leftist vipers who will do anything to take down O’Reilly, as far as they’re concerned. They know this deeply and cannot be shaken from it. Actual quotes no longer exist; the video and audio from CBS way back when does not exist; the former CBS colleagues saying he’s full of shit do not exist; O’Reilly’s lack of credibility with the rest of the world does not exist or is simply evidence of his victimhood. O’Reilly is bulletproof because the bubble is factproof.
MCA1
@bemused: Ha! Keep chasing that rabbit. Peak Wingnut will never come. America has become too dumb, shameless, misinformed and tribalized for that.
Tehanu
I thought Jane Curtin’s joke on the SNL 40th Anniversary show pretty much called it: “I was a pretty blonde woman reading fake news. Now there’s a whole network devoted to that.”