Hoover says O'Reilly's claim that "If you don't have a father supporting the family, you'll probably be poor" is "sexist"

I'm a feminist. Many people would call me a radical feminist (tho' strictly speaking, that's not my crowd & they wouldn't want me anyway). But despite my pretty darn progressive credentials and my general disdain for Bill's rampant sexism, this is a stupid quote to use if you're trying to prove Bill O'Reilly is sexist. It is literally true that if you don't have a man supporting the family, you're more likely to be poor. I haven't checked the latest census tables, but from context it looks like he's talking attempting to talk about homes with children. If you take all the lesbian couple families, single mom families and any other home with children and at least one adult but no man among the adults (and no man paying upkeep but living elsewhere), there's a large percentage of them that are poor by government definitions. And, of course, government standards are pretty strict. So this is arguable. 

In some communities, it is in fact true - poverty for African American children is, in fact, 'probable' if the children live in a household where a man is not contributing to their upkeep. Bill has proved he is insensitive and sexist in quite a number of ways. Loofas come to mind. This comes across as nitpicking. While it probably does reflect an unconscious exaggeration of actual statistical descriptions of the real world, I don't find it worth a column. Seems weird to call him out on this when so many things that the media are distorting and misreporting are more important. 

You miss the point. Bill O lies. He spouts egregiously sexist comments. When we list that stuff in context, we win. He comes off as the blowhard - and deceitful blowhard at that - that he is.

 When you post something that is arguably wrong, we lose power. Haven't you heard of the boy who cried wolf? 

Nitpicking isn't what we do here - at least it isn't most of what we do here. Most of the posts address truly important issues and are impossible to argue with (from a truth/fact perspective). Not very often are opinions stated. Mostly people hang themselves & Media Matters just allows more people to witness it and, if so inclined, to respond to the institution responsible for the mistake and/or correcting it. 

 I posted b/c even tho - as I said - I believe that an uncoscious but clearly sexist bias led Bill to use "probable" instead of "much more probable", we have him dead to rights on so many other things, we don't need to have people think our case rests on being right on this issue. 

 If you haven't noticed that, you haven't read too much media criticism. I have an interest in a strong Media Matters organization - which means (among other things) an organization that will be taken seriously when it raises an issue. Thus I posted to encourage David Brock and the other good folx at MM to think just a little harder before they post.

We have a place for schadenfreude and nitpicking and reveling in the incompetence, stupidity and duplicity of Fox News & Bill O - it's called www.newshounds.us  Newshounds has a different roll and this item would have been perfect for that site. Here on MM which is trying hard to be taken as seriously as its right-wing counterparts, the post detracts from the overall tone and quality of the site.