Monday, February 23, 2015

Bill O'Reilly Responds, Mother Jones FactChecks

Bill O'Reilly
On Thursday, Mother Jones published an article by Daniel Schulman and David Corn documenting how Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has mischaracterized his wartime reporting experience.

It noted that he has repeatedly stated that during his short stint as a CBS correspondent in the 1980s, he was in the "war zone" during the Falklands war between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982. Yet no American journalist reached the war zone in the Falkland Islands during this conflict. O'Reilly and his colleagues covered the war from Buenos Aires, which was 1,200 miles from the fighting.

O'Reilly continues to insist that he has not embellished or mischaracterized anything—and that he is the victim of a smear campaign. In a weekend posting, Mother Jones reponded to OReilley's "Talking Points memo" monologue, as published on the Fox News site.  M-J responses are in italics.

TALKING POINTS MEMO 2-20-15
Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly ... thanks for watching us tonight ... more proof the American media is corrupt. That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points memo. This man ... 56-year-old David Corn ... who works for the far left magazine ... Mother Jones ... smeared me, your humble correspondent, yesterday ... saying I had fabricated some war reporting. Mother Jones ... which has low circulation ... considered by many the bottom rung of journalism in America. however ... in this Internet age ... the defamation they put forth ... gets exposure. and so I have to deal with this garbage tonight. I’m sorry.
Mother Jones did give O'Reilly a chance to "deal with this" earlier. Before posting the article, we sent him and Fox News a detailed list of questions and asked for comments and clarifications. They chose not to respond at all.
basically David Corn ... a liar ... says that I exaggerated situations in the Falklands War ... and Salvadoran War.
The article did not use the word "exaggerate." It noted that there were contradictions between his accounts and the factual record.

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