The Root Beer Blog

October 19, 2003

FAIR and Balanced

Last week, Bill O'Reilly criticized the LA Times for publishing an article reporting allegations of Schwarzenegger's sexual indiscretions, saying the Times was motivated by a liberal bias and never would have reported on, say, Clinton's alleged sexual indiscretions. FAIR called him on it, pointing out that the Times did in fact report (and quite early) on those allegations. The following quote comes from O'Reilly's response to having the Clinton article called to his attention. It comes from O'Reilly "Responds" to FAIR.

The story was reported giving both sides of the controversy. It was not an attempt to dig up anything and did not level accusations or exonerate Mr. Clinton. It was simply a news piece. Stay off the websites with the left-wingers, all right? You're never going to get the truth. And the right-wingers, probably the same thing.
--Bill O'Reilly

This whole situation is funny to me, on many levels. For one thing, it's another clear example of O'Reilly backpedalling after making a statement he didn't bother to research:

Hey! They're going after Arnold! Those liberal bastards! They'd never go after Clinton. Oh, they went after Clinton? Hang on...lemme think...

...and what he comes up with, essentially, is "Oh, well sure, they covered it, but this story gave both sides of the issue! What's the point of that?" This from a guy who works for Fox News and constantly complains about liberal bias in the media. So he admits to being incensed by balanced coverage, but simultaneously denounces "left-winger and right-winger coverage". That's pretty funny, you gotta admit: he's a newsman who hates all coverage! So we'll call O'Reilly's "I hate it, it's fair and balanced!" reaction funny thing number two. Surely he didn't think that one through.

But it's not for lack of time to think: he responded on October 13, 2003, three days after FAIR's report came out. And yes, a weekend split the dates...but you can still think on the weekends, can't you? Three days, and that's what he came up with. Which brings me to a third thing that amuses me about the whole episode, and it has a lot to do with timing.

For one thing, there's the accusation--and O'Reilly is not the only person to make this argument--that the LA Times held the story to maximize its impact on the California recall election:

What if they held it back? What if they held it back? This is another thing. And we believe this to be true. They held a story back until Thursday because it would do maximum amount of damage? Is that legit?
--Bill O'Reilly, again

As far as whether or not the Times held the story longer than necessary, I think that's pretty obviously not the case. Would O'Reilly's reaction have been better if it came out a week earlier but lacked sufficient evidence and support? Picture O'Reilly opening the LA Times and reading the headline: "Schwarzenegger Sexually Harrassed 16 Women: Details in Seven Days." What would he say, really? "Hey, thanks for getting this out on the table in a timely manner, guys. I'll patiently hold my judgment for a week while you build up evidence." For the other considerations on the timing issue, I'll refer you to John S. Carroll's editorial.

I can't see that O'Reilly's argument has any real basis in truth or rationality. And even if it did, O'Reilly had three days and came up with this bizarre defense: "Oh, I was wrong, they reported on it, but they reported in a balanced way, so they're still reprehensible; and the liberal-biased media pointed it that I was wrong, so don't listen to them, either!" How can you spend three days coming up with that, and still fault others for taking the time to research and investigate before they publish it?

[Bonus funny thing about all this: note O'Reilly's "And we believe this to be true." The previous "we" that O'Reilly refers to is the Fox News Channel. While he's referring to the network, he's pointing out that they've taken a lot of flack for being "an arm of the right". (Fox News? NO!) But soon after claiming the network is not biased and no one tells him what to say or who to go after, he's saying "we believe" the LA Times held this story to do maximum damage to Schwarzenegger's recall effort. Fox News is not a coherent platform for a determined ideology, and yet they all believe this far-fetched allegation of the Times' supposed flagrant disregard for journalistic integrity? That's a weird coincidence, don't you think? Maybe he didn't mean "Fox News" at all, but some other "we," which could be any number of people he didn't mention, like the President, or his family, or Ohio, or Louis Armstrong. Or maybe it was the "royal we," as though O'Reilly gets to refer to himself in the plural because his opinions count more! Or maybe, just maybe he's using a common technique for adding undeserved credence to an argument. "I believe" sounds weak; "We believe" is the stuff of oaths. Tough to say what he meant. I bet it'd be even tougher for him to explain it, if it were ever pointed out to him.]

Anyhow, I think I had more to say, but I'm tired of talking about O'Reilly's hypocritical bullshit. In other news, Tony Blair did his impression of Dick Cheney today, but no one laughed. The Bruins won in overtime. And I had a WaNu Root Beer today...damn tasty stuff.

Posted by Chris at October 19, 2003 10:16 PM | TrackBack