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Howard Kurtz’ Illegitimate Defense Of Bill O’Reilly

Posted by Ellen -7859.80pc on February 20, 2015 · Flag

Oreilly_image_by_Nina.png

Instead of a dispassionate examination of the questions raised about Bill O’Reilly’s credibility in a Mother Jones article, Fox News' media critic Howard Kurtz helped his team circle the wagons.

As I posted yesterday, Mother Jones came out with a meticulously detailed and sourced article pointing out discrepancies between O’Reilly’s claims about his war reporting and known facts. The authors gave O’Reilly and Fox News many opportunities to respond before they published it. Fox chose to ignore the questions and instead launched personal attacks on co-author David Corn and Mother Jones.

If you ask me, Kurtz is not entirely convinced of O’Reilly’s innocence. Rather than come right out and say there’s no there there in Mother Jones’ piece, Kurtz focused on O’Reilly’s response and Mother Jones’ left-leaning bias. Kurtz began his column by saying:

Bill O’Reilly responded to a Mother Jones story accusing him of making false claims about his reporting on the Falklands War by calling its author a liar.

The Fox News host told me in an interview that he has always accurately described what happened during that period and that David Corn, Washington bureau chief of the left-wing magazine, “is a liar, a smear merchant, and will do anything he can to injure me and the network. Everybody knows that. Everything I’ve reported about my journalistic career is true.”

And yet Mother Jones had just proved that O’Reilly has not “always accurately described what happened.” O’Reilly now says he never claimed to have been on the Falkland Islands, where the war actually happened. But among other examples, Mother Jones has video (embedded below) of him saying:

I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I’m looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.

Kurtz tries to validate O’Reilly’s attacks on Corn and Mother Jones by saying:

The adversarial tone of the story (Corn) co-authored is telegraphed in the headline: “Bill O’Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem.”

That clearly accuses O’Reilly of telling lies on par with the false tale that prompted NBC to impose a six-month suspension on Williams, who had to apologize for claiming that he was on a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade over Iraq in 2003.

And yet the Mother Jones piece appears to turn on semantics, not some specific story that O’Reilly told about being in the Falklands.

As Simon Maloy writes in Salon.Com, Kurtz defends O’Reilly by arguing that in the above specific story, “Falklands” is “shorthand” for “Argentina.”

Kurtz apparently adheres to a more expansive definition of the term that allows a journalist who is 1,200 miles from the actual fighting to say he was “on the ground” in the “war zone.” That’s like saying you covered the Battle of Gettysburg “war zone” from a hotel in Dallas, or reported the Normandy landings while on the ground… in Iceland.

But “in the Falklands war zone” is not the only O’Reilly tale under question. More from Maloy:

Part of O’Reilly’s defense is that he did actually experience danger as a correspondent in Argentina – at a post-war protest in Buenos Aires that turned violent. As O’Reilly describes it: “A major riot ensued and many were killed. I was right in the middle of it and nearly died of a heart attack when a soldier, standing about ten feet away, pointed his automatic weapon directly at my head.” But as Corn lays out, there was rioting at the protest, but there’s no evidence that anyone was killed. O’Reilly just made it up. Kurtz’s reaction? “Corn’s own piece largely backs up O’Reilly’s account of the dangerous situation, except for O’Reilly’s recollection that there were fatalities.” Set aside the fact that we’re still not talking about a “war zone,” that’s a pretty big thing to, ahem, misremember.

O’Reilly’s tendency to uh, exaggerate is well known. There’s his ridiculous declaration of success for his French boycott, complete with a citation to a fake publication. Just a month ago, we disproved his claim that he never promoted Fox’s “Muslim no-go zones” falsehoods. Or, my personal favorite, his claim that he only once used the “shut up” line. That one was memorably debunked in Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s war on journalism (for which I proudly served as a researcher, though not on anything to do with O’Reilly).

I’m including that clip below.

By the way, there’s no indication Kurtz will cover this on his MediaBuzz show on Sunday.

(O'Reilly graphic by Nina Brodsky)

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Zap Pow commented 2015-02-21 08:35:37 -0500 · Flag
I stand with Bill O’Reilly on that one : there was a solid report about his presence in the war zone in Argentina in the Paris Business review. Who wouldn’t trust the Paris Business Review ?
Peter Waldo commented 2015-02-21 07:25:13 -0500 · Flag
Kurtz, who once laid claim to being a legitimate commentator on journalism appears to have gone off the rails two years ago, after demonstrating that he was no senior commentator, but an inept reporter unable to get his facts straight. After getting canned by CNN and the Daily Beast, for his inadequacies, Kurtz pedaled over to Fox, where he has erased the last vestiges of his journalist’s credibility. It is not to say that Fox cannot offer capable insight on issues of journalism. It is simply that Kurtz has become a spin doctor, whose views on the media should be dismissed as worthless. As a principled, working journalist I have lost respect for Kurtz. He’s relegated to the Fox News PR Department and should remain there for the rest of his career writing press releases. Kurtz’s defense of O’Reilly is shamelessly disingenuous and incompetent. .
d d commented 2015-02-20 23:13:42 -0500 · Flag
I wish this commenting system had a “LIKE” function like the old one did as I would be giving you a big “LIKE” for the Killing Credibility zinger, Todd! :-]
d d commented 2015-02-20 23:04:25 -0500 · Flag
By the way, there’s no indication Kurtz will cover this on his MediaBuzz show on Sunday.’
Ellen
-———-

Well, if I were Kurtz, I wouldn’t cover it on MediaBuzz either. It’s ridiculous and professionally embarrassing for him that he’s trying to defend BOR by blowing off MJ/Corn’s article as nothing more than a hissy fit over “semantics” and that BOR should be given a pass for his Falkland “shorthand”. Kurtz is far more a FOX “news” water carrier than he is a legit media analyst.

I’m with you, Ellen, as I don’t think he really believes that BOR has been above board. I’m thinking that Kurtz knows damn well that BOR did some exaggeration with regards to his being in a war zone and his being in the Falklands. For crying out loud, there’s BOR’s own past words that contradict what he’s saying now. But, being that he is a part of the FOX “news” team, Kurtz punked out. Pffft.

Thanks for the Salon link too, Ellen.
Todd Rosenberg commented 2015-02-20 18:01:44 -0500 · Flag
After Killing Kennedy and after Killing Lincoln- a new book by Bill O’Reilly named KILLING CREDIBILITY!!
Joseph West commented 2015-02-20 17:13:57 -0500 · Flag
From one of the Maloy quotes:

As O’Reilly describes it: “A major riot ensued and many were killed. I was right in the middle of it and nearly died of a heart attack when a soldier, standing about ten feet away, pointed his automatic weapon directly at my head.”

Now, that’s at least two lies that I can see right there. First, the “heart attack.” Don’t you actually need to HAVE a heart in order to suffer a “heart attack,” much less DIE from one? And secondly, the soldier standing “ten feet away” bit. Oh come on. If BillO was really “right in the middle” of the riot, how does he know the soldier was pointing at him and not someone behind him? (Also, why do I get the feeling that BillO wasn’t as sympathetic towards the Occupy Wall Street protestors across the country when they had weapons being pointed at them?)
Steve St John commented 2015-02-20 16:21:04 -0500 · Flag
“I know you are but what am I?” – Pee Wee Herman
NewsHounds posted about Howard Kurtz’ Illegitimate Defense Of Bill O’Reilly on NewsHounds' Facebook page 2015-02-20 15:34:07 -0500
If you ask me, Kurtz is not entirely comfortable with O'Reilly's response, but that's no impediment to helping the team circle the wagons.








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