Bill O’Reilly’s 1982 Falklands War stories called into question

[Havard]

Whether this is an agenda-driven story or not, I see little point in bringing it up. O’Reilly’s fans don’t care if he’s a liar. He could go on TV tonight and admit he made up every detail of his war correspondent experience, and his fans would laud for being so honest about his decades long deception.

Wow. What an ignorant, offensive comment.

Not to mention ironic, considering you’re making up a false caricature while bemoaning your target’s lack of concern for the truth.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Did you watch O’Reilly last week? I did. I watched his show all week. He didn’t over-cover the Williams story. In fact, he defended Williams on his show, more than once, and he also defended Williams on Kimmel:

politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/bill-oreilly-defends-brian-williams-202381.html

The Mother Jones description of his coverage of the Brian Williams story wasn’t even remotely an accurate portrayal of his actual coverage of the story. They cherrypicked a clip out of context - he in NO WAY made the Williams issue about liberals - and they now are pushing the ridiculous idea that his coverage ticked off former coworkers. Yeah right.

You might be interested in knowing that Mother Jones has quite a thing for O’Reilly:

motherjones.com/search/apachesolr_search/bill%20o’reilly

MotherJones is a far-left media outlet.

 

[estesbob]

Oreilly destroyed the story tonight-producing contemporaneous letters and memos.I doubt Mother Jones will apologize,however

 

[meltzerboy]

news.yahoo.com/bill-o-reilly-s-1982-falklands-war-coverage-called-into-question-143346003.html
Did O’Reilly tell the truth about his coverage of the Falklands war?
Here are some quotes which are being questioned:
“I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down…"
“You know that I am not easily shocked. I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands.”
“Hey, Colonel, did you ever have a hostile point an M-16 at your head from 10 yards away? That happened to me while I was covering the Falklands war.”
But O’Reilly says that “Everything I’ve said about my career is 100 percent accurate,” …“I never said I was on the Falkland Islands.

latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-oreilly-falklands-20150219-story.html
theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/20/fox-news-bill-oreilly-accused-of-exaggerating-war-zone-exploits
mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/20/veteran-war-reporters-oreillys-falklands-fibs-v/202590

Isn’t Bill O’Reilly more of a television personality and entertainer than a journalist? I think of him as an (angry) artist, so a little creativity on his part would not be out of place.

 

[AyJSimon]

Wow. What an ignorant, offensive comment.

Not to mention ironic, considering you’re making up a false caricature while bemoaning your target’s lack of concern for the truth.

O’Reilly got sued for sexual harassment back in 2004, and settled the suit about two weeks later for millions of dollars. His accuser had lurid audio tapes of him. Did his ratings suffer? Did Fox take him off the air, for even a little while? Nope and nope.

O’Reilly’s audience is made up of liberals who can’t help hate-watching him, and true-believers who couldn’t honestly care less how much he embellishes the stories that go out on his air. He has this on-air cowboy persona - nevermind that he has the same Ivy League credentials as the “elites” he rails against. O’Reilly will have a job no matter what he does, so long as he continues to draw an audience and he will. NBC at least had the nerve to take Brian Williams off the air - who knows where their ratings will end up as a result.

 

[Path_Finder]

Isn’t Bill O’Reilly more of a television personality and entertainer than a journalist? I think of him as an (angry) artist, so a little creativity on his part would not be out of place.

So you know he was this over 30 years ago? And after all, he did manage to go on the road to report this story but don’t let the facts get in the way of some negative attributions towards him.

 

[Havard]

Isn’t Bill O’Reilly more of a television personality and entertainer than a journalist? I think of him as an (angry) artist, so a little creativity on his part would not be out of place.

He has an editorial show, so he no longer covers news as a straight news reporter, but he has a very legitimate resume when it comes to journalism. He has plenty of faults - a big ego, often rude, often (but increasingly less so) hot-headed - but as far as I’m aware, he’s never fabricated stories and I’d be very surprised if he did.

I highly suggest you catch his response to the Mother Jones story that aired tonight. I imagine it’ll be uploaded onto foxnews.com/oreilly by tomorrow.

 

[meltzerboy]

So you know he was this over 30 years ago? And after all, he did manage to go on the road to report this story but don’t let the facts get in the way of some negative attributions towards him.

Who is being negative? I consider him a creative artist and entertainer. He fills an important niche on television.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Who is being negative? I consider him a creative artist and entertainer. He fills an important niche on television.

That may be a more positive view of Mr. O’Reilly than some conservatives have.

 

[meltzerboy]

He has an editorial show, so he no longer covers news as a straight news reporter, but he has a very legitimate resume when it comes to journalism. He has plenty of faults - a big ego, often rude, often (but increasingly less so) hot-headed - but as far as I’m aware, he’s never fabricated stories and I’d be very surprised if he did.

I highly suggest you catch his response to the Mother Jones story that aired tonight. I imagine it’ll be uploaded onto foxnews.com/oreilly by tomorrow.

East meets West…yes, I’ll check it out. Thanks!

 

[Havard]

Who is being negative? I consider him a creative artist and entertainer. He fills an important niche on television.

Creative suggests he makes stuff up. At least that’s how I read it. Which I don’t think is fair. He presents his POV, but that’s what all editorialists do.

 

[Tomdstone]

So you know he was this over 30 years ago?

Actually it was two years ago in 2013 that the video shows O’reilly saying, "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands,

 

[livnlern]

According to Wikipedia, O’Reilly had a pretty normal childhood, went to Catholic schools and worked his way up in the broadcasting industry. He has no elitist credentials. He did get a Masters degree from Harvard but that was after teaching high school English to students in Miami, among other jobs. He was in his 40s by the time he got this, so presumably he paid his own way.

 

[Tomdstone]

I highly suggest you catch his response to the Mother Jones story that aired tonight.

O’Reillys response, with “fact checking” from Mother Jones, can be found here:
Bill O’Reilly Responds. We Annotate.
motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/david-corn-response-oreilly-falklands
In the annotation, Mother Jones editor mentioned another questionable report:
“Another part of the story concerned O’Reilly’s portrayal of a reporting assignment he had in El Salvador in 1982. In a book, he described a harrowing trip to a village that “was leveled to the ground and fires were still smoldering. But even though the carnage was obviously recent, we saw no one live or dead. There was absolutely nobody around who could tell us what happened. I quickly did a stand-up amid the rubble and we got the hell out of there.” Yet the 1982 news broadcast he filed and that aired on the CBS Evening News showed residents walking about this hamlet and only one or two burned-down structures.”
motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/david-corn-response-oreilly-falklands

 

[Path_Finder]

Actually it was two years ago in 2013 that the video shows O’reilly saying, "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands,

No, he covered the war in 1982, that’s when the war over the Falklands/Malvinas was.

Besides, if O’Reilly embellished it, its nothing like talking about one’s helicopter being hit by enemy fire or however it was that Williams said it.

Mother Jones is a big abortion supporter too.

 

[Havard]

O’Reillys response, with “fact checking” from Mother Jones, can be found here:
Bill O’Reilly Responds. We Annotate.
motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/david-corn-response-oreilly-falklands
In the annotation, Mother Jones editor mentioned another questionable report:
“Another part of the story concerned O’Reilly’s portrayal of a reporting assignment he had in El Salvador in 1982. In a book, he described a harrowing trip to a village that “was leveled to the ground and fires were still smoldering. But even though the carnage was obviously recent, we saw no one live or dead. There was absolutely nobody around who could tell us what happened. I quickly did a stand-up amid the rubble and we got the hell out of there.” Yet the 1982 news broadcast he filed and that aired on the CBS Evening News showed residents walking about this hamlet and only one or two burned-down structures.”
motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/david-corn-response-oreilly-falklands

Did you watch his whole segment, or just read that edited and annotated version? That’s not the whole thing. I hope you’re listening to both sides, and not just relying on Mother Jones.

 

[Path_Finder]

O’Reilly worked for CBS in those days, 1982. This article puts things in rightful perspective versus looking at it nowadays:

O’Reilly, still a CBS News correspondent, shifted to Buenos Aires to cover the Falklands Islands War when it erupted in April 1982. From the capital city, he covered the war fever, but as it happened, he mostly covered the huge street demonstrations in opposition to the Argentine dictatorship that had started the Falklands War—and then lost it. Those demonstrations, by the way, were so intense and violent that the government ultimately agreed to permit free elections. So O’Reilly was an eyewitness to an epic regime-change.

The MoJo article suggests that the war-fighting was in the Falklands, more than 1,000 miles from Buenos Aires, where British armed forces recaptured the archipelago from the Argentine invaders. And yes, that’s true, but the fighting was only 300 miles from the Argentine coastline. Indeed, the whole of the the South Atlantic region was a hot zone: in May 1982, a British submarine torpedo sank the Argentina cruiser Gen. Belgrano. and a few days later, the Argentines used the then-new device known as a cruise missile to sink the HMS Sheffield.

At the time, nobody knew how the fighting would go or when it would stop—and whether or not it would spread to Argentina itself. In all, more than 1,000 British servicemen were killed or wounded, and more than 2,000 Argentinians lost their lives. And the regime-changing riots in Buenos Aires were no picnic, either.

breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/02/20/misfire-mother-jones-trolls-bill-oreilly-with-hair-splitting-to-avenge-brian-williams/

 

[Tomdstone]

No, he covered the war in 1982, that’s when the war over the Falklands/Malvinas was.

One of his statements on this was 2 years ago.

This is what O’Reilly said in April 2013:
“I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I’m looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.”
Here is the video:
youtube.com/watch?v=l3veRZuHSew

 

[estesbob]

One of his statements on this was 2 years ago.

This is what O’Reilly said in April 2013:
“I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I’m looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important.”
Here is the video:
youtube.com/watch?v=l3veRZuHSew

Which is exactly what the memos and the letter he released verify .

 

[Larry1700]

Whether this is an agenda-driven story or not, I see little point in bringing it up. O’Reilly’s fans don’t care if he’s a liar. He could go on TV tonight and admit he made up every detail of his war correspondent experience, and his fans would laud for being so honest about his decades long deception.

Well, for the record, I’m one O’Reilly watcher for whom it would make a difference.

Fox viewers aren’t lemmings, as your post indicates. There are things I have disagreed with. I can tell you I was very upset at the way he interviewed the priest that was part of an exorcism. He chose to use the time to say that the Catholic Church has lost some of its moral authority due to the sex scandal. While that is true, he missed a great opportunity to inform atheists who might watch his show that there are real demons, as the exorcism showed.

While I watch O’Reilly, I much prefer The Kelly File over The O’Reilly Factor, because Kelly’s interviewing style is better, and because O’Reilly tries too hard to stay in the “Independent” category. He ignores so much about all of the influences on Obama’s outlook on America and Christianity.

I strongly prefer Fox to other news outlets because their news coverage generally comes from a Judaeo-Christian, American, perspective, unlike other networks I have watched.