Bill O’Reilly visited Media Buzz today where he complained about media bias elsewhere while giving Fox News a pass. O’Reilly did correctly say that he mixes liberals and conservatives on his show but his claim to keep “non-stop Obama bashers” off is laughable. And speaking of funny, there was a discussion about Jon Stewart's role in news - and O'Reilly revealed he'll be back on The Daily Show soon.
O’Reilly complained that the press is no longer in business to inform people any more so much as it is “in business to promote a certain agenda. That’s really harming the nation.” I’d applaud his statement if O’Reilly wasn’t such an integral part of the network that's the chief offender.
Yet instead of acknowledging how his own employer operates as a political machine under thin cover of a news organization, O’Reilly blamed only the so-called “liberal media.” In this case he called out CBS for refusing to put more of Sharyl Atkisson’s stories on the air (while ignoring factual problems with her reporting) and MSNBC, “a cable channel that promote left-wing causes, not a news organization.” As if Fox isn’t a worse version on the right.
Meanwhile, host Howard Kurtz, who is supposed to be an “independent brand of media criticism” at Fox who “doesn’t shy away” from criticizing any of the cable news networks, didn’t say a word to contradict O’Reilly.
Nor did Kurtz seem to notice that O’Reilly was not being quite accurate when he said the “non-stop Obama bashers” are not seen on The Factor “because it’s boring.”
That is, except when they are seen there: Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, and Glenn Beck leap immediately to mind.
Oh, and for all you Daily Show fans out there, O’Reilly said he’s going to be on with Jon Stewart “next week.” You know, to “smack him around” a bit, according to O’Reilly. He called Stewart a “very, very smart man who is marketing himself to an extremely liberal audience. …Does he believe everything he says? No. Is he a comedian, primarily? Yes. Are you a pinhead if you believe what he says? Absolutely, you are.”
By the way, Stewart and O’Reilly are usually pretty funny together, so this should be good!
Video below, from today’s Media Buzz, via Crooks and Liars
Obama bashing is the number 1 sport on Fox Noise.