Bill O’Reilly – the guy who just lost custody of his children, at least partly because of his physical abuse of their mother – thinks feminists should not be allowed to report on Donald Trump because it “goes against” his ideology.
In his Talking Points commentary last night, O’Reilly railed against a New York Times article that took a deep dive into Trump’s relationship with women and – surprise! – revealed “unwelcome advances” and “unsettling workplace conduct over decades.“ Rather than go into detail about what The Times got wrong or right, O’Reilly turned the discussion into a win/win for Trump: O'Reilly attacked The Times’ bias, turned his BFF Trump into a liberal-media martyr (thereby conveniently overlooking his hideous behavior toward women) and, as what O’Reilly probably considered a third “win,’ suggested feminists shouldn't be covering Trump.
By that logic, O’Reilly should not be allowed to say he’s doing any objective discussion of Hillary Clinton. Besides the fact that his teenage daughter has said she witnessed him drag her mother down some stairs by the neck, he also was accused of sexual harassment of a coworker and engaging in lewd behavior while married to the same woman he allegedly abused. I can't count how many stories that should disqualify O'Reilly from analyzing, based on his own reasoning.
O’REILLY: The New York Times assigned reporters Michael Barbaro and Megan Twohey to write the story. As Joe Concha reported on the website Mediaite, Mr. Barbaro has written a number of anti-Trump tweets - nothing egregious- just trivial pursuits.
However in an honest media operation, those tweets would have disqualified Mr. Barbaro from reporting on Donald Trump.
Really? Barbaro’s tweets didn’t strike me as especially biased. The “worst” one, in my view was, “Unexpected challenge in GOP debate prep: finding stand-in who can convincingly channel Trump's rage (and his hair).” Others were “Protectionist Trump apparently couldn't find an American 'banquet manager' or 'golf superintendent' so looked abroad; and “Just in time for debate! Trump controlled companies sought visas for 1,100 foreign workers. Protecting US jobs is he?”
Well, if O’Reilly wants to talk tweets, maybe he should talk to Fox News execs about making sure “objective” Fox reporters Uma Pemmaraju and Adam Housley are restricted in their coverage.
Housley tweeted this in response to the White House lit up in rainbow colors after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage.
But O’Reilly couldn’t come up with anything against Twohey, other than the fact “it seems” she’s a feminist.
O’REILLY: Ms. Twohey is another story. She's an excellent reporter with a great resume. She has accomplished much, including being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The problem is that Megan Twohey is a feminist or so it seems.
The factor asked Ms. Twohey to appear this evening. She declined. No surprise.
Twohey’s’s feminist views seem to be based on her statement, “What we wanted to do with this piece was to really give the women their voices and what their experience has been, and it's a complicated story."
And, hey, O’Reilly wants you to know he’s totally down with the feminists, just not for Trump reporting.:
O’REILLY: Now the reason I mention feminism in connection with reporting on Donald Trump is that his resume goes against that ideology. For example, Mr. Trump ran beauty contests, referred to women as "Trump girls" and has been flamboyant in his interactions with the opposite sex. We asked Ms. Twohey if she herself is a feminist both on the phone and in writing. She declined to answer in both cases.
[…]By the way, being a feminist can be a very good thing. That political position has led to many positive changes for American women. So there is no denigration in my analysis.
O’Reilly went on to say, “It all comes back to being fair and giving you, the American voter, an unbiased look at the presidential candidates.” Of course, “an unbiased look” at any politician is an oxymoron on Fox. In the case of the fawning Trump coverage, it’s a joke.
But there’s nothing funny about the potential results of this kind of propaganda.
Watch it below, from the May 17 The O’Reilly Factor. Underneath is a follow-up segment with Bob Woodward, in which he pushed back some on the notion that a news outlet shouldn’t let a feminist report on Trump. Woodward did a decent enough job explaining why a reporter’s beliefs should prevent them from objective reporting. But he never questioned Fox’s blatant hypocrisy on bias or even the kind of ideology test that would be required to put into effect such a policy.
From there, it’ll be just a short step to “there should be no female reporters allowed to cover Donald Drumpf”, and finally, “there should be no female reporters” . . .
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