Fox News' ambush crews: A flagrant abuse of media power
By David Neiwert Monday Mar 23, 2009 6:07pm
Gobsmacking. There's no other word for it. What else can you call it when a national TV network's most popular anchor goes onscreen and reports a story that not only completely inverts reality, but does it by unleashing a camera crew that engages in the behavior of stalkers, actually tracking down a woman blogger on her weekend getaway and ambushing her at her hotel? It's not just hypocrisy: This is a psychotic perversion of press rights in a way that violates basic American privacy rights. And it's dangerous as hell.
That's what Bill O'Reilly did tonight on the O'Reilly Factor. Here's the report from O'Reilly's own sector of Planet Wingnuttia:
O'Reilly: Now, for the evil part. Last month, after the charitable event was announced, a bunch of far-left loons picked up some propaganda from the hate group Media Matters, that said I am unsympathetic to the plight of crime victims -- a preposterous lie. Along with America's Most Wanted, the Factor has done more for the victims of crime in America than any other television program on the air. The loons pointed to a Radio Factor episode from three years ago. We've posted the entire commentary on BillOReilly.com.
Elements at NBC News then encouraged the loons to protest the Alexa Foundation, causing Alexa and her family major grief.
That's right: O'Reilly is claiming that these reports actually harmed rape victims, since the Alexa Foundation was probably acutely embarrassed by the reports. So to prove his sensitivity to rape victims, he sent out a news crew to stalk a woman on her private weekend getaway.
What so infuriated O'Reilly was a Think Progress report -- itself a pickup from NewsHounds, and which in turn was picked up by MSNBC -- pointing out that while O'Reilly was going to give a speech before the Alexa Foundation, which benefits rape victims and their families, he had something of a history of gross insensitivity to the victims of rape himself. Here's what Amanda Terkel at Think Progress actually reported:
Our post — which never criticized the Alexa Foundation — highlighted the fact that in the past, O’Reilly has implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped. Here is what he said on his radio show on Aug. 2 about Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old woman who was raped and murdered:
Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.
O’Reilly’s comments about Moore were part of a larger segment about the dangers of drunkenness. His other example was Mel Gibson going on a drunken tirade and yelling anti-Semitic comments. “I think it’s safe to say that if Mel Gibson didn’t get drunk, he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation he finds himself in,” said O’Reilly. “And if a young woman, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of Harrington Park, NJ, didn’t get drunk, she’d be alive today.”
No doubt O'Reilly is still reeling from the embarrassment of a previous case where his grotesquely insensitive remarks came back to haunt him: namely, the Shawn Hornbeck incident, in which O'Reilly first suggested that a boy who had been kept a captive of a child molester for years had somehow "wanted it." As it happened, he was scheduled to speak before a conference for the families of missing kids. The ensuing uproar didn't subside until his appearance was cancelled.
In other words, the guy who should have at some time apologized for belittling the victims of sexual assault -- and never has -- instead is claiming that his critics "hurt a rape victim and her family."
The Alexa Foundation is sticking with O'Reilly (a spokesperson was on afterward to fiercely denounce the protests). There apparently were pickets outside O'Reilly's appearance, and a groups called Concerned Women Against Sexual Violence created a petition of protest as well -- which got a big shout-out from Keith Olbermann.
So of course, Bill O'Reilly sent out his flying monkeys -- namely, the same ambush news crews, headed by an uber-cretin named Jesse Watters, who have attacked other hapless miscreants who had the audacity to bother O'Reilly's august ego -- in swift and nasty retaliation, as Terkel describes:
- The Stalking: Watters and his camera man accosted me at approximately 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 21, in Winchester, VA, which is a two-hour drive from Washington, DC. My friend and I were in this small town for a short weekend vacation and had told no one about where we were going. I can only infer that the two men staked out my apartment and then followed me for two hours. Looking back, my friend and I remember seeing their tan SUV following us for much of the trip.
– The Ambush: Shortly after checking into our lodgings, we emerged and immediately saw two men walking toward us calling out my name. Watters said he was from Fox News, but never said his or his companion’s name, nor did he say he was with The O’Reilly Factor.
Read the rest to see how the rest of the encounter went. Then compare it to O'Reilly's version above.
This whole episode itself is a gross bit of hypocrisy, considering that O'Reilly himself has complained about journalists invading celebrities' privacy -- a point for which he was recently slammed by Jon Stewart.
And that raises an important point about press ethics. O'Reilly's ambush crews claim to be "investigative journalists" acting in the crusading tradition of the old '60 Minutes' crews of the '70s and '80s. And indeed those journalists did excellent and serious work tracking down various official miscreants.
But they did it at their offices or their places of work. They didn't invade their homes.
Moreover, there is a big difference between people who anger you, or people with whom you disagree, and public officials or powerful people who have abused their positions. I think we all can understand why it's ethical for journalists to pursue the latter, and why everyone who has a shred of ethical decency as a journalist pauses long and hard while considering the former.
The power of the press is very easily abused, especially against ordinary private citizens who aren't celebrities, and whose privacy is every bit as sacred as Bill O'Reilly's.
If this kind of harassment continues, however, then it may comes time to turn the tables -- and they've picked a set of victims more capable of fighting fire with fire than they reckon. O'Reilly and his crew may not like it when bloggers start camping out on their lawns and demanding answers to insultingly partisan questions, shouted aggressively, as they try to get to their cars. Jesse Watters, what's your address?
In the meantime, here's John's now-classic guide for dealing with O'Reilly. We recommend frequent if not constant repetition of the words, "Andrea Mackris."
UPDATE: Amanda Terkel chimes in on tonight's BillO report. As noted above, there was a lot edited out by O'Reilly.
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Smack the guy hard for getting in your face and see where it goes. What's the loss? Misdemeanor A&B at worst which is nada.
If this clown is harassing Americans let him face justice for breaking this nation's laws. It's time to get tough with this fucker.
All people need to do when this clown pulls this crap is start talking non-stop about his sexual harassment of Andrea Mackris. It will be completely unusable footage-and a huge waste of time and money for him.
interruption like that, they got a boot in the balls, it'd stop purty quick...
but it'd probably work too, if one were to reply:
That's what all O'Lielly targets need to do. It renders any videotape unusable on Faux. I also hope Ms. Terkel considers filing stalking charges against the O'Lielly video crew. It might help, hitting back against O'Lielly in a legal way. Mackris did.
Amanda is slightly over 5 feet tall and about 100 pounds. For a bunch of manly men like O'Reilly and Watters, that's incredibly intimidating. Plus she's got...you know, a Vee-jay! If they didn't humiliate her the way they did, she would've used both her hay-nanny-nannies AND her ha-cha-cha to seduce weak men to become socialists and teh gay.
None of this would've happened if she was the "right kind of girl," ie, the kind of girl who'd put out for O'Reilly and Watters on a continual basis but not tell anyone lest their reputations get destroyed. Hmph. Serves her right.
This isn't journalism. THis is a blatant disgusting invasion of privacy. This Watters character is as bad as the Paparazzi.
It's vigilantism. It's the equivalent of saying, "Nice shop you've got here... It'd be a shame if anything happened to it."
If Mel Gibson hadn't gotten drunk he wouldn't have said those nasty things, and if Jennifer Moore hadn't gotten drink, she wouldn't have been raped and murdered....
...and if Bill O'Reilly had never been born ----what a wonderful world this would be. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would purposely turn on his show and listen to that crap every night....
..in perspective for people who feel just like him. There are a lot of loons out there.
Ok, I'm finding it hard to find the words how angry this makes me, but for now, I'll just he has some goddamn nerve saying that Think Progress, Olbermann, etc. were hurting those of us who've been raped by attacking *him*!!!!!
Thank you Think Progress, thank you Amanda, and thank you Keith too! You're the ones who've done a real service for survivors, by reminding us who already knew (and telling those who didn't already know) what Billo really thinks of us.
Perhaps the Alexa foundation thinks that by sticking by O'Reilly, they're sticking by publicity and possible funds. I feel, though, that in the case of a charity, there is such a thing as bad publicity. Perhaps there are one or two who would be more likely to donate because of this association, but I can imagine plenty of others would be heartily put off.
The Alexa foundation does a good and important work; but by standing by Billo and his horrible statements (and now his despicable conduct towards Amanda), it makes them seem insensitive to the needs of the survivors they serve. People who donate routinely to anti-sexual violence charities may think about rerouting their donations to another worthy charity.
not anybody you know...
that's the language and the rhetoric that will follow criticism of Bill-o...women who object to Billo's history of 'objectifying' women will be branded as anti-feminine...
that's how it's gone before...
she'd be flinging a couple pairs of her high heels at his general direction!
Femi-nazi indeed!
I really don't know much about the Alexa Foundation, but they seem to take a "victim's rights" angle rather than a "women's rights" angle. I don't mean to disparage their work either way. I think they tend to advocate for fewer options for the defense with shifting the burden of proof and more leniency in court for the victim. They see things that way - and I disagree, but more power to them for helping out people who need it. I disagree because the function of the court is to ascertain guilt or innocence; one can not assume that the accused is guilty even if that makes things easier for the victim.
On the other hand, that angle is totally consistent with the authoritarian mindset that O'Reilly holds; which doesn't address causes of the problem or reduce the number of rapes, continues the need for patriarchy (with the ostensibly irreproachable patriarch,) but is consistent with the "black and white" moralizing of the right-wing.
Just my observation, and again, let me be clear: rape is wrong, and Ms. Brancini deserves all the support in the world. I just think her organization is focused in a direction consistent with a failing overall strategy.
Although, even if the above is all true, I mean, Andrea Mackris for fuck's sake! You wouldn't invite Bernie Madoff to speak at a benefit for the Anti-Defamation League.
but at the same time, there's still a valuable role for their foundation. Sexual violence is such a big and complicated problem that whatever the Alexa foundation is not addressing, there's probably a lot of other organizations who do choose to concentrate on those things.
The Alexa foundation does indeed choose to concentrate on the trial experience. As someone who has never reported anything done to her because of the mental image of being ripped apart on the witness stand in the forefront of her mind, I have to applaud them for that. They also provide financial support to victims and their families to help relieve those kinds of burdens as they come up during the trial process...
why did you engage????
loofa....andrea makris
that is all you have to say
and loofa boy attacked at least 2 rape victims
the girl in nyc and that poor boy who was raped and tortured for years
he is a piece of filth
and so are his producers
I sent her an email earlier this morning.
She's beating herself up now over all the things she should have said.
That's the key to this kind of ambush--you're so caught by surprise that words fail you.
I thought Terkel handled herself very well, she was self-possessed and really didn't let the creep score.. she did seem a bit off balance but that didn't stop her from answering everything the jerk threw and it only added to her authenticity..
Still mad at Andrea Mackris. Hey Liver Spots, no matter how many petite women you bully and intimidate, it will never make up for the fact that your "rap" to women was so fucking lame that it cost you millions.
Now that's one hell of a rejection.
If Bill-O had any respect for crime victims and women he wouldn't have harassed Andrea Mackriss. I know that sounds simplistic, but that's the case. That shows his true nature and the respect he has for other people.
Did Fox require him to attend sexual harassment training following his lawsuit settlement, or is that a dumb question? Most anyone else in a large corporation who committed those acts would have been fired.
"Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
I really liked how O'Reilly was sure to point out that Ms. Brancini's rapist was a foreigner and also brown. It added so much to the story - not so much with relevance to the overall story of the evils of Mr. Zucker (what was the relevance of Mr. Zucker again?) - but more just the evil, brown foreigner flavor that we've come to expect from O'Reilly.
to see Bill O'Reilly take a boot in the balls, a real pointy-toed one, swung by a lil ol' 125-lb girl, a barrel-racer mebbe...
"If Bill-O had any respect for crime victims and women he wouldn't have harassed Andrea Mackriss. I know that sounds simplistic, but that's the case. That shows his true nature and the respect he has for other people."
Exactly. On a scale of behaviors and crimes that are sexually predatory, sexual harrassment and intimidation may be pretty low on the scale, but they're still on it.
Making him the last person I'd want to see at such a fundraiser. As I said in one of the Video Cafe threads when the Alexa controversy first broke out, I've organized fundraisers and support groups (albeit on a smaller scale). Billo would be the last person I would green light to speak to fellow survivors...
Even without Mackris, you'd think he'd be excluded simply for his terrible fiction writing.
*
..he was speaking. I seem to remember that this was a platform for loofah-boy to plug his book, what ever its called.
Just when you thought you've become anesthetized to this kind of thing, O'Reilly ups the ante...
Someone needs to put a size 14 cowboy boot up bill's an**.
With a large
guygay behind the boot.I might even watch that show.
People in the areas where Bill O'Reilly lives and works should follow him relentlessly as citizen journalists. Dog him night and day ... cameras mics. go after this traitorous piece of crap.
by mike stark
and he was ripped on every lib blog for doing it
but he is a man
That's the problem with the rat race: even if you win, you're still a rat.
Or maybe, that's why you don't wrestle pigs. You both get covered in mud, but the pig enjoys it.
I think O'Reilly saw this playing out from the first second with the speaking gig.
You can see in his smug little delivery that he is happy to fight on this battlefield. He can keep howling about victims rights and "the smearing of this fine woman, from a fine family" (as if A. anyone smeared Ms. Brancini, or B. her "fine family" has anything to do with anything,) and in the end, he runs the edits. He has the big megaphone, so he gets his point out there.
That's why the only solution is like Woody said, a swift kick to the marbles. It should only take four or five of those, and I think he'll get the message.
"What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
5 falafels so far have pressed charges against O'Reilly for rape.
MSNBC (Olbermann) has Foxaganda on the ropes so Rupert Murdoch sent out his attack dog Shill O'Liely to do the dirty work of smearing NBC.
What was with the bs about GE failing? The attempt to tie NBC and Zucker (and the other exec) to this is ludicrous. Everybody knows he's just trying to make people look guilty by association, but that only works for the lizard brained among us - and their memories aren't that good when the message is more sophisticated than "beer, sex, fear".
and have an MSNBC camera crew there to film it. THAT would be a great primetime news segment.
"Fox News Ambush Journalist (sic) Served With Restraining Order For Stalking Blogger"
BillO and his boy Jesse are prime examples of what an "ass" is. The ONLY reason BillO is making this a big issue is because he hates Keith Olbermann.
I really wish someone would ambush BillO and Jesse. These guys are beyond the pale when it comes to this crap.
...from a guy (and Party) with a record of sexual misconduct and misogyny like Bill-O (and the GOP).
They really DO live in an bass-acwards world, don't they? Where a guy accused of sexual misconduct with a co-worker and blames a rape victim for her murder can publicly chastise the people that outed him...
And, further below, we see the "Libby Defense Fund" still in full gear out to defend a convicted felon for his part in a treasonous cover-up.
Global-warming deniers that chant "drill, baby, drill!"
It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to live in this same world with them.
Simply, O'Reilly has a major media conglomerate (reaching millions of viewers) to spread his nefarious brand of propaganda, sliming others and making himself a Christ.
The people on C&L who are able to unravel the mass-disseminated bullshit and point out the hypocrisy and lies can only reach a limited audience, albeit some very influential people.
But it shows you the sheer corruption and injustice that consolidated media power can unleash.
O'reilly is going to "go after" the wrong person and his crew is never going to be heard from again. Why haven't they been shot at I will never know. Someone walks up to me in a forceful manor and has a bunch of "equipment" and I would start thinking about the safety of my life and if I should run or Blow them away.
This Ambush crew of their's has been really lucky so far. Even more so if they are following people Around for hours and hours like in this case.
how much I appreciate her and what she's having to put up with for telling the truth about O'Liar, but the site keeps crash my browser right now. :( Oh well, first thing in the morning, I guess!
And check the fossils that make up the audience at the event. Don't trip over the oxygen tanks! Ha, Ha!!!
Hello...anybody over there have a Journalism degree? Please expose this pseudo journalist and his sham news network for the propagandists they are. Hello...NBC...Hello...
I ain't got a journalism degree, but I would say this is tantamount to making the journalist the story (which shouldn't be done, although Geraldo Rivera built his career on it), but by extension to include bloggers.
Ambushing people at their homes or while they're engaging in private activities is wrong and potentially dangerous. By doing so, O'Reilly is setting an example and giving all his nut job fans bad ideas, and someone will eventually get hurt. But then O'Reilly is a class I idiot, not to mention total jerk, with no journalistic integrity.
What are the laws on those being accosted by these people just pulling out a taser and zapping them? Might do something interesting to the cameras as well...
Bill O'Reilly gets a taste of his medicine...
July 30, 2007
"Good work Mike Stark. The only thing these Fascists understand is getting in their face".
"Good for Mark Stark. Too many leftist want to "play nice". Screw that, fight fire with fire."
...Dr. Matt
"O'Lielly got a mere pittance of what he deserves. "
"Sure, the same people who already believe we are Nazis, or equivalent to a David Duke convention, thanks to BillO."
"I say punch the bully in the mouth. Hard."
--------
Well, you win some, you lose some.
August 2, 2007
Our buddy, Mike Stark was featured in Countdown's WPitW segment, although you could see that it pained Keith Olbermann to include him--and to defend Bill O'Reilly.
"That being said, I'll just declare myself the WPinW too. I guess I'm a terrible person for enjoying what Stark did. How will I go on"...
"MIKE STARK, YOU'RE MY HERO!!!
You deserve some kind of reward for this one. Email me and tell me what I can do for you. A donation to your site, to a candidate...you name it."
Again with the cognitive dissonance, my old friend.
How do you not understand this?
O'Reilly sent hack "journalists" to ambush several people. Stark decided he should give him a taste of his own medicine. Some supported Stark because O'Reilly deserved it for what he did. Some opposed Stark's methods because they are wrong regardless who does them. Some were conflicted between these points of view.
O'Reilly has continued, this time targeting Terkel - and not going through the charade of even asking her for an iterview.
If you need some help pulling your head out of your ass, I could round up a few friends.
...the trolls are springing up like mushrooms.
Granted, I sometimes have to rub my temples when the rhetoric over there gets a little too much like fecal matter getting thrown around.
The one thing I fear is that this ambush tactic is going to go too far. One of these days, a reporter is going to shove a microphone in someone's face, only to get the wrath of an interviewee that wants privacy. Or vice versa--a journalist is going to do irrepairable damage to a person's psyche or reputation without checking all of the facts first, just for the sake of destroying the other person's perspective.
A line needs to be drawn in the sand. Citing Mackris will only help those in the know. News outlets have to be taken to task for their methodology, and I hope that someday it will dawn on them before someone like O'Reilly sends his producers into a cesspool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJbjJetU_1k
"A flagrant abuse of media power"
And if o'really had an ambush interview from his own people would that constitute flagrant self-abuse?
only if it involved a falufa...
one of O'LIElly's film crews to ambush me...then you'd see what a Gaston County asswhuppin looks like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gAGZ630vts&fe...
is a bully... is a bully. He will act like a bully in any situation he finds himself, and is most noted by acting childish, peevish, and justified at all times.
Pretty much describes O'Reily, doesn't it? What concerns me is - the man has a fairly large audience of like-thinking people. That's what's walking all around you every time you leave your house (shudder)...
it would shut the jerks up if everyone ambushed by O'Reilly's crew responded as if they were being questioned about Bill O'Reilly's sexual harassment of Andrea Makris.
Q by harasser: What's your reaction (to the harangue of the day)?
Answer: Well, I think it was pretty sleazy of Bill O'Reilly to talk dirty to Andrea Makris when she made it clear it was very unwelcome and I'm glad he had to pay her millions in punitive damages.
Q by harasser: What did Bill O'Reilly say?
Answer: He wanted to rub her body with a falafel in the shower and do other things he thought were sexy to her.
Q by harasser: Did you hear the Factor segment (about this matter)?
Answer: No, but I think he said elsewhere that any woman who crossed him or Fox would be destroyed.
Q by harasser: You're just dishonest, aren't you?
Answer: I had nothing to do with Bill O'Reilly's sexual harassment of Andrea Makris and haven't discussed it publicly at all until this moment. Do you see any dishonest statements I've made?
ETC.
"shred of ethical decency as a journalist "
The above words should never appear in any article about O'Reilly or any other moron who worked on Inside Edition or Current Affair.
What ever happened to Maury Povich's wife?
I do not want to imagine the pain of the rape victim in this case. And I cannot stand O'Reilly. That being said, I do not see how what he said is blaming the victim. It is a fact that if you are walking around drunk and alone and a beautiful young woman and dressed like she was that if a predator is watching he will pick you out. I do not see how saying that is necessarily blaming the victim. Maybe O'Reilly wants young women to be aware. Now, his Sean Hornbeck comment And his loofa fantasies and jumping on this blogger, etc. etc. etc. are all detestable. I just think it weakens any arguement or portrayal when questionable assertions are brought in and I think saying in this case that OReilly is blaming the victim is questionable. It might be true but we cannot discern O'Reilly's true intentions from his comments and that makes it a reach. There is enough true dirt on O'Reilly to make it unnecessary to bring in questionable assertions like this one.
a "moronic girl" is somehow showing compassion and empathy for her and her family???
Questionable assertion my ass; he was clearly blaming her for what happened to her.
I'll ask you the same question that I saw someone ask a troll on Think Progress: If a beautiful woman is raped in her home while she's trying to sleep at night, is that her fault????
You do know that women are raped ALL the time, when we are sober, or dressed like a nun even (including nuns themselves), I hope???
It disgusts me to no end when people make excuses for rape that take the blame off of whom it belongs (rapists) and onto the victim!
O'Liar's comments are and were very hurtful... I never forgot it when I first read them in '06!
I do not want to imagine the pain of the rape victim in this case. And I cannot stand O'Reilly. That being said, I do not see how what he said is blaming the victim. It is a fact that if you are walking around drunk and alone and a beautiful young woman and dressed like she was that if a predator is watching he will pick you out. Predators are called predators because they are like animals that are hunting prey and look for the vulnerable. I do not see how saying that is necessarily blaming the victim. Maybe O'Reilly wants young women to be more aware to be careful. Now, his Sean Hornbeck comment And his loofa fantasies and jumping on this blogger, etc. etc. etc. are all detestable. I just think it weakens any arguement or portrayal when questionable assertions are brought in and I think saying in this case that OReilly is blaming the victim is questionable. It might be true but we cannot discern O'Reilly's true intentions from his comments and that makes it a reach. There is enough true dirt on O'Reilly to make it unnecessary to bring in questionable assertions like this one.
Well, women are likely to see it differently. If a man gets drunk wearing sexy clothes, very few women would consider that to be "asking for rape" from them or other men. And if women cannot be as foolish as men without harm, something is off-balance.
I think O'Reilly was revealing his OWN predelictions. He probably thinks a woman in that condition is fair game for rape. He has that mentality, given his telephone sexual harassment of Andrea.
It's considered "blaming the victim" because it assumes that the responsibility for the rape rests on the shoulders of the women who are raped, and doesn't mention the responsibility of men to not commit rape in the first place. Furthermore, he compares her to Mel Gibson, who drank, became racist and belligerent and then suffered in the media for it. The suggestion is that what happened to her was a punishment for her behaviour, rather than an attack.
It is tricky, I agree, because people should try not to put themselves in dangerous situations, of course. But there are ways of helping people to stay as safe as they can without lecturing them on modesty of dress and proper ladylike behaviour. Furthermore, it's still men who are most likely to be attacked by a stranger in the street, although not necessarily sexually. If a man is beaten and mugged for his possessions, it wouldn't be so likely you'd hear "well, you shouldn't have been walking there all alone" or "what were you thinking, wearing that [item]?" Maybe sexual attacks are different in ways we'd need a whole other post to go over, but I still think the blame should be focussed on the criminal who commits the attack, and that safety should be explained in better ways than "you shouldn't have done that" - because what help is that after the fact?
I see it all now!!! Fox News is not to blame for the level and quality of its' coverage. As a progressive, I have subscribed to the theory that most of peoples' behavior is a result of their environment, IE: abusers become abusers, you are what you eat, etc. etc. You must look at Fox in its totality. It is a product of Rupert Murdock, who has based his entire multi-continental business career on catering to the lowest common denominator (remember PT Barnum), raising "trailer trash chic" to an art form. Sort of a Larry Flynt of the information game. (Sorry Larry) He has always chosen the low road as a path of least resistance. MSM would be too snobby, would "eschew obfuscation" of the truth. Beside, they were too busy catering to the mansion trash to muck it up. 'Ole Ruppie has always stayed true to form, even his high-minded purchase of the WSJ is being suitably muckified (?) Sooooo, Bill, Glenn, Michelle, Sean and all the other whores in his employ, I forgive you. You are only a product of your pimp.
It's waaaay past time to turn the tables! People not only need to start camping out O'reilly and his producer's homes, they need to start ambushing Fox producers and executives higher up the food chain about their network's vast resources and press privileges being used to settle personal vendettas. Bloggers have lots of motivated people with video cameras at their disposal. It would be great to see a huge wave of this occurring mercilessly to people all over the Fox News food chain until some Fox boss tells the Bill'O blowhard to knock it off.
I have a camera and and an axe to grind. . . . . Where do I sign up?
This ambush "journalism" is reporting at its worst. Despite that, Terkel's responses could have and should have been better.
In particular, it was beyond ridiculous for the O'Reilly producer to have brought up the "Gibson" component of the 2006 radio discussion. This component underscore's O'Reilly's victim blaming. By saying “I think it’s safe to say that if Mel Gibson didn’t get drunk, he wouldn’t be in this terrible situation he finds himself in. And if a young woman, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore of Harrington Park, NJ, didn’t get drunk, she’d be alive today.”
O'Reilly directly said that if Moore didn't drink then she'd be alive and it was HER decision to drink that got her raped and killed, not the decision of a rapist/murder to rape and kill her.
I only wish Terkel had pointed this out.
Papa Bear is not just evil, he is an evil genius. Kinda like Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. The video is very well done. He is very credible. By omission and commission he has presented a totally believable picture for someone who watches Fox. Amanda doesn't look unprepared, she is painted stupid. And since the world loves the underdog, Papa Bear doesn't stop his blame-game with Amanda. He presents NBC head and GE head as the evil people. If I did't know the backstory, I'd have totally bought it. The Left-loons and their evil smear campaign. Grrrr.
For all C&H exposé and ThinkProgress and MediaMatters and Olberman, we'd still be preaching to the choir. We don't need a Amanda Terkel to know that OReilly is a dishonest hypocrite. There is no real way to hold him accountable, is there?
Can we please get organized pickets at O'Reilly's house?
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