Here's a more definitive bit of info about O'Reilly....
[KLP Note: It would be interesting to see if there is this much info about other political commentators, of all political stripes.... Most of them aren't as straightforward as O'Reilly]
fact-index.com
Bill O'Reilly is a television show host of a highly-rated political cable news show, The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel in the United States. The self-proclaimed political independent also hosts a radio program syndicated by Westwood One called The Radio Factor.
O'Reilly's political opinions vary from topic to topic as discussed below but arguably are predominantly conservative, and he criticizes media outlets such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR as being predominantly liberal
Early Career
O'Reilly started his professional career as a high school teacher in Miami with a degree in History from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
After two years teaching in Miami, Florida, O'Reilly returned to school, earning a Masters in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University. O'Reilly's early television news career included positions in Scranton, Dallas, Denver, Portland, Oregon, Hartford, and Boston. In 1980, he anchored his own program on WCBS-TV in New York and later became a CBS News correspondent. In 1986, O'Reilly joined ABC News as a correspondent on The World News Tonight. In three years, he appeared on the show over one hundred times, receiving two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting.
In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated Inside Edition, a tabloid television program (also known as "infotainment"). He started as senior correspondent and backup anchor, but soon took over the anchor chair.
In 1995, O'Reilly left Inside Edition to enroll in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where he received a Master's Degree in Public Administration. Upon leaving Harvard, Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup Fox News Channel, hired O'Reilly to anchor The O'Reilly Report which was soon renamed to The O'Reilly Factor as O'Reilly was quickly gaining a reputation as a tough interviewer.
The O'Reilly Factor
O'Reilly's television show The O'Reilly Factor discusses political and social issues of the day arguably with a conservative flavor, but featuring both conservative and liberal guests. His show is famous for its direct, combative approach, with O'Reilly often getting into heated arguments (and sometimes shouting matches) with guests. While he tends to turn some people away from his show with his brash attitude, he has attracted millions of viewers with his confrontational interviews. O'Reilly has pundits and elected officials as guests and doesn't hesitate to interrupt them or to disagree, sometimes even telling guests to "shut up". He decrees on his show that it is a "no spin zone" and that "the spin stops here." O'Reilly often challenges spin from guests more aggressively when they hold views opposing his own (see below for example views).
O'Reilly ends each episode of The Factor by reading mail sent in by viewers. The mail read by O'Reilly is usually divided between viewers that like him and viewers that hate him.
Media criticism of O'Reilly, both his politics and his style, has come more often from liberal or left-wing outlets such as Slate and FAIR, but conservative or right-wing outlets such as AIM have criticized O'Reilly for much the same reasons.
In 2001, The O'Reilly Factor passed Larry King Live to become the most watched cable news program in the United States.
Dispute with Al Franken
O'Reilly called on Fox News to sue Al Franken and his publisher for libel before the release of Franken's 2003 book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Instead, Fox News sued for trademark infringement over the use of the phrase "fair and balanced" in the book's title. (O'Reilly said he encouraged the lawsuit on "Tim Russert" on October 4, 2003 and that he agreed with Fox's argument. Later, in an interview with Terry Gross on the NPR program, "Fresh Air" on October 8, 2003, O'Reilly stated that he had nothing to do with Fox's lawsuit, that he had considered suing Franken for defamation but was told that as a public person the standard of proof would be too high to sustain a lawsuit.) The Fox lawsuit was dismissed by the judge as "wholly without merit." Franken's book accuses O'Reilly of making misleading statements, such as implying the television show Inside Edition won two Peabody Awards for journalism while he was there, when it actually won the Polk Award over a year after O'Reilly had left.
Dispute with Bill Moyers
Bill O'Reilly has criticized Bill Moyers, the host of NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS, on multiple broadcasts of The O'Reilly Factor, and Moyers has in turn accused O'Reilly of lying. In 2002, O'Reilly accused Moyers of calling him a "warmonger," implied that Moyers is making big money by selling videotapes of his program, and that Bill Moyers made contributions to the Columbia Journalism Review to buy the duPont-Columbia Award. Bill Moyers responded in print that he never called O'Reilly a warmonger, that his share of distribution money from the show is minuscule, and that the Columbia Journalism Review doesn't pick the winner of the duPont-Columbia Award [1]. In 2003, O'Reilly criticized Bill Moyers again, saying that Moyers' position that taxes should be raised is "classic socialism" and that he "can't understand why Bill Moyers just doesn't move to Havana." [1]
Political opinion
Although O'Reilly emphasizes that he is an Independent, this claim is intensely disputed by liberals. Liberals attest that O'Reilly has close ties to the Republican party and other conservative groups. Arguments include O'Reilly's voter registration, which was only changed from Republican to Independent when reported by the Washington Post in 2000. Also mentioned was O'Reilly's keynote speech at David Horowitz's conservative "Restoration Weekend" event, taking place at the Republican convention in Philadelphia.
Nevertheless, O'Reilly's opinions contain a mix of traditionally conservative and liberal positions:
Traditionally conservative views
Supports cutting taxes across the board and eliminating the inheritance tax
Supports use of animals for food, clothing, entertainment, and scientific experiments
Supports harsher prosecution for hard drug offenders
Supports U.S. military action against the Taliban and Afghanistan
Opposes strict separation of church and state and secularization
Opposes illegal immigration (e.g., proposes placing troops on the U.S. border with Mexico)
Believes that most news media has a liberal bias [1] (since approximately October 18, 2003, previous view was "... the issue of the liberal media. Bogus. Rush Limbaugh has the most powerful radio program in the country and the Fox News Channel is the highest rated cable news network — at least in primetime." March 29, 2001 [1])
Traditionally liberal views
Supports raising automobile fuel efficiency standards due to his belief in global warming
Supports campaign finance reform
Supports de-criminalizing marijuana
Opposes the death penalty
Opposes additional regulation of pornography
A viewer once wrote to give O'Reilly a rough statistical analysis of his political viewpoints and found O'Reilly to take more conservative viewpoints roughly 60% of the time, more liberal viewpoints 30% of the time, and completely moderate viewpoints 10% of the time.
Politics
In his book The O'Reilly Factor, he answered the question of 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."
However, Bill O'Reilly acknowledged that from 1994 until December 2000 he was a registered to vote as a Republican when the Washington Post was about to expose his party registration. O'Reilly said it was the result of a clerical mistake, which has since been corrected, and he is now a registered independent. "I've always been an independent," he says. "I always split my ticket. I vote for the person I think is best." [1] |
