On the July 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly stated, “As the 2008 presidential race gets into high gear, you can expect more attacks on Fox News and The Factor by left-wingers who believe this network leans Republican,” adding, "[W]e're going to chronicle some of the dishonest musings by naming names." As an example, O'Reilly cited Rocky Mountain News media critic Dave Kopel, saying that “Kopel continues to mislead his readers about my reporting on the Boulder High School controversy, even though old Dave lost the debate.” O'Reilly was referring to Kopel's June 2 and July 14 columns, as well as a June 4 interview with Kopel regarding a controversial panel discussion about sex and drugs that was held April 10 at Boulder High School and sponsored by the University of Colorado's Conference on World Affairs (CWA).

As Colorado Media Matters noted, O'Reilly on his June 4 show called Kopel -- who is the research director of the free-market Independence Institute -- a “secular progressive” and “a guy who doesn't have any boundaries.” O'Reilly later said, "[I]f you're not a secular progressive, then I'm Donald Duck, Mr. Kopel. And I ... believe anybody watching this interview right now would say the same thing."

During his July 16 broadcast, O'Reilly criticized Kopel for a July 14 column in which Kopel referred to “O'Reilly's appallingly dishonest assault on Boulder High” following the CWA panel discussion. Kopel wrote:

If you hate Fox News, you will love Newshounds.us, a citizen activist Web site dedicated to criticizing Fox. I learned about the site a few weeks ago, for its coverage of Bill O'Reilly's numerous sensational untruths about Boulder High School. The site's motto is “We watch Fox so you don't have to” -- an especially useful service for readers such as myself, who don't have cable television.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted repeatedly, O'Reilly and 630 KHOW-AM radio co-hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman have mischaracterized the media coverage of and the public reaction to the panel discussion, “STDs: Sex, Teens, and Drugs,” held at Boulder High. For example, in addition to falsely asserting on his May 29 show that “there has been no public outcry in Boulder” over the panel discussion, O'Reilly on June 12 misrepresented a petition drafted, circulated, and signed by Boulder High students as “a petition to make me say I'm sorry about reporting the story and all that nonsense.” In fact, the petition stated that O'Reilly misreported the content of the panel discussion and slandered the city of Boulder and the principal of Boulder High School.

Similarly, on the June 5 broadcast of The Caplis & Silverman Show, O'Reilly accused Kopel of “making excuse after excuse after excuse” in defending Boulder High School against O'Reilly's false claims about the CWA panel. In fact, Kopel told O'Reilly during his June 4 appearance that a report he wrote for the Independence Institute “agree[d] with what the Boulder Valley School District board said ... which is that [CWA] panel was wrong because it was unbalanced.”

From the July 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Time now for the “Most Ridiculous Item of the Day.” As the 2008 presidential race gets into high gear, you can expect more attacks on Fox News and The Factor by left-wingers who believe this network leans Republican. So every Monday, we're going to chronicle some of the dishonest musings by naming names. Writing in the ultra-left Oregonian newspaper, Jonathan Nicholas completely distorts my speech to the syndicated columnists' group. I did that in Philadelphia. Writing in the Rocky Mountain News, Dave Kopel continues to mislead his readers about my reporting on the Boulder High School controversy, even though old Dave lost the debate, as the principal there was forced to apologize for the pro-drug assembly.