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Contributors
Cliff Kincaid- Contributor
Cliff Kincaid, serves as editor of the Accuracy
in Media (AIM)
Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff has
appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity & Colmes and
The O'Reilly Factor, where he debated O'Reilly on global
warming, the death penalty,
and the homosexual agenda. He was a guest co-host on CNN's Crossfire
(filling in for Pat Buchanan) in the 1980s, where he confronted
the then-Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. with evidence of Libyan
involvement in international terrorism. Through his America's
Survival, Inc., organization (www.usasurvival.org), he has been
an advocate on behalf of the families of victims of terrorism
and has published reports and held conferences critical of the
United Nations. His articles have appeared in the Washington
Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events, Insight, and
other publications. He served on the staff of Human Events for
several years and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor
for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at
his Freedom Alliance educational foundation. He has written or
co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign
policy issues. Cliff is married and has three sons.[go to
Kincaid index]
 The
O'Reilly Mess
How will the commentator spin himself out?…
[Cliff Kincaid] 10/19/04
One of Bill
O’Reilly’s defenders says that the sex
harassment charges against him are a CNN/Democratic Party plot: “I
see another network and political party behind this.” Another
called his accuser, producer Andrea Mackris, a “Time Warner
plant,” because she left CNN to come back to work for O’Reilly
at Fox. The trouble is that O’Reilly and his lawyer have
not specifically denied the comments attributed to him in the
suit. The evidence suggests that he has been caught on tape making
sick and perverted comments to a female subordinate.
O’Reilly, a married father of two, himself filed suit,
charging extortion. Mr. “No Spin Zone” is taking
a lesson from the Clinton playbook—go after the accuser,
hire a good lawyer, and go on the offensive. Clinton managed
to survive, but will O’Reilly?
His reputation
was partly built on fighting filth. “America
is rapidly becoming a country where no judgments are made about
any kind of behavior,” declared the righteous O’Reilly
on Fox News on February 25, 2003. Condemning the Pony company
for using porn stars to sell shoes, O’Reilly declared, “call
me crazy, but I don't think porn stars are great role models
for American kids.”
That is truly
crazy because O’Reilly had porn star Jenna
Jameson on his show on August 26, 2002. After the interview,
he requested copies of her films. In a December 4, 2002, segment
he interviewed Dennis Hof, the owner of the legal brothel named
the “Moonlight Bunny Ranch,” and glamorized one of
his prostitutes, “Sunset Thomas,” by highlighting
her $2,000-a-night income
In a February
5, 2004 column about Janet Jackson’s “sleazy” performance
in baring her breast during the Super Bowl half-time show, O’Reilly
declared that, “Our popular culture has collapsed.” On
the other hand, in a comment that captured his own personal involvement
in that collapse, he said (in the same column), “As a regular
guy, I have no problem with Janet Jackson’s chest. Quite
the contrary! If the diva were to offer me a private look, I’d
charter a plane.”
“Children are exposed to a constant media barrage of degenerate
behavior, and if they want a break, commercial television now
offers them a variety of ‘reality’ programs where
they can watch people eat bugs and demean women,” O’Reilly
said. He was referring to NBC’s “Fear Factor” show,
but he could have been referring to Fox Television, which, like
Fox News, is part of News Corporation.
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a record
financial fine against Fox and its affiliated stations for broadcasting
an indecent program, Married in America, showing parties at a
Las Vegas hotel during a time when children could have been in
the viewing audience.
The FCC
said the show featured “Partially clothed strippers,
such as a topless woman with her breasts pixilated, straddling
a man in a sexually suggestive manner; two partially clothed
female strippers kissing each other above a male; two partially
clothed strippers rubbing a man’s stomach; a male stripper
about to put a woman’s hand down the front of his pants;
and a man in his underwear on all fours being spanked by two
topless strippers.” There’s more, but you get the
picture.
In that
February 5 column, O’Reilly declared that, “American
culture has collapsed and big corporations are responsible.” Yes,
Bill, and News Corp., is one of them. He never seemed to be able
to do anything about that, however. Now, a News Corp. subsidiary,
Fox Searchlight Pictures, is coming out with a film that glorifies
Alfred Kinsey, the pedophile propagandist who became known as
the father of the “sexual revolution.”
Fox recently
abruptly cancelled screenings of the film for Dr. Judith Reisman,
a
leading critic of Kinsey who had warned
Fox in advance about glorifying this pervert. Ironically, O’Reilly
had brought Reisman on his own show, before the making of the
film, to expose Kinsey’s use of pedophiles in his research.
But don’t look for O’Reilly to invite her back on
the show to criticize the Fox film.
On April
29, 2003, he did a program about pornography and sex talk in
a university
classroom, suggesting that the professor
should be sued for sexual harassment. I doubt we’ll see
any more programs of that nature, either.
In an April
15, 2004 column, he proclaimed, “I am a primary
source these days in confronting declining media standards.” That’s
laughable today. O’Reilly’s stature as someone “looking
out for you” is clearly over. His new career of writing
children’s books will almost certainly come to an end as
well.
His television and radio careers are also at risk, unless he
can reinvent himself. But that will take a lot of spin. CRO
copyright
2004 Accuracy in Media
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