Bill O'Reilly and media matters, what is actually going on

[Wesley_Clark]

Since this is politics & not art I’m putting it here and not in Cafe Society.
Media matters is a progressive/liberal website that was started in may 2004 and keeps tabs on what they see as distortions, cruelty and myths put out by conservatives (there are conservative sites that do the same things like the media research center if you are interested). Bill O’Reilly seems afraid of the organization media matters as he got very defensive about the subject.

http://www.counterbias.com/088.html

When Bill O’Reilly had discovered, on-air, that Krugman had obtained a questionable O’Reilly quote from Media Matters For America (located at mediamatters.org), a “Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media”, he became agitated.

O’Reilly has referred to them as vile, despicible people, compared them to Castro and the KKK, written them off as left wing nuts, etc. Media matters claims to have collected 75 myths, distortions and questionable quotes by O’Reilly in 2004 alone, making him misinformer of the year. However they only list 10, so I am not sure if/what those other 65 are.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230006

Just recently they wrote about several myths he’d written including that he never makes personal attacks, has never attacked Cindy Sheehan and that Ann Coulter doesn’t lie.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200606140004

http://mediamatters.org/items/200606090014

Supposedly the CEO of Media Matters, David Brock, has offered 4 times to appear on the O’Reilly factor to defend Media matters and never recieved a reply from O’Reilly.

Is this story as blatantly obvious as it seems? I admit to being a liberal and even though I try not to, I am somewhat biased against O’Reilly but even this seems over the top. It seems to me that media matters is an organization that is idealogically biased, but is pretty level headed and fact based that is keeping tabs on manipulations by O’Reilly and O’Reilly is not only reacting like a psychopath to legitimate criticism (comparing media matters to Goebbels, the KKK, Castro, Mao Zedong) but isn’t willing to allow the CEO on to defend himself or publicize his views, even though he routinely calls people cowards for not facing him.

There has to be another side to this story. Is there, or is O’Reilly really this over the top? If so, why don’t more people seem to know it? O’Reilly always presents himself as the most trustworthy guy on TV. What bothers me is that it seems like O’Reilly is unwilling to allow Brock on to defend MM, but he still goes on the radio and claims that nobody from MM will respond to him.

Media matters has been in trouble for manipulations over their relationship with Soros

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200503\SPE20050303a.html

For people who listen to O’Reilly, what is his reason for avoiding David Brock? Does he not even mention the topic or does he write MM and Brock off as unwilling to come on his show or what?

What is the other side to this story? Is there another side? Does media matters have problems and manipulations of its own? From what I can tell if this is true then this issue makes O’Reilly more radical than Michael Savage.

[CynicalGabe]

It seems to me that O’Reilly is an organization that is idealogically biased. Yes, he is that over the top.

[FriarTed]

O’Reilly isn’t THAT hardcore “Conservative” compared to a lot other media-Righties, but I long ago decided he was too much the self-absorbed thin-skinned crank for my tastes.

[Wesley_Clark]

The problem is O’Reilly always gives an impression that he is trustworthy, but MM claims he was the most untrustworthy right winger in 2004. And people don’t seem to know it.

Does anyone know more about O’Reilly’s public statements about Brock or media matters? The impression I’m getting is that O’Reilly smears media matters by comparing them to the KKK, Mao, Castro, the Nazis, etc, then claims they won’t come on his show, then he ignores Brock’s attempts to get on the O’Reilly factor. This makes Bill look like one of the biggest, most insecure psychopaths on TV as well as a very shrewd manipulator if this is true. So is there another side to this story?

[Bricker]

I selected one claim from the “Top ten” at random to investigate it.

Media Matters characterizes the claim I investigated this way:

O’Reilly cited phony stats to argue that taxes on rich are excessive. O’Reilly tried to “blow off” the argument that wealthy Americans ought to pay more taxes by citing phony statistics about the tax burden the rich currently bear.

Clicking through on thier website to get the details of that claim reveal the following:

O’REILLY: Just some stats. The top 5 percent of American wage-earners pay 57 percent of federal income taxes, so that blows off the thing that the rich are getting away with it, and they’re not paying their fair share. All right? That this is from the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Again, 5 percent, the richest five percent pay 57 percent of all federal income taxes.

In New York, right now, if you earn more than $250,000 a year, your income is taxed at 48 percent. In Boston, your income is taxed at 43 percent. And in L.A., your income is taxed at 44 percent. This does not count property, sales, gas, all of the excise taxes that they lay on after that.

They then analyze these claims. The first paragraph of O’Reilly’s claim is responded to as follows:

While O’Reilly is correct about the percentage of federal income taxes paid by the richest 5 percent of Americans, the stat is misleading because it omits payroll taxes (the burden of which rests more squarely on low-income and middle-class Americans). According to the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, the richest 5 percent of taxpayers will pay a more modest 40 percent of total federal taxes (including the payroll tax, income tax, corporate income tax, and estate tax) in 2004. (It’s worth noting that they will also receive 34 percent of the total income in the United States.)

Frankly, this does not - to me - qualify as a “phony stat”. They acknowledge that what O’Reilly said is correct. They argue that a better, more complete picture may be seen by including all federal tax - including the employer’s portion of Medicare and Social Security taxes as ‘paid’ by the taxpayer. I think the employers that actually have to pay those taxes might disagree with that calculation. In any event, it’s at best a different opinion of what figures best represent the claim being made – it’s not remotely a “phony stat.” O’Reilly said “federal income tax,” and his claim was absolutely correct.

The next paragraph of analysis says:

O’Reilly’s claims about tax rates in New York City, Boston, and Los Angeles are simply false. Under current federal income tax rates, a single person earning $250,000 would pay $70,071 in taxes – about 28 percent of income. In New York City, state and local taxes would total $18,750 and $10,625 respectively – about 12 percent. So the aggregate tax burden for O’Reilly’s hypothetical taxpayer amounts to 40 percent of income, not 48 percent as O’Reilly claimed. That 8 percent difference translates to a tax savings of $20,000. Moreover, this 40 percent tax burden doesn’t include any federal or state deductions or credits, such as the home mortgage interest deduction. Married couples (filing jointly) and heads of households also pay less. So most taxpayers at that income level pay substantially less.

It’s unclear to me where Media Matters got their figures. Here is the instruction set for Form 1040. (Warning: PDF file) On page 77, the tax computation for earning in excess of $100,000 per year are as follows: if your taxable income is over $150,150 but not over $326,450, then multiply your taxable income by 33% (.33) to determine your tax.

New York State Tax (PDF file) fdor that income appears to be 6.85% (page 53).

New York City tax appears to be an additional $8907 + $3071, for a total of $11978 – an additional 5%.

So – 33% federal, 6.85 state, 5% city… 44.85, call it 45%. Not quite O’Reilly’s 48%, but not the Media Matters 40% either. And if we’re measuring the two, O’Reilly appears to be closer.

I’m frankly too busy to look up Boston and Los Angeles. And I welcome correction on the figures I posted; I did these back-of-an-envelope calcs very quickly. But if this is the standard Media Matters is applying to their analyses… then yes, I’d say there’s probably another side to the story.

[Plynck]

@Wesley Clark

snip…This makes Bill look like one of the biggest, most insecure psychopaths on TV …snip

So is there another side to this story?

Not in my opinion.

[cuauhtemoc]

@Bricker

It’s unclear to me where Media Matters got their figures. Here is the instruction set for Form 1040. (Warning: PDF file) On page 77, the tax computation for earning in excess of $100,000 per year are as follows: if your taxable income is over $150,150 but not over $326,450, then multiply your taxable income by 33% (.33) to determine your tax.

Actually, it says to multiply your taxable income by 33% and then subtract $13,001 from that amount to determine your tax. That brings the federal down to about 28%.

So assuming your state and local figures are correct, that makes 27% federal, 6.85% state, and 5% city… 39.85%, but let’s call it 40%, which is what Media Matters said it was.

[cuauhtemoc]

Sorry, 28% federal… for a total of about 41%. Media Matters is still closer than O’Reilly.