Who make up, what, about 10% of the population?
In fact, O’Reilly said on his own show that it was because so many people do get their information about the world from “entertainment” shows Like Letterman, Leno, and The Daily Show, that he went on Letterman. Based on all the damage control he did last night, I don’t think it panned out the way he had hoped.
Well it ought to work just fine for O’Reilly’s target audience then…
In fairness to the douchebag O’Reilly, people are blind to humor when something pisses them off — e.g., if I poke fun at you, it’s funny; if you poke fun at me, it isn’t.
The liberal in me loved seeing O’Reilly’s impotent rage about the War on Christmas cimply get shrugged off like it deserves.
The part of me who tunes in to the Late Show for a laugh…felt slightly uncomfortable watching the whole thing, and that part is only slightly comforted by the fact that Bill did bring it upon himself by bringing up his pet topic (with paper proof, so you know it was planned).
Given that O’Reilly did bring it up and push the issue, I say Letterman did the correct thing by taking the conversation political on his own terms. However, had Letterman brought it up and simply skewered O’Reilly, I wouldn’t have appreciated that.
Well he can’t own a free to air television network. He does have a large slice of the print media here (Fairfax having the rest, regarded as leftist by those on the right) And he does have SKYNews Australia on cable, I watch that now and again and it seems rather balanced. Not to mention FOXTEL (a pay tv content monopoly) which is in bed with the half government owned Telstra (phone company)
The law here is that no one person (or corporation) can own both a TV station and a newspaper in the same city. For how long this lasts is another question. Given that the late Kerry Packer had been eyeing off Fairfax for many many years, there’s debate as to weather his son will concentrate on media as much as his father or more on the gaming side of the business
Yeah that American Rupert Murdoch lol
(well he gave up his Australian citizenship for an American one, so he could buy 20th Century Fox)
Not many Australian’s I know would consider him Australian anymore. Although his son recently moved back here to Sydney. Knowing what I do about him, the only position I would share with him is his apparent hatred of the Royal Family (roll on the republic!)
Nitpick: It wasn’t so he could buy 20th Century Fox, which is a movie studio. There are no laws restricting ownership of a movie studio based on citizenship. However, there are (or were?) laws restricting ownership of local television stations on the basis of citizenship. Murdoch wanted to buy what was then the MetroMedia chain of 12 local television stations (which included WXIX in Cincinnati) and formed the basis of what became the Fox Television Network.
Five of these stations (WNEW New York (now WNYW), KTTV Los Angeles, WFLD Chicago, WTTG Washington, and KRIV Houston) are currently owned by Fox and one of the others (WXIX Cincinnati) is a Fox affiliate owned by an independent chain.
Two of them (WCVB Boston and KMBC Kansas City) are now ABC-affiliated Hearst stations. KNEW (now KMTP) San Francisco is an independent station. KRLD Dallas (now KDAF) is a WB affiliate owned by the Tribune Co. WTCN Minneapolis (now KARE) is an NBC affiliate owned by Gannett. KOVR Sacramento is owned by CBS.
Can someone post here if someone else covers this? I’m hoping Jon Stewart will, but part of me says the he probably won’t talk about it because it deals with letterman. Those guys rarely talk about each other.
I wonder if O’Reilly has changed his mind about Letterman.
I’m not a big fan of Letterman, but that windbag O’Reilly definitely needs deflating.
You noticed the date on that piece, right? That was not about this week’s appearance, but one in February 2001.
Or am I being whooshed?
Of course I noticed the date- but I don’t think it’s that important. Here you get a guy saying how astute Letterman is and how he can spot a phony, and then he himself is cut to shreds by Letterman. Doesn’t matter to me if it was a month before his last appearance or 5 years, either Bill was terribly wrong about Dave in 2001 or Bill is indeed a phony.
Okay. I didn’t get your point first time around. Thanks.
I would have expected Olbermann to mention it on Countdown, but the WV mining disaster and Sharon’s health took over that night’s show, and he didn’t do any of the lighter stuff.
Neither Keith nor Jon has said anything about it so far. Keith might do something tonight, but if he doesn’t it’s probably slipped off the scope. The 24-hour news cycle just rolls on.
The O’Reilly interview probably isn’t anything The Daily Show could really use. But I don’t think there’s any ill will between Jon and Dave (except that there seems to be a “rule” that no one appears on TDS before Letterman. E.g., Pierce Brosnan was on TDS last night and Letterman on Wednesday). Jon’s been a guest on The Late Show quite recently and he and Dave were quite complimentary of one another.
And apparently Jon praised Letterman at a recent awards show. Does anyone know what he said? I only heard about it second-hand.
O’Reilly, or Letterman?
O’Reilly is the evil genius. Letterman is comedic pap, nine times out of ten.
Yeah, like that’s gonna happen!!
What’s wrong with politics in entertainment? Political humor is an America tradition going back to Ben Franklin. As for vice-versa – what’s wrong with politics being entertaining, or with entertainment giving rise to political “issues” (e.g., the Dan Quayle-Murphy Brown flap)? At least that gets people to pay attention to it!
I don’t remember his name, but there was a young man whose father was killed in the World Trade Center and who, yet, was vocally opposed to the Iraq war. O’Reilly, knowing this, invited him on his show and, when the boy simply gave his previously stated opinions in a sober and measured way, tore him a new one and cut his mike. (How O’Reilly had expected that interview to go is anybody’s guess.) You can see the whole exchange in the documentary Outfoxed. You can also read about it i Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. According to Franken, at the commercial break an aide had to tell the kid get to get out of the building and be quick about it; O’Reilly was so worked up they were afraid he would actually assault him.
The transcript: here
The guest: Jeremy Glick
The site I linked from is obviously one-sided, but the transcript is ubiquitous.
…meaning I found it in many spots on the god-ternet. In case that wasn’t clear. Which it probably was. Shut up, birdmonster