Ah. Trainwreck TV then. Kind of like Springer, only this time, the topics are political?
As you said, Coldfire, he’s the king of stating the obvious. The cast majority of people don’t want to be told something new. They want to hear what they’ve always known repeated again and again, accompanied by assurances that they’ve always been right.
If O’Reilly were truly an independent, nobody would watch.
There is a type of person who, when confronted with a problem, deals with the problem by ignoring it. Although disasterous in the long run, it is frequently immediately successful, which is why there are so many of these people.
One such fool is often reassuring to other fools.
See Terry Pratchett’s Jingo for examples.
No, no, no. It’s more like what Sublight said. A large portion of his audience listens to him to hear their preconceived biases and ideas reinforced. They want to hear the issues presented in black/white form with their ideas being the ones that are presented as “common sense” and see that their opponents are properly ridiculed.
But… but… if you only see those sources whom you’ll know will agree with you, how will you ever learn someth…
Ah. Got it.
So, does this mean there are 3 million dumbasses in the US (the number of people watching, according to the interview transcript), or are a lot of people watching just BECAUSE the guy is so annoying, and they don’t necessarily agree with him?
[sub]Please tell me it’s the latter. And YES, I realise some smartass will come in to tell us there are 350 million dumbasses in the US. Ignore them.[/sub]
Just trying to understand this phenomenon.
That, and it feeds into America’s reactionary rage. This is one pissed off country, and straight talkers like Bill Oh Really? and Judge Judy are popular with pissed off people who have a need to angrily judge everyone around them.
And SPOOFE, I cannot believe that you defended O’Reilly with the defense that he doesn’t go around shooting off his mouth. That’s like defending the Pope by saying he’s not Catholic. O’Reilly is a professional mouth-shooter-offer. He gets paid to be an asshole.
I have the feeling he would be an asshole whether or not he was paid.
I stand corrected.
No, it’s the former. And the number is probably higher since there are many dumbasses who don’t watch O’Reilly.
Yeah, three million dumbasses would mean they make up only one percent of the population but my experience would suggest the number is ten or twenty times that.
I only caught a bit of this.
What were they talking about Franken doing something bad or shocking at Dean’s rally or some such?
Some other have addressed this already, but here’s what I think. Political journalism on American television tends to be extremely controlled, scripted, predictable, safe and boring. The Bush interview with Brit Hume is a perfect example. All questions are pre-approved by the president’s flunkies and all the answers are scripted for him. Even such things as timing a dramatic pause during a “stroll” with the interviewer to deliver a serious point into the camera is planned beforehand.
The talking head shows are not quite as controlled as that but they are still very predictable and very formulaic. Questions are still routinely predetermined and both side give their scripted answers. There’s very little spontaneity or genuine dramatic confrontation, and interviewers almost never challenge bullshit or spin.
O’Reilly, as a rule, refuses to submit a list of questions before an interview and is perfectly willing to scream at people if he disagrees with them. Part of his popularity is due simply to the novelty and the spectacle of an interviewer yelling at his subjects. Also, an awful lot of it is that he’s a conservative who yells at liberals and there are an awful lot of people who enjoy that. It makes them feel “right.” Their side never loses because their guy controls the microphones and the questions. They never have to think very hard or challenge themselves because O’Reilly speaks in terms of platitudes, over the top jingoism, simplistic moralism and if an opponent is winning an argument he can always result to hurling ad hominems and cutting the other guy’s microphone (see the Glick transcript).
There really is no liberal equivalent for O’Reilly on American TV, but I suspect that if there were he’d get similar ratings with a left-wing audience.
Thanks for that fair and balanced explanation. 
If O’Reilly refuses to hand over a list of questions before the interview, then I’d have to say that’s a point in favour. But you’re saying he’s an exception in doing so?
Is there never a way to interview, say, GWB, without him being fully prepared? For instance, if you want to interview the PM of the Netherlands: just make sure you’re on the Binnenhof at the end of the afternoon - he’ll be walking out to answer the journalists - unprepared, unscripted. That never happens in the US? Ever?
Bill O’reily has every right to convery his message even if it is unfair and unbalanced
you don’t have to listen to him
What’s your point, baseball_dude? Yes, O’Reilly has the right to say what he thinks. So what? That doesn’t preclude anyone and/or everyone from posting what they think about him here.
The only time journalists get a crack at spontaneous questions at the POTUS are at open press conferences (which Bush is loathe to do and does very few of them. He will often simply read a prepared staement and then leave the room without taking questions). Even then, the press corps is fairly well known and the POTUS knows who to call on, in what order, and who to avoid. The press corps is somewhat complicit in this becaues they are not aggressive in asking follow-up questions or pointing out bullshit. If they do, they risk losing their access to the POTUS and the professional status that comes with being part of the White House press corps. Like the celebrity press, accessibility is what it’s all about. Networks just want to get interviews which they can promote to sell their soap. The substance of the interview is secondary to selling advertising time.
Bush’s appearances have been more tightly controlled than most because he doesn’t speak well extemporaneously and it’s easy to expose his ignorance on a lot of things. He says stupid things when he doesn’t have a teleprompter. Clinton was very good off the cuff and would occasionally invite a lot of questions if the mood took him. He knew his policies, facts and figures and was also exceptionally glib and facile when it came to slipping hostile questions. Clinton’s press availability diminished considerably duriing blow-job-gate, however.
O’Reilly is an exception in refusing to provide a list of questions and that costs him a lot of big name liberal guests. Conservatives will generally still do his show because they know he will be friendly to them. GWB did an interview on his show during the 2000 election that was basically a 30 minute rim job on live tv.
O’Reilly is just about the most dishonest personality on television right now. He puts on a pose of no-nonsense candidness (“No Spin Zone”), but really he’s nothing more than a bully, a liar, and a hypocrite. He’s make up any old thing to support his argument and when he’s caught out he’ll explode in denial, invective, and more lies. He’s reprehensible.
See this transcript for his “debating” style – http://www.nosheetsleft.com/misc/transcript.html
According to a news release from Not in Our Name, whose representative was badly treated by O’Reilly in the above “interview,” this attack was followed up with further slandering and threats of physical harm – http://www.notinourname.net/media/fox_news_oreilly2_feb03.html –
O’Reilly routinely resorts to inventing facts, shouting “shut up,” insults, and cutting off his guests’ microphones so it sounds like his invective has left them speechless.
But he didn’t make a mistake. His statement is true. Maybe it was deceptive, but it was true.
Well, since he’s supposedly a journalist, deceptive-but-technically-true isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement, especially of someone whose entire schtick is based on ostensibly opposing slippery wordplay in favor of straight-talking facts.
but as I read this whole thing, it wasn’t factually ‘true’. he got the name of the award wrong, (in addition to the implication that he had anything to do w/winning it).
FWIW, if the award is prestigeous, one generally would think that if one had been awarded something, one would know specifically that it was a Tony vs. an Oscar.