Oh Really, O’Reilly?

Oh Really, O’Reilly?

“Reporting comes with a big responsibility, the Founding Fathers made that point very clearly,” he said. “They said to us, ‘We’ll give you freedom. We’ll protect you from government intrusion. But, in return, you, the press, must be honest.'”   

These quotes came from FOX News anchor Bill O’Reilly in response the the statements made by NBC’s Brian Williams, who was suspended by the network without pay for six months for misrepresenting his experiences in a war zone. But O’Reilly has now found himself in a very similar controversy, having claimed to have reported from a war zone while working for CBS during the Falkland Islands conflict. According to O’Reilly, citizens were “mowed down” by Argentine soldiers.

CNN reported that seven of O’Reilly’s former CBS colleagues disputed his claim that Argentine soldiers had fired live rounds at civilians. They also questioned O’Reilly’s assertion that this protest constituted “combat” and occurred in a “war zone,”arguing that it was merely a violent protest in Buenos Aires, and was not a “war zone.” O’Reilly called upon CBS to release the video of the coverage so that he defend himself against these allegations, and to show that it was indeed a “combat situation.”

The network did just that yesterday. However, instead of backing up his claims, the footage instead merely corroborated the accounts of the others journalists that was a merely chaotic and sometimes violent protest, though there is no record or evidence of any kind to support the claims that troops fired into the crowd.

 O’Reilly also caused controversy with his response to the allegations. The New York Times reported that O’Reilly told one of their reporters that there would be consequences if he found any of the reporter’s coverage to be inappropriate.  “I am coming after you with everything I have,” O’Reilly reportedly said. “You can take it as a threat.”
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This is not O’Reilly’s first incident being taken to task for making false claims, including citing statistics from a non- existent publication he referred to as “The Paris Business Review,” as well as emphatically stating after a controversy that “we (FOX News) researched to find out if anybody on Fox News had ever said you’re going to jail if you don’t buy health insurance. Nobody’s ever said it.”

On November 13, 2009, Glenn Beck stated the following on the air: “They justify the $1 dollar health care plan by saving, you know, money through some magical fairy money. I don’t know how they’re going to do it. They don’t play by the rules the rest of us have to play by, because they make them up as they go! But if you don’t play by their new rules on health care – oh, here’s a new little twist. Have you heard this? You’re going to be looking at a fun little stint in jail.”

Three days prior to that, Andrew Napalitano, the senior judicial analyst for FOX News stated that: “If you don’t purchase what the government tells you to buy, if you don’t do so when they tell you to do it, if you don’t buy just what they say is right for you, the government may fine you, prosecute you, and even put you in jail.”

O’Reilly also altered history during a debate with General Wesley Clark, claiming that Americans had slaughtered Germans at Malmedy,Belgium in World War II, when in reality Nazi soldiers massacred 84 Americans in one of the most famous and well-documented war crimes against American soldiers. There are currently no plans to suspend or censure O’Reilly for his statements.