Tue, May 4, 2004 7:57pm ET

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O'Reilly does it again

On May 3, the very day that Media Matters for America released a report documenting FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly's comparison of Molly Ivins, Bill Maher, Bill Moyers, and Larry David to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, O'Reilly did it again, comparing UC Berkeley journalism dean Orville Schell to Castro and asserting that Eric Alterman, author of the book What Liberal Media?, is "another Fidel Castro confidant."

O'Reilly made these statements during a panel discussion about alleged liberal bias in New York Times book reviews. His guests for the segment were FOX News Channel contributor and weekly FOX News Watch panelist Jane Hall, who is a professor of print journalism at the American University School of Communication; and Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group. From the May 3 broadcast of The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: OK. Now, Jane, you're in academia. You teach at American University. Do you know [Orville] Schell, the dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California Berkeley?

HALL: I don't know him, I know who he is.

O'REILLY: You know Orville, right? How would you categorize him as far as politics are concerned?

HALL: I would say he was probably to the left and liberal.

O'REILLY: Yes, around Fidel Castro, right? Somewhere in there?

(crosstalk)

O'REILLY: Somewhere in the Straits of Florida [i.e., near Castro], because we have had Dean Schell on the program. And he wanted to take my car and I wouldn't let him. Anyway, he reviews a book by Eric Alterman, another Fidel Castro confidant, "What Liberal Media?", and Orville loves it. What do you think is going on here, Jane?

This is not the first time that O'Reilly has compared Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to people with whom he disagrees. As previously documented by Media Matters for America, in an April 20 exchange with author Arianna Huffington, O'Reilly equated author and syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, comic and former TV host Bill Maher, Bill Moyers of PBS, and Seinfeld director Larry David with Castro.

—G.W.

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