The No Facts Zone Read before you complain Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle The 19th century American writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said of a man, "The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." Were he alive today, Emerson might be thinking of television host Bill O'Reilly. On The O'Reilly Factor cable television program Tuesday night, the popular host included a segment that took the Houston Chronicle to task for an editorial that had run the same day. The editorial was entitled Cold comfort: Florida's sex offender law has emotional appeal, but it's not the best way to stop sexual predators from preying on children. Hang on while I count our spoons: At the start of the segment, O'Reilly stated that the Chronicle had "taken a lot of shots at me, so it must be left of center." O'Reilly's name has appeared only once in a Chronicle editorial, which concerned not O'Reilly, but Fox News' suit against Al Franken for his use of the phrase "fair and balanced." The suit was thrown out of court. O'Reilly told his viewers that the Chronicle editorial said the Florida law was too harsh. He was mistaken. The editorial excerpts that O'Reilly projected on the screen said nothing about the harshness of the punishment. The editorial, citing extensive research on this subject, said hooking GPS monitors to sexual predators released from prison might prove less effective than closer supervision by parole officers and other low-tech strategies. The Chronicle did not call for lighter punishment; it called for the adoption of the most effective measures to protect our children. O'Reilly said the editorial advocated "community service" for sexual predators. It did not. O'Reilly accused his guest, Austin defense attorney Courtney Anderson, of misleading the audience when she defended the Chronicle editorial. O'Reilly then read what he said was a quote from the editorial. Unfortunately, not one word of what O'Reilly read appeared in the Chronicle editorial or anywhere else in the paper. He and his staff apparently confused someone else's commentary with the Chronicle's. O'Reilly claims his show is free of spin. Spin is when someone casts the facts in such a light as to reinforce his argument and weaken his opponent's. What O'Reilly did was to disregard the facts altogether, even going so far as to attribute to the Chronicle words and views it did not print and does not espouse. That's not spin; it's misrepresentation that is unprofessional, unwarranted and injurious to the public debate about a serious and urgent issue: protecting children from predators. The Chronicle's reader representative and letters editor received several complaints about the editorial from people who admitted they hadn't read it, or who attributed to it quotations that did not appear in the editorial. Before Chronicle readers complain about an editorial, I hope they take the time to read the editorial carefully, rather than relying on someone else's careless characterization of its contents. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3178313
That's a shame. O'Reilly used to be a decent journalist. His egocentricism seems to be going over the top.
I thought he was at home, polishing his Pulitzer...oh wait, or was it an Emmy? Hard to keep up with all those make beleive awards ya know. Go get em Chronicle, I like that they challenged the folks who complained...READ the article first ya numb-nutz!!
Facts don't mean jackshht in 2005. Iraq had WMD and they almost used them against us in 2001. That's why needed to blast em and secure their oil, err, people. We're doin a mighty fine job out there bringin democrazy to the people. Get with the program, Andy. You're either with us or against us.
...and that is the Fox news that right-wingers say is the only decent news source? Dan Rather gets blasted because his source lied to him. O'Liely outright fabricates things and Fox doesn't do anything. If you Fox watchers are indifferent about that...well, its just a sad state of affairs. And you guys were the first ones to blast Rather. And why is NPR biased...is it because they don't lie? So you have to lie to the public to tell them what they want to hear...and that makes you unbiased. ok.
I think people are indifferent because nobody cares about Forehead Boy. I haven't seen anyone in this thread defending him. In fact, I'm the 3rd 'conservative' to blast him in this thread. He's totally irrelevant. The dude couldn't even get arrested if he sodomized the Pope.
But I can't tell you how many times we've heard people mention that Fox is the only legitimate news network. I'd argue Fox is the only illegitimate network. Others aren't perfect but they try. Fox doesn't even try. They are spew biased agenda.
