Fox’s O’Reilly Defends His War Reporting Claims ~ THE 5TH ESTATE ASIA

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Fox’s O’Reilly Defends His War Reporting Claims

Saturday, February 21, 2015

“You know that I am not easily shocked. I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands,” Mr. O’Reilly wrote...

“I never said I was on the Falkland Islands, as Corn purports, I said I covered the Falklands War, which I did,”… Bill O'Reilly

WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Joe Flint

02/20/2015

Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly used his talk show on Friday to address a controversy over his war reporting record, calling a Mother Jones article on the subject a “political hit job.”

Love him, hate him: The evidence speaks

for itself

The article by David Corn and Daniel Schulman is headlined “Bill O’Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem,” and accuses the Fox News television host of greatly inflating his experiences covering the Falklands War in 1982 as well as reporting on El Salvador in 1981.

Mr. Williams of NBC’s “Nightly News” was recently suspended by the network for six months without pay for exaggerating his own experience during a reporting assignment in Iraq in 2003.

“For years, O’Reilly has recounted dramatic stories about his own war reporting that don’t withstand scrutiny—even claiming he acted heroically in a war zone that he apparently never set foot in,” the article said. Mr. Corn is also a contributor to Fox News rival MSNBC and was a contributor to Fox News for several years.

Specifically, Messrs. Corn and Schulman accuse Mr. O’Reilly of falsely stating that he had reported from the Falkland Islands while he was with CBS News . The pair cite Mr. O’Reilly’s book “The No Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America,” as evidence as well as several other public statements.

Final indicator: The libel suit - will O'Reilly file?

“You know that I am not easily shocked. I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands,” Mr. O’Reilly wrote in that book.

The article also quotes CBS News executives and talent who said Mr. O’Reilly wasn't on the Falkland Islands.

Mr. O’Reilly denied the accusations. “I never said I was on the Falkland Islands, as Corn purports, I said I covered the Falklands War, which I did,” Mr. O’Reilly said during his “Talking Points” commentary segment of Friday’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” He added that he covered the conflict from Argentina and faced danger there during riots.

“The violence was horrific,” he said.

A Fox News spokesperson referred requests for comment to Mr. O’Reilly’s remarks.

Mr. O’Reilly is Fox News’s biggest star, and has helped the company maintain its No. 1 position in the cable news ratings race for several years. Fox News is a major profit-driver for 21st Century Fox, and its passionate audience gives the company leverage over pay-TV distributors.

Mr. Corn said he is standing by his story, noting that, “we have video in which he said he was in a war zone in Argentina in the Falklands. He said that on his own show in April of 2013.” Mr. Corn said Mr. O’Reilly, who has made disparaging remarks about him, “is basically counting on the fact that bombast and name-calling as a diversionary tactic will work and distract people from assessing the facts of the matter.”

Until mid-2013, 21st Century Fox and The Wall Street Journal ownerNews Corp were part of the same company.

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