Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)

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Bill O'Reilly

William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. (born September 10 1949) is an American commentator, author, journalist, syndicated columnist, and television personality. . O'Reilly is best known as the host of the cable news program The O'Reilly Factor, broadcast on the Fox News Channel. His work frequently appears on the radio and in print. Between 2003 and the first half of 2006, it ranked #1 among cable news programs, averaging 2.2 million viewers daily in 2005. [1] The O'Reilly Factor offers O'Reilly's point of view on national and international events through his self-described "no-nonsense" commentary and interviews. O'Reilly calls himself a culture warrior against what he believes are harmful, radical social changes and those causing them, e.g., the American Civil Liberties Union, activist judges, and secular humanists.[2]

O'Reilly also hosts a radio program, syndicated by Westwood One, entitled The Radio Factor, and has written five books featuring his own social-political views. His views are frequent sources of controversy in various media outlets, including his own programs.

Personal background

Background

O'Reilly was born in New York City, to Irish Catholic parents William and Angela O'Reilly, from Brooklyn, New York and Bergen County, New Jersey, respectively. His father was an accountant. In 1951, his family moved to a home on Long Island, in Levittown, NY[3][4]. After graduating from Chaminade High School in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College, a small, co-educational private institution in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, O'Reilly played punter in the National Club Football Association, and was also a columnist and feature writer for the school's newspaper, The Circle. As an honors student majoring in history, he spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. O'Reilly received his B.A. in History in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time as a pitcher for the Brooklyn Monarchs, leading him to try out to play for the American professional baseball team, the New York Mets. After college he worked for two years as a high school teacher.

O'Reilly married Maureen McPhilmy, a public relations executive, in 1995. They have one daughter, Madeline, born in 1998, and a son, Spencer, born in 2003. According to an October 2005 interview in Newsday, O'Reilly hired bodyguards and is very sensitive about the general public taking pictures of him, calling some of them "stealth paparazzi". O'Reilly has requested that no photographs of his home or family be made public — citing a desire to protect his family's privacy and security. He and his family now live in Manhasset, New York.[5]

Broadcasting career

After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami, Florida at age 21, where he taught English and History at Monsignor Pace High School for two years. After leaving Miami, O'Reilly returned to school, earning a M.A. in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University in 1976. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including The Boston Phoenix. O'Reilly did his broadcast journalism internship in Miami during this time, and was also an entertainment writer and movie critic for The Miami Herald.

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WJLA, Washington, D.C. Inside Edition promo featuring Bill O'Reilly, 1993.

O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver, Colorado where he won an Emmy for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon, as well as TV stations in Hartford (WFSB), Connecticut, and in Boston, Massachusetts .

In 1980, he anchored his own program on WCBS-TV in New York where he won his second Emmy for an investigation of corrupt city marshals. He was promoted to the network as a CBS News correspondent and covered the wars in El Salvador and the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1982). He later left CBS over, amongst other tensions, a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of riot footage shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires during the Falklands conflict. (A 1998 novel by O'Reilly, Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder, depicts a television reporter who has a similar dispute over a Falklands War report. The character proceeds to exact his revenge on network staff in a series of graphically described violent ritualistic murders [6]).

In 1986, O'Reilly joined ABC News as a correspondent on ABC World News Tonight. In three years, he appeared on the show over one hundred times, receiving two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting.

In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS) program Inside Edition, a tabloid-style current affairs television program in competition with A Current Affair. He started as senior correspondent and backup anchor for celebrated British TV host David Frost, and subsequently became the program's anchor after Frost's brief tenure. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly also obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In 1995, O'Reilly was replaced by former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville on Inside Edition. He then enrolled at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he received a Master's Degree in Public Administration. Upon leaving Harvard, O'Reilly was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup FOX News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The nascent channel's most popular show was renamed to The O'Reilly Factor when it moved to a later time slot in 1998 since the host was the main "factor" of the show.

The O'Reilly Factor

Main article: The O'Reilly Factor

The O'Reilly Factor Promotional Image

O'Reilly's television show, The O'Reilly Factor, is routinely the highest-rated shows of the three major American 24-hour cable news channels (CNN, FOX News and MSNBC). The show is taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and airs daily on the FOX News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Harris Faulkner dubbed The O'Reilly Factor "The number one show that dominates cable news."

The Factor gained its notoriety in the late 1990s through O'Reilly's reporting on the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. O'Reilly has repeatedly claimed throughout the years that Bill Clinton had the IRS audit him.[7]

In 2001, Mr. O'Reilly was given credit by many, (including the US Congress), for ensuring money raised by the Red Cross and the United Way for the victims of September 11, 2001, actually went to the victims, instead of being diverted to other areas. In 2005, he participated in a fund raiser on NBC for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake.

O'Reilly's Typical Concluding Remarks

At the conclusion of each episode of The Factor, O'Reilly ends the show by reminding the viewers to visit his two websites, and then requesting that they "opine" and are sure to include their "name and town, name and town, name and town". His final words are always marked by telling his viewers that if "they wish to opine, then please do not be a (colorful descriptive noun)".

Some of these nouns include "popinjay", "jackanapes", "blatherskite", "scaramouch", and "clinchpoop." He occassionally will spring a new word on the viewers, and such an action often results in a barrage of e-mails commenting on his new "word".

American Red Cross and the United Way

In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, O'Reilly devoted substantial time on his television show and wrote pieces alleging that the United Way and American Red Cross failed to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.[8][9]. O'Reilly asserted that the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. [10] Actor George Clooney defended the United Way from O'Reilly's criticisms of a telethon which ended up raising $129.5 million, plus an additional $12 million in CD and DVD sales, according to Jeannette Reed, spokeswoman for the United Way of New York City. The funds were given to victims and surviving families in the form of cash assistance, she said. Congressional hearings were called on the matter and an investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, forced the president of the Red Cross to resign for her role in the situation, and then the Red Cross pledged that all funds would go to directly benefit the victims of the September 11 attacks. [11] In the aftermath, O'Reilly helped the Red Cross develop a revised policy regarding how donations would be distributed. In sworn testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee in November 2001, Congressman J.D. Hayworth asserted that media pressure, most notably from O'Reilly, helped cause the Red Cross to increase payments to affected people and helped cause other charities to participate in an oversight database established by Spitzer [12].

On January 6, 2005 about three years after the Red Cross revised its policy on distributing its funds for the 911 families, O'Reilly claimed that a fund raising telethon by the United Way for the 2004 tsunami victims would end up the same as the 911 funds raised by the Red Cross. On January 10, 2005 George Clooney sent an e-mail to O'Reilly which pointed out that the United Way, not the Red Cross, sponsored the telethon and claimed that O'Reilly's comments were for personal gain and would cause fewer people to donate to the cause. Clooney also invited O'Reilly to present at the event and personally oversee and help the fund raising. O'Reilly responded later on his nightly show, "That sounds good to me, but I have to see what the format is." [13]O'Reilly did participate in the telethon.

Extortion and sexual harassment lawsuits

On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly sued former O'Reilly Factor producer Andrea Mackris, her lawyer (Benedict P. Morelli), and Morelli's law firm for extortion contending Mackris had privately demanded more than $60 million (USD) to settle a claim of sexual harassment. Mackris filed her complaint of sexual harassment later the same day. In her complaint, she alleged that O'Reilly made inappropriate and lewd sexual comments to her on numerous occasions. On October 19, Mackris filed an amended complaint in which she detailed some of the sexually harassing comments O'Reilly allegedly made, citing comments transcribed from an unreleased audio tape of a telephone conversation between Mackris and O'Reilly . The amended complaint also sought additional damages and described alleged actions of retaliation by Fox, et.al. O'Reilly filed an answer to the complaints, the two cases were settled out of court. Both parties agreed to keep the terms of settlement confidential and to withdraw their claims of wrongdoing, which they each have done. After the case was settled, O'Reilly's only public comment was, "This chapter is behind me, and I will never talk about it again." O'Reilly has not commented since.

Apology to the nation

Speaking on ABC's Good Morning America on 18 March, 2003, O'Reilly made the following promise: "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again."

In another appearance on the same program on 10 February 2004, O'Reilly responded to repeated requests for him to honor his pledge: "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm not pleased about it at all." With regard to never again trusting the current U.S. government, he said, "I am much more skeptical of the Bush administration now than I was at that time." He has continued to publicly support the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Published works

O'Reilly is a columnist for the New York Post and Newsmax website and magazine. He has written four bestselling non-fiction books and a novel (Those Who Trespass). The O'Reilly Factor For Kids was 2005's best selling non-fiction children’s book[14], while Who's Looking Out For You?, The O'Reilly Factor and The No Spin Zone reached number one on The New York Times' Non Fiction Best Seller list[15].

O'Reilly's political beliefs and points of view

O'Reilly's self-description

O'Reilly disagrees with a common claim that he is a conservative, preferring to call himself a traditionalist and a populist. He has also used the term Independent. In his book The O'Reilly Factor, he describes his political affiliation this way: "You might be wondering if whether I'm conservative, liberal, libertarian, or exactly what... See, I don't want to fit any of those labels, because I believe that the truth doesn't have labels. When I see corruption, I try to expose it. When I see exploitation, I try to fight it. That's my political position." O'Reilly describes much of his work as a non-partisan approach to politics and analysis.

Personal views

• He has proclaimed Robert F. Kennedy as "the politician I've admired most in my lifetime"[16]
• Believes the chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, is "the biggest coward in the country" [17]
• Supports the creation of free speech zones
• Opposes prostitution on grounds of "laziness" rather than any moral problem with it
• Believes if the "forces of secularism" go unchecked, "they will destroy America as we know." it"[18]
• Supports a flat tax
• Opposes the inheritance tax or "death tax."
• Opposes race-based affirmative action[19]
• Opposes taxpayer-funded Embryonic stem cell research
• Supports subjecting violent criminals to life in a federal work camp rather than being put to death.[20]
• Supports a national sales tax to pay for National Health Care Programs in America.
• Opposes income redistribution [21]
• Supports what he calls "coerced interrogation," at Guantanamo Bay, which he agrees some people would characterize "torture" [22]
• Supports intelligent design being discussed in science classes in public schools[23]
• Supports domestic surveillance programs
• Supports profiling at airports, what he calls "terror" profiling
• Believes the ACLU is currently the most dangerous organization in the United States of America[24]
• Supports stricter border controls including placement of the National Guard troops on the US-Mexican border[25]
• Opposes big American government[26]
• Opposes the expansion of job security and entitlement programs believing they undermine ambition[27]
• Supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton[28]
• Supported federal intervention by Republican politicians in the Terri Schiavo controversy to reinstate her feeding tube[29]
• Supports the drug Marinol as opposed to legalization of medical marijuana (The O'Reilly Factor 6/15/06)
• Is pro-Israel and asserts Israel's right to defend itself. He supports Israel's response to the assault by Hezbollah in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.
• Refers to Hezbollah as "terrorists", and agrees with the government's official listing of them as such.
• Believes the US and its allies are fighting a war against Islamic fascism, and makes a distinction between Islamic fascism and Islam itself.
• Supports the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy and opposes openly declared homosexuals in the military."[30]
• Support for President Clinton's opposition to Slobodan Milošević
• Considers global warming a valid concern. [31]
• Supports adoption by gay parents, but only as a "last resort" to leaving children in "the system." [32]
• Supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage[33] but would not oppose it if it were legal[34] and supports same-sex civil unions as a third way.[35][36]
• Opposes a ban on flag burning[37].
• Supports guest-worker program for illegal immigrants
• Supports gun control, although after Hurricane Katrina, has expressed supporting for owning firearms for personal protection. Lambasted San Francisco for passing a handgun ban. [38].
• Supports income-based affirmative action[39]

French Boycott

In March 2003, O'Reilly called for a boycott of all French products for their position in the Iraq war. He has said that his boycott has "hurt" France, citing reports from the Paris Business Review[40], a satire web site mocking boycotts. O'Reilly also said that the US Census has indicated a drop in US-France trade. In a letter to the New York Daily News in July, 2004, O'Reilly said a drop of French business in the US by $138,000,000 compared to the previous year as a result of the boycott. US Census data indicated a steady rise in French imports during the period.

Opinions on others' politics

O'Reilly is generally critical of the "far left" and "far right" in American politics. However, much of his focus is on far left individuals and organizations. When asked why he rarely addresses the far right, he believes the far right have much less influence in the mainstream American media as opposed to the far left.

Whom he considers far right:

• Nazis[41]
• American militia groups[42]
• David Duke, [43]
• Ann Coulter
• Ayn Rand Institute[44]

O'Reilly has identified many more to be on the far left. The following people or organizations he considers "far left:"

• Daniel Akaka [45]
• Russ Feingold [46]
• Charles Schumer [47]
• Barbara Boxer [48]
• Cindy Sheehan [49]
• Ted Kennedy [50]
• Bruce Springsteen [51]
• Bill Moyers [52]
• Harry Belafonte [53] [54] [55]
• Howard Dean [56]
• Dixie Chicks [57]
• Al Franken [58]
• George Clooney [59]
• Media Matters for America [60]
• The ACLU [61]
• Air America Radio [62]
• moveon.org [63] [64]
• NY Times [65] [66]
• Atlanta Journal Constitution [67] [68]
• Paul Krugman [69] [70]
• St. Louis Post Dispatch[71]
• French media [72]

• The Globe and Mail [73]
• Campaign for America's Future [74]
• Andres Oppenheimer [75]
• Amnesty International [76]
• George Soros [77]
• Peter Lewis [78]
• Natalie Maines [79]
• Rob Glaser [80]
• Planned Parenthood [81]
• Anthony Romero [82]
• Michael Moore [83]
• The Boston Globe [84]
• German media [85]
• San Francisco Chronicle [86]
• St. Petersburg Times [87] [88]
• Dayton Daily News [89]
• Syracuse Post-Standard [90]
• Sheldon Silver [91]
• Hollywood [92]
• AfterNet [93]
• Jim McDermott [94]
• Think Progress [95] [96]

• John Conyers [97]
• John Podesta [98]
• David Corn [99]
• Secular Progressive Movement [100]
• Mike Farrell [101]
• Robert Scheer [102] [103]
• Richard Cohen [104]
• Brattleboro Reformer [105]
• Cynthia Tucker [106]
• Michael Kinsley [107]
• Frank Rich [108]
• Capital Times [109]
• People for the American Way [110]
• Lynn Woolsey [111]
• David Cole [112]
• Molly Ivins [113]
• Bob Herbert [114]
• The Nation [115]
• The Guardian (UK) [116]
• Jimmy Carter [117]

Opinions on political groups

• Claims that "liberals will never come to power in the United States--at least in our lifetime" because they fail to protect children from sexual predators [118]
• Regarding the Democratic Party, he says "The truth is that the Democratic party has been hijacked by the far left and really can't persuade anyone" [119]

Politicians endorsed by O'Reilly

• On the September 24 2005 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, he advised his viewers to vote for Republican Doug Forrester in the 2005 New Jersey gubernatorial election, suggesting that Jon Corzine, a Democrat, would not be as tough on child molesters .
• In 2003 O'Reilly urged the voters of California to recall governor Gray Davis, stating, "The corrupt Democratic machine has to go," and urging them to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger[120]. However, in the same segment, O'Reilly mentioned that the "corrupt GOP" that was once in power in his home of Nassau County, New York also had to go and that the new Democrat in charge has been doing OK.
• Two years later, on the day of the citizen initiatives elections in California, as well as the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, he urged his listeners to vote for the Republican governor's proposals on the ballot .

Politicians opposed by O'Reilly

• In 2004 he urged his viewers to vote against Democratic senate candidate Betty Castor in Florida.[121]
• O'Reilly also urged his listeners on The Radio Factor to vote against Democratic Senator Tom Daschle in the 2004 Senate election
• O'Reilly is an outspoken opponent of former Democratic president Bill Clinton and Janet Reno, and has referred to the two jointly as the "Clinton-Reno regime".[122] He has praised John Ashcroft, whom he was at first critical of, in comparison to Reno, whom he called the worst attorney general in history.[123]
• O'Reilly is an outspoken opponent of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and her presumed intention to run in the United States Presidential Election, 2008, having said in an interview with Jay Leno that he believes she is a socialist and wants to "take his tax dollars", and that Clinton offended him.[124]

Controversies, critics, and rivals

File:Jeremyglickinterview.jpg

The Jeremy Glick interview -- see picture for details

Main articles: Bill O'Reilly controversies and Bill O'Reilly critics and rivals

Over the years, there have been several controversial issues highlighted in O'Reilly's print and broadcast work. He has been involved in many disputes with figures and sources including Al Franken, Michael Savage, George Clooney, Keith Olbermann, Media Matters, Neal Boortz, Ludacris, and various Iraq War critics, including Jeremy Glick and the president of ABC News in New York.

External links

• Bill O'Reilly's personal website
• The O'Reilly Factor website
• O'Reilly's syndicated newspaper column