O'Reilly to Sinclair: Play Fair
Reported by Marie Therese - October 13, 2004 -
On The O'Reilly Factor that aired on October 12, 2004, between 5:13 PM and 5:17 PM EDT Bill O'Reilly spoke with Tim Graham, director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group. The topic was Sinclair Broadcasting's blatant decision to air a biased spiteful anti-Kerry documentary as "news" a few days before the election.
To his credit Bill O'Reilly argued consistently that, while Sinclair Broadcasting has the right to air anything it wants on its 62 stations, it is incumbent upon them to give equal time to Senator Kerry.
It was obvious that O'Reilly and Graham were in agreement on the question of the pro-Kerry bias in all other media. O'Reilly read a statement from Mark Hyman of Sinclair Broadcasting that said, if Kerry would agree to appear, they would halt the airing of the documentary. O'Reilly noted that this "seems like blackmail to me," and "I don't think it's fair unless they give equal time to the Kerry people" and "this is unfair" and that the producers of the documentary are "gonna nail him to the wall."
Graham argued back: "Fine, Fine. John O'Neill hasn't been on the Today show" or any other liberal outlet. He repeated his whining complaint that John O'Neill and the other Smear Boat Vets had never once been interviewed by the network news organizations.
O'Reilly countered with the fact that O'Neill has been all over the cable channels.
Comment
O'Reilly REALLY, REALLY wants that interview with John Kerry. He's been teasing his viewers for over a month about how he's wooing the Kerry campaign and saying that they're in discussions, etc., etc. Either that or he knows in his political heart of hearts that Kerry's the next President and he wants to mend a few fences. Or, he really does think it's unfair.
As for the Smear Boat Vets - they got their feelings hurt because the big bad network media wouldn't let them come on and tell their carefully nurtured garden of lies to millions of viewers. Gee, my heart breaks for them. Isn't it nice they have a clean, morally pure and righteous media group like Sinclair to make them feel better?
