The headline of a September 26 Newsday article on Fox News host Bill O'Reilly's controversial remarks about a Harlem restaurant run by African-Americans asserted: “O'Reilly lashes out at CNN over misquoted report.” Yet the article itself provided no examples in which O'Reilly was purportedly “misquoted,” nor did it quote O'Reilly claiming to have been “misquoted.” Rather, the article reported that O'Reilly claimed his words were taken “out of context.”
Additionally, the article claimed that O'Reilly's “commentary was reported on by several media organizations yesterday, including The Associated Press, after Mediamatters.org released a partial transcript.” In fact, Media Matters for America provided the relevant transcript and audio clip of O'Reilly's remarks, which included the full context of his statements.
Contrary to the article's headline, O'Reilly did not claim to have been “misquoted” by Media Matters or CNN while discussing the controversy over his remarks on the September 25 broadcast of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. Instead, O'Reilly claimed that his comments were taken “out of context.” O'Reilly asserted that "Media Matters distorted the entire conversation and implied I was racist for condemning racism. Stunningly, CNN echoed the defamation on at least three of its programs." He continued:
O'REILLY: Unfortunately, many in CNN's audience have no idea what I said, and some believe the garbage they are hearing.
Now, I talked to CNN last night before that program. It was obvious they didn't listen to The Radio Factor, so I explained the deal. They went ahead with the racist angle anyway. This is dishonest and dangerous. If a slime machine like Media Matters can get its far-left propaganda on CNN and NBC News, the nation is in trouble.
Later, while discussing the issue with Fox News contributor Juan Williams, O'Reilly added: “CNN knew this was distorted, knew what they were doing was wrong, because we told them -- and put it on anyway. So, now what you have is CNN has joined NBC News in parroting far-left propaganda in an attempt to destroy me and the Fox News Channel and to deceive their viewers.”
From the Newsday article, headlined “O'Reilly lashes out at CNN over misquoted report”:
Bill O'Reilly blasted CNN last night for taking out of context -- his words -- a radio commentary from his Sept. 19 radio show that was cited by a media monitoring Web site as an example of his racial insensitivity.
The commentary was reported on by several media organizations yesterday, including The Associated Press, after Mediamatters.org released a partial transcript, though O'Reilly reserved his ire for CNN on last night's “Factor,” calling his competitor “dishonest and dangerous.” CNN anchor Rick Sanchez had discussed the report yesterday on the program, “Out in the Open.” A CNN spokesman couldn't be reached for comment last night.
[...]
But O'Reilly said the context of the discussion had been about his grandmother, who didn't know any African-Americans but had based her assumptions about them on portrayals by the entertainment industry, and the comment about Sylvia's was meant to illustrate how distorted her perspective was.
As part of common refrain by O'Reilly going back years, he's often blamed the rap industry -- and Ludacris, in particular -- for creating negative stereotypes that both white and black kids embrace.
His radio commentary, he said, “was an attempt to tell the radio audience, black or white, that we're all Americans [and] the stereotypes you see on TV are not true.”
UPDATE: After Media Matters for America noted Newsday's erroneous headline, the online version was changed to assert “O'Reilly fires back at CNN report,” although Newsday did not note the change. The original headline still appears on the Newsday mobile version of the article.
