Matt Drudge breaks the story that Bill O Reilly is targeting some of Rush Limbaugh’s radio market for his own show and O Reilly gets all worked up over it. Read the details here, but I’m not sure how long the link is good for.
Of course, O Reilly doesn’t say that anything was incorrect. He’s just mad the story got out. He called it ‘vicous’ and ‘disgraceful’ and went out of his way to try to suck up to Rush. Rush talked about it on his show Monday and said he welcomes the challenge and that it’s a free country. He even offers help.
O Reilly goes on to challenge Drudge to a duel and says he’s not a journalist.
What I don’t get Bill is that everything Drudge reported was factual, or at least you didn’t challenge it. For someone in the media to complain about a story being broken is very hypocritical.
Drudge may be a gossip columnist but it looks like he was a journalist here. Sounds like someone got his panties in a bunch because he was embarassed. No Spin Zone my ass.
O’Reilly cracks me up. Years ago he was a just a Joe-Headshot news anchor on one of the local Boston TV stations. Nothing special, just a talking head. Then suddenly he’s mister get-in-your-face, don’t-you-dare-doubt-my-integrity know-it-all. I really find it hard to look at him without the word “pandering” springing to mind.
I saw the telephone interview with O’Reilly yesterday.
He was his usual upset self, but I could see where he was coming from. He said that Drudge wrote the article without asking him any questions, asking for his side of things, asking for quotes, anything. It is my understanding that good journalists at least try to interview both sides of an issue, but apparently (according to O’Reilly) Drudge didn’t say a peep - just posted his story. I can see why O’Reilly would be upset. Who wouldn’t want to hear something from the “horse’s mouth”? Drudge should have contacted him and asked for his side of things, IMO.
As far as not wanting to upset Limbaugh - I think that’s a lot of hot air. Limbaugh can take any competition, I’m sure he’s not worried. I think O’Reilly is an overemotional guy who got rather rattled by Drudge and was just rambling on.
Naw, O’Reilly never said that. Drudge never even said that in his article. Drudge quotes O’Reilly in his article:
But it’s better than even money that O’Reilly would have given Drudge a “no comment” had he asked. Sure, it’s always better to get both sides, but getting just one side isn’t that reprehensible (especially since, as the OP noted, no facts are in dispute).
Who says the facts aren’t in dispute? O’Reilly seems to be disputing the “facts” Drudge has pulled out.
The impression I have gotten is that Drudge implied that O’Reilly was out to crush Limbaugh during a vulnerable time. (Limbaugh’s deafness.) If indeed this is what Drudge tried to do, then I can understand O’Reilly overreacting. (We can’t know what O’Reilly’s intent was, other than he’s an ambitious guy who was interested in doing radio. And I’m sorry, Drudge’s quote from the unnamed “top executive” in the article sounds merely like gossip. Not “journalism”.) I think if I were in O’Reilly’s shoes, I’d have wanted an opportunity to be questioned about the whole matter by Drudge, before the article went to press.
And who says he would merely say “No comment?” He’s rather a blowhard windbag, I doubt he’d just leave it at that. Yet Drudge didn’t even give him a chance.
Well, the link’s in the OP – why don’t you point me to the part where O’Reilly says it’s not true? O’Reilly, in fact, says he’s going to “pull back,” so doesn’t that mean that there were indeed plans to move into radio?
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I am keeping in mind Drudge’s reputation, but sometimes unnamed sources are the only way to go when a story covers sensitive material. I see them in stories done by the most reputable of journalists every single day.
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Now, I’m not saying I’m absolutely right simply because I am a journalist, but I do have a little perspective on the subject. It is pretty routine for interview subjects to respond with “no comment” even when you have the goods on them. You could have corroboration upon corroboration of the facts, and they’ll still stonewall you with the good ol’ “no comment.”
It doesn’t sound like O’Reilly considers Drudge worthy of speaking to anyway.
It’s not him trying to get on the radio that is in dispute. He admitted that freely in his phone interview the other day. I believe what’s ticking him off is the insinuation that he is trying to prey on Limbaugh’s current vulnerability (suddenly going deaf) by gettiing into radio at this time. That seemed to be the thing he was ranting on about during the phone interview.
Yeah, but this time I think there is (if I am to believe O’Reilly’s rantings) an implication that O’Reilly is trying to take advantage of Limbaugh’s deafness. And I think that’s too much of a leap to make, if indeed the leap was made (and O’Reilly seems to think it has been).
But that’s not the point. O’Reilly wasn’t even given the opportunity to say “no comment”. And, I think I have some perspective on O’Reilly’s blow-hard personality (I watch his show semi-regularly). He doesn’t seem to be the type to say “no comment”. He’s rather a windbag.
Well, I’ve seen him bring on his detractors as guests on the show. It’s really a hoot. A few times, when someone has written something unflattering about him, O’Reilly asks them as a guest on the show, and then gets into a heated debate with them! O’Reilly may not do so in this case, (seeing as he’s so upset and disgusted with Drudge) but he’s done it plenty of times in the past. It’s quite something to see! He gets right on the edge of totally losing it.
Here it’s obvious that O Reilly is worried about upsetting Rush. Rush is a big boy and I doubt his feelings are hurt.
When you pitch a daily syndicated talk show that will be political and issue oriented, it is an attempt to go after Rush Limbaugh because he’s got that market tied up for the most part. He is on in most markets so to also get on you would either have to knock him off his station or compete head to head. How is that not competing? Any inferences or assumptions are left to the reader by Drudge. The facts are, Rush is now deaf and O Reilly was planning a show to compete against him.
What is so vicous? He revealed your plans and you didn’t like it. Tough shit potato boy. I’d expect “Mr. No Spin” to react differently and offer some plain talk. This is a pure case of the pot calling the kettle black. You are both tabloid blowhards.
This bastard had Michael Kinsley on when Kinsley questioned O Reilly’s claim that his family grew up poor. Kinsley pointed out that he was what was considered by most people to be middle class and all O Reilly said was “You had no right to say that”. He didn’t refute what Kinsley said. He just repeated himself over and over. That’s what he’s doing here.
The thing I remember O’Reilly saying was that yeah, he has been looking into radio off and on for quite a while now. No dispute about that. The thing that was getting him upset (as I have repeated several times now) is that there possibly was an implication that O’Reilly chose this time specifically to get into radio, to exploit Rush Limbaugh’s sudden deafness. That seemed to be what was upsetting O’Reilly. And if indeed that’s true (that the allegation was made) I can see why he’d be pissed. I mean, I see no proof that he was licking his chops, thinking “Oh goody - Limbaugh’s deaf, this is the TIME to get into radio, man!”
As if Kinsley had no choice in the matter? Like O’Reilly kidnapped him and forced him to be a guest? Kinsley can take care of himself. He decided to take up O’Reilly’s offer to be a guest on the show. :shrug:
It’s been a while since I saw the Kinsley interview, but I seem to recall that Kinsley indeed did have some facts wrong, and did make some incorrect assumptions about O’Reilly’s dad’s income. If my memory serves, O’Reilly’s dad only started making a “middle class” income after O’Reilly left home.
And I also have to say, it’s a tough call (at times) to decide what exactly is “poor”. When I was a kid, our family drove a crappy old car, wore crappy old clothes, and had a crappy old house. One of my sisters was always ill, there were other expenses. Money was a big worry, especially when I was younger. Sounds like “poor” to me. I don’t know how much money my parents made, but even if we didn’t “look poor” on paper, as far as I’m concerned, we were. And if some yahoo who didn’t know anything about my family decided that we weren’t “poor enough”, I think I’d be pretty indignant. What the hell do they know about my childhood, anway? They weren’t there.
I don’t understand your point here? I wasn’t complaining that he had Kinsley on. I was only setting the stage for my next comment. Take a valium or something babe. Don’t be so intense. Kinsley would eat O Reilly up in a debate.
O Reilly is the classic “when did you stop beating your wife?” interviewer. He asks leading questions, full of assumptions, then when the interviewee tries to clarify something in the question he blurts out “Don’t change the subject, just answer the question!” or “YOu are avoiding the question”.
Well, I am sorry for confusing you then. I just didn’t understand the need to add “that bastard”, as if there was something especially “bastardly” about inviting Kinsley to the show.
OK, understood. But I think I am being perfectly calm here. And I’m not the one calling people “bastards”!
Hmmmm…I think I remember some of the specifics of that particular interview. O’Reilly was ready to pop a cork (getting all red-faced - quite amusing, really!). But Kinsley was able to get a word in. As you have just said, “Kinsley would eat up O’Reilly in a debate”. So Kinsley took care of himself just fine. He stayed calm, and poised, and didn’t lose his cool (the way O’Reilly did!).
The specifics I remember were this: Kinsley said in an article that O’Reilly was incorrect about some “upper crusts” snubbing him at a social gathering because he (O’Reilly) was a “lower class” person. (O’Reilly apparently had related an account of the snobbishness of the “upper crust” by describing his treatment at a party.) Kinsley said “How do you know that they just didn’t like your opinions, or politics?” O’Reilly huffed “Well, I was there, I know.” Hm. I wasn’t totally convinced that O’Reilly could really know why some people left a social gathering. Perhaps Kinsley was right, perhaps O’Reilly was right, I wasn’t really sure. But I think Kinsley got his point across, and I felt like O’Reilly hadn’t quite “won” that round.
However, on the claim that Kinsley made (that O’Reilly’s family indeed wasn’t really poor, and that O’Reilly was just pretending to have a poor background because it fit better into the whole “common man” persona he’s built up). That I think O’Reilly won. I don’t think Kinsley articulated in any way that he actually had done much research on O’Reilly’s background at all. It’s been a while since I saw the interview, but that seems to be how I remember it going. And even if Kinsley had done some cursory research, it wasn’t deep enough, as O’Reilly pointed out. (I believe O’Reilly asked “Have you been to my old neighborhood? Have you talked to my old neighbors?” And Kinsley seemed to act like he hadn’t.) My memory is admittedly a bit fuzzy, but that’s how I remember it. I thought O’Reilly won on that round, since I was not convinced that Kinsley really knew what the hell he was talking about. Also, as I have mentioned earlier, it’s really hard to define what is “poor enough”. (My family was “poor enough” in my mind, but someone who didn’t know much about the details of our life might not think we looked “poor enough” on paper.)
So those two are having a pillow fight? Then I’m cheering for the pillow.
But seriously, this looks more like a mutually-contrived way to cynically get them both a little more publicity. Fame and fortune matter more than honor to some folks.
O’Reilly gets snubbed in social situations because he is obnoxious and rude. I know lots of people who were brought up in a poor economic environment who know how to behave themselves.
I saw him on the Tim Russert show the other day and he was kissing Russert’s ass something fierce.
I don’t really remember the Kinsley interview all that much but my impression at the time was that O Reilly was complaining that Kinsley somehow dragged his family into this and Kinsley was saying it was fair game because he brought it up.
Bottom line on who’s right? I wouldn’t be surprised if O Reilly embellished it a little bit and Kinsley, being a liberal, probably has a high poverty standard (meaning you can make more and still be considered poor).