Got your email from free-press asking me to let O"Really know how upset I am with what he thinks of me. Wanted to let you know I don't give one damn what the man thinks and neither should you or anyone else. He feeds his show with this kind of press. If we stop listening or watching him he might go away. But my sending him letters only boosts his ego and gives him fodder for his show. Why don't we all just try to ignore him and enjoy not having him in our minds. He is no threat to me. People aren't as stupid as he thinks. So hopefully they will stop the frenzy around his every word. That would include you of course. You use O'Really to get hits on your site. To try to get people to react a certain way so you can show what a great group you have there. Really stop this and he might go away. Otherwise he'll be around 40 more years.
Moyers vs. Murdoch: Journalism vs. Megalomania
Rupert Murdoch's favorite megalomaniac Bill O'Reilly sent a crew to Minneapolis this weekend to stalk journalists Bill Moyers and Dan Rather. This probably doesn't surprise you. And that's exactly why Moyers and Rather were in Minneapolis. They were speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform, a gathering of 3,500 people aimed at finding ways to get better journalism to the American people.
How dare they! So Fox decided to crash the party; smear as angry radicals thousands of good people who took three days out of their lives to help improve our democracy; and play games with Moyers and Rather -- two actual journalists who understand the crisis in their craft.
That's right. Fox News sent grown men with cameras to lurk behind doorways, hide in alcoves, and crouch in the bushes at night (literally) waiting to surprise two reporters in their seventies with angry questions and a boom mic.
You can see this pathetic ambush -- and Moyers classy response -- here on Olbermann. But the attack-dog tactics are already backfiring on Bill O. because they illustrate so clearly what so many of us already know: The corporate media system is broken, and it's hurting our democracy.
The O'Reilly ambush is typical cable news entertainment-posing-as-journalism whose purpose is to sell eyeballs to advertisers, not to inform citizens or better society. Add in a good dose of shouting, name-calling, head-shaking, and spurious guilt-by-association invective... and voila! Ratings points.
The standard model for cable news has become ridiculous. The facts are selected to fit a hysterical narrative that arguably makes for good TV but bears no resemblance to actual journalism. It breaks every common sense convention of the profession.
Rule No. 1 of journalism is that you don't write a story about something you do not understand or witness yourself. None of the three talking heads in Monday night's O'Reilly segment were at the conference they were trashing. The organizers of the event were not called or interviewed. The facts were not checked. They just don't care about that stuff.
Is this what journalism has become? Really? This great country deserves better.
The conference that Moyers, Rather, Arianna Huffington and others addressed was about the failure of corporate media to inform and reflect our communities and our democracy. It is about consolidated TV, radio and newspapers turning the news into sound bites, trivializing critical issues like elections and war, and failing to hold power accountable.
It is a free speech movement at its core, calling for a stronger democracy. We want more channels and more opportunities for voices and views of all kinds.
Some of us may be angry about what the media -- including Fox -- say and do, but I would defend Bill O'Reilly's right to speak his mind and entertain his audience however he chooses. I would defend his right just as firmly when he agrees with me as when he uses his show to launch angry attacks on what my community says and believes.
By the same token, every American that believes in the Bill of Rights should demand that O'Reilly respect our right to speak and be angry as well. There is more than a little irony in watching him angrily criticize people for angrily criticizing him. What's good for the goose is apparently treason for the gander.
So what are people so angry with the media about? They are angry about many things they perceive as injustices. But let's take just one -- the war in Iraq. It is now clear that we are fighting a war that was started and waged on false presences. No matter how you feel about the war today, the nature of its origins is hard to dispute. It is a war that was sold to the American people with a coordinated political campaign -- using the mainstream media as its outlet.
This is not the view of a radical fringe of left-wing political activists. This is the premise of an expose written by the White House press secretary whose job it was to execute the propaganda campaign. This is the inescapable conclusion of the New York Times story exposing the Pentagon's years-long secret program to shepherd retired generals with administration talking points to better than 4,500 news interviews.
And this is the self-indicting opinion of Dan Rather, America's most famous anchorman in the Tiffany network's No. 1 chair at the start of the Iraq war. That's actually what Dan Rather said in his speech at the conference: "These [media conglomerates] are entities that, as publicly held and traded corporations, have as their overall, reigning mandate, [the need] to provide a return on shareholder value. ... In the current model of corporate news ownership, the incentive to produce good and valuable news is simply not there. "
He laid down a critique that was directed just as much at himself and CBS as it was at Fox or any other media outlet. Let's also recall that it was the New York Times that has the most famous examples of complicity in botching this story. This is a very serious matter of historic importance by any reasonable standard.
So. Yes, Mr. O'Reilly. You can find people who are angry in America and not afraid to say so. Lots of them -- on the left, right, and center of the political spectrum. Tens of millions of Americans are angry at the costs of war in lives and treasure. Tens of millions more are angry about how the media has handled the global warming debate, tax cuts for the wealthy -- and the list goes on. Calling them "lunatics" and "fascists" and "fringe" would be offensive if it were not too silly to warrant a retort.
It is the perfect embodiment of what is wrong with the media today that one of its most visible talk-show entertainers puts his own self-righteousness above the plain facts in the news. Rather than helping guide and inform the American people in difficult times, Bill O'Reilly has made himself more important than the news. By personalizing everything, he turns the media into a megaphone for his own megalomania instead of helping people understand why their country is in trouble and what we can do about it.
The people in Minneapolis weren't asking to silence Bill O'Reilly. They were -- and are -- asking for something more than Bill O'Reilly. They are asking for journalism -- a craft the founders saw fit to put in the Constitution. That aspiration stands squarely in the best tradition of American freedom.
Ben Scott contributed to this post.
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"I would defend Bill O'Reilly's right to speak his mind and entertain his audience however he chooses",....
I would do so also,.. even if he does make me shake my head and wonder what it is that he has been smoking/toking.
I just don't think that he, or Fox, should get away with in any way calling what Bill O does as 'news' or 'journalism'. Call it what it is,... a hour-long daily excercise in Bill venting his spleen and pontificating on topics that he knows absolutely nothing about.
On one side we have a man claiming to be a journalist who frequently throws temper tantrums on his show, preaches to his viewers, cuts off his guest's mics, gives voice to propagandists, sexually harrasses subordinates, and then has the audacity to demand that people appear on his show, as if he is a paragon of truth. On the other side, we have an individual who calmly discusses important topics with his guests, who are usually well known experts on the topics they are covering. It's not so much a question of credibility as it is a question of which format better serves to inform the viewer? Confrontational hosts like O'Reilly do apparantly wield a lot of influence, as evidenced by the trolls here, but they've turned our civil discourse into a spectator sport. Citizens choose sides, and never stop to consider opposing views. They simply sit on their couches and wait for their heroes to get the better of their opponents. What a sad state of affairs for the United States of America.
Bile O'Really may not be Mr Murdoch's favorite anything if the ratings on Bile's show drop & advertisers pull their ads. Murdoch started Faux Noise to make money & hired Ailes to make sure Faux makes money. Ailes will fire anybody when their audiences drop & Faux can't sell ads.
Ms Huffington & Mr Moyers have shown how to drive Faux's Producers & crews to haul ass when they pull the now hoary 'gotcha' stunt. Other producers, reporters & their crews now make videos of Faux's employees as they hector somebody who riles Bile. When Faux's crews break & run other reporters & crews tail them to hector Faux's employees as they run away with the video cams & mikes on to catch Faux's employees as they stutter, stammer & stumble out of the fire. The videos go on the feed of Faux's rivals 15 min after the videos are made & stay on the feed to make Faux Noise the butt of the back fired attempt of 'gotcha' ambushes by Faux till Faux screws up another attempt at 'gotcha' TV.
Making videos of Faux bungling yet another attempt at 'gotcha' TV is a growth industry among Faux's rivals. Aliles will be forced to end Faux's gotcha TV attempts because it drives viewers & advertisers from Faux. Mr Murdoch demands profits from Faux. The videos of Faux's clumsy 'gotcha' TV crews being caught as they fumble & flee brings viewers & ads to Faux's rivals, not to Faux.
larry lynch
Bill Moyers is a crook!!!!!!!!!! He takes a kick back from PBS,our taxpayer dollars, for his show nobody watches. He is media dinosaur who can't compete in and open market. Hey Bill go join your leftest, propaganda spewing, brothering Dan Rather in retirement.............
Dude,... a substantial number of people watch it. I know I do, even though half the time I have to catch the rebroadcast/webcast on his site a couple of days later.
Moyer is what TV Journalists should be all about. Presenting a (relatively) balanced story, showing (where possible) more than one side of that story, and doing it in an intellegent, non-confrontational manner.
That Bill Moyers gets a respectible salary for doing so seems at least as justified as the pundits (not journalists) get for doing a far inferior job in the same genre.
I saw some of the unedited footage-
There's one part where Moyers is asking Porter whether he considers Billo a journalist, and asking what are Billo's journalistic credentials.
A bystander yells out-
"He was on A Current Affair!"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Moyers was excellent in disarming that attack. It would have been below him, not in a bad way and I would love to see it done, to dok what Olberman suggests and start peppering the Oreilly tool with questions about loofahs and Andrean Macris harrassment questions. Bildo Really is losing market share and is desperate.
And it's so telling that on BOR's show that there was not one bit of Bill Moyers encounter at all.
It unfolded on FNC EXACTLY as Bill Moyers said it would, sadly he was correct.
Great article. Thanks. I think educating americans about the difference between news and entertainment etc. would be helpful. I took a mass media course in high school that taught us about 'marketing' and opened my eyes to much that I was unconsciously drinking in. I suppose there are many ways to do it but I think reminding or educating the public as to what they are getting whether it is news or the world according to Bll O would be a healthy place to start. How could media and journalists help educate the public about news vs. entertainment. I guess that would have to be clear about that themselves first.
Mr. Moyers should accept the Fox invitation under the following conditions. BillO and Bill M go head to head with only what's in their heads. No teleprompters, no off camera or off set coaching.
One of the main points that struck me was the indication that as appalling as he is, silencing O'Reilly really cannot be the goal. Instead, we must work to create a social situation in which he finds little or no audience. My gosh, it is so refreshing to finally be having all of these discussions--they're LONG overdue...
You are right - and that won't happen as long as advertisers shovel money at Bill-o and Fox news as they have been doing.
If we were organized enough to overwhelm the advertisers with letters and back it up by not buying their products, Bill-O would be doing public access in a week.
Speaking of personalizing every issue, it was funny when O'Reilly interviewed Scott McClellan and was very angry that McClellan said O'Reilly got the runup to the war wrong. McClellan patiently explained that he did not say that, but said most of the media got it wrong. O'Reilly is not in the news business. He is in the business of creating a fantasy narrative where Republican policies actually work- where the war in Iraq is going along fine, where tax breaks for the wealthy actually help the overall economy, and where there are no homeless vets in the streets of America. He lives in a 1950's Eisenhowerian America that never was. It always existed in his and other radical conservatives imaginative. I could tolerate O'Reilly better if he would occasionally tell the truth.
Mr. Oreilly has criticized Republicans before, he's a conservative not a Republican...The Republican party is off from its conservative base just in case you liberals havent noticed, the majority of them are appeasing to the left because the demographics of this nation are changing so rapidly that if they want to remain a potential party they must appease according to them...that is what happens when the nation changes its face overnite, the party is being stretched thin, but if you look at conservative values, they are not out of touch with American people, I'll go even further on claiming that the majority of the people in this nation are conservative on paper but you liberals have done a good job of eliminating the voice of conservatism, and blurred the definition of conservative with the help of false conservatives like McCain & Bush among others...
The liberals in this nation fear that if people could identify what a conservative really stands for they will lose their grapple on the majority vote every election cycle, and now by implementing a prejudice against Fox News, you try to blurr the vision even further to the American People
YOU LIBERAL FACSISTS, which does exist in this nation
No, you are very wrong. Most Americans agree with liberal policies, such as a woman's right to choose, and not the conservative's policies. Conservatives may have a better public relations wing that is good at changing the terms of the debate, like changing the estate tax to the "death" tax so people mistakenly believe it applies to many when it only applies to a small percentage of Americans.
Also, about O'Reilly being a traditional conservative, you are way off. Traditional conservatives value small government, but have an isolationist tendency. They would value checks and balances in the system and government transparency because they do not trust government.
O'Reilly llike Bush is a warmonger. He wants war and cheerlead our attack on Iraq. Now he wants to attack Iran. He agrees with Cheney that the power of the executive should be almost unlimited and has assasinated the character of all who have challenged this distortion of democracy. O'Reilly has supported torture and a traditional conservative would not because it flies in the face of our traditions.
O'Reilly, like Bush, is an authoritarian who does not think executive powers should be challenged when the right people are holding it. He attacks all critics of this administration. He works to suppress dissent.
Bill O'Reilly is not a Conservative,... the only thing that Bill stands for is 'Bill & his immense ego'.
Real Conservatives (there are a rare few of these left) are actually good people, with specific ideas as to how the Government should (or should not) be run, the extent to which the Government shouldn't be meddling in day-to-day lives of it citizens any more than absolutely needed, should be fiscally responsible, and should leave most of the actual governing up to States, and Local legislation.
Bill is all about Bill. Bill serves no higher power than Bill.
Hate to tell you this, but, by definition, Facsists are conservative (ask any follower of Mussolini or Hitler -- oops, forgot they're all dead). While we're on the subject, there are no such thing as Islamofacsists, either. Facsists believe the state should be a religion, which would be anathema to even the most fanatical of believers in Islam, not to mention believers in pretty much every religion (and we atheists, too). Why don't we just consign Facsism to the 1930s and move on, okay?
Josh - I second a previous poster's suggestion. Our "Media" is no longer reflective of the main. We need to start calling it what it's become, "corporate media." This is not meant as an anti-capitalist statement.
THIS ISSUE IS that our major news outlets have been amalgamated through government authorized mergers into giant profit making machines where viewership and meeting the quarterly profit projections are more important. Any stories that may be critical of the "company", its sponsors or the government interests it wants to preserve need to be carefully edited and eliminated if necessary. In turn, these conditions also allow our government to choose the corporate outlets friendly to its policies (Fox) to get out its messages.
Sounds to me like "corporate media."
I call a good portion of public media, GOSSIP!!
Dear Mr. Silver -- thank you for a really stunning piece of writing. Outstanding, and I hope a great many people read it. I'm going to send this link to everyone on my list.
You state "It is a war that was sold to the American people with a coordinated political campaign -- using the mainstream media as its outlet."
I'd like to suggest one clarification. One writer, whose name I'm afraid I can't recall - recently suggested that the term "mainstream media" wasn't as accurately descriptive as the term "corporate media" - which I thought was a crucial and relevant point.
Also - this goes beyond "using the MSM as its outlet." I believe it is also accurate to state that the MSM was a knowing and complicit accomplice in taking this country into an unnecessary war.
*
I wonder why African Americans were never fooled by Bush's pretense. I don't believe a single black congressman voted to authorize Dumbya's war.
Really? That IS interesting--I see a fascinating study in there somewhere for sure...
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Posted June 10, 2008 | 12:06 PM (EST)