Bill O’Reilly and Bernard Goldberg purported to analyze media coverage of the Ebola outbreak tonight. But what they really cared about was hitting back at CNN’s Reliable Sources and guest Miles O’Brien for slamming Fox’s fear mongering and racial dog-whistles.
As I previously posted, Andrea Tantaros announced last week that we have to worry about Africans coming into the U.S. infected with Ebola because they might go to a witch doctor instead of a medical doctor. She said:
In these countries, they do not believe in traditional medical care. So someone could get off a flight and seek treatment from a witch doctor who practices Santeria. This is a bigger fear. We’re hoping that they come to the hospitals in the U.S. They might not!
Yesterday on Reliable Sources, O’Brien, PBS’ science correspondent slammed her. From Crooks and Liars:
“We could digress into what motivated that and perhaps the racial component of all this, the arrogance, the first world versus third world statements and implications of just that,” O’Brien remarked. “It’s offensive on several levels and it reflects, frankly, a level of ignorance which we should not allow in our media and in our discourse.”
That really twisted the knickers of Fox News.
O’Reilly began, “Andrea Tantaros was verbally attacked by Miles O’Brien."
Oh, poor widdle Tantaros. The woman who once urged her radio show listeners to punch an Obama supporter. Does she ever open her mouth on Fox without smearing somebody? But for her to get criticized? Why, that’s just so unfair!
O’Reilly ridiculously argued that Tantaros based her remarks on a statement by Doctors Without Borders “that some villages in Ghana are hostile to western medicine and aid workers can’t even get into those areas. The British Red Cross confirms that.”
Oh, sure she was - not. Tantaros said nothing about Ghana. She was talking about Africans in the U.S.
“This is cheap shot alley,” O’Reilly complained about CNN. He went on to call Stelter a “notorious cheap-shot artist” and “a far-left guy” who “wants to diminish Fox News whenever he can.”
Break out the hankies, folks, for the pitiful, misunderstood and unfairly maligned Fox.
O’Brien should know better, O’Reilly announced. “In many areas of rural Africa, aid workers have had a terrible time getting to Ebola victims because the people in the villages and the towns are superstitious. They don’t trust outsiders and what Andrea was saying is based in reality.”
Goldberg agreed. “If some Africans believe Ebola is the result of witch craft, why is it a stretch to believe that some Africans may go to a witch doctor to get straightened out?” he asked.
So, how many Africans in the U.S. have become a public health risk because they go to witch doctors when they get the flu or chicken pox or strep throat? I noticed that neither Goldberg nor O’Reilly mentioned it.
Perhaps the reason is that Goldberg seemed more interested in defending Tantaros’ racial dog whistle. He continued:
Here’s what you’re not allowed to say out loud and what you’ll never hear from a liberal journalist at CNN or any other news organization.
…I have to whisper this: Many Africans in Liberia and Sierra Leone and places like that – yes, here it comes – are backward people. They do believe in witch doctors. …They won’t talk about that, the liberals. That makes them very uncomfortable. It’s a lot easier to go after someone on Fox for using the term “witch doctor.”
Again, it wasn’t the term “witch doctor” that O’Brien objected to. Or even the use of witch doctors by some Africans. It was the suggestion that Africans in the U.S. could infect the rest of us because they’ll go to a witch doctor. Oh, and by the way? Christian Scientists believe in treating illness via prayer. But I haven't heard any concern about them spreading illness.
Goldberg continued, “Liberalism is wrecking journalism."
There you have it folks. Racial fear mongering is not just acceptable but the essence of journalistic integrity on Fox News.
Watch it below and keep your fingers crossed that Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart see it, too.
I thought Miles was fantastic on RS.
I may be mistaken, but if Stelter even identified Tantaros by name, I missed it. I thought that was great. Show lengthy clips of her wide-open sneering ugly mouth spewing ugly ideas, but don’t give her the publicity by name.
(I’m seriously riveted, and not in a good way, by that physically ugly mouth…)