USA Today's editorial board is calling on Fox News to “distance itself” from the network's “truth-challenged” Bill O'Reilly in the wake of revelations that the Fox host has repeatedly lied about some of his experiences as a reporter.
Bill O'Reilly's record has come under scrutiny after Mother Jones and Media Matters exposed a series of lies and exaggerations about his reporting during the Falklands War and the El Salvadoran Civil War. In the former case, O'Reilly repeatedly suggested to viewers he was in a combat zone in the Falkland Islands when no CBS News reporters (O'Reilly's employer at the time) ever reached the area. In the latter case, O'Reilly said on multiple occasions that he witnessed the execution of four American churchwomen in El Salvador - an event that took place before he was even in the country.
Another Media Matters investigation has turned up questions about his claims to have heard the gunshot that killed a figure in the investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination. And The Guardian reported that six of O'Reilly's former colleagues dispute his account of having been “attacked by protesters” during the L.A. riots.
In a February 27 editorial, USA Today called for Fox distance itself from O'Reilly, but acknowledged that this is unlikely to happen because Fox News doesn't hold itself to the same standards of journalism that outlets like NBC News does.
“Fox News was not created to be neutral but rather to feed a hunger among conservatives for a network they could relate to,” wrote the editors. They added that Fox has built a profitable business model around the misconception that the network has an exclusive hold on reality and impartiality -- and that the rest of the news media industry is untrustworthy:
Fox News was not created to be neutral but rather to feed a hunger among conservatives for a network they could relate to. For decades, the so-called mainstream news media left them with the impression that the press, liberals and the Democratic Party shared the same enemies: them. According to a Gallup Poll last fall, even one in five Democrats think the news media are too liberal.
That was never the networks' goal. Their news divisions are built on a commitment to impartiality. But good intentions don't guarantee success, and Fox has turned perception of liberal bias into a profitable reality. As a business matter, Fox doesn't need to compete on credibility. Many of its viewers long ago decided the rest of the news media have none.
That's why, absent any earth-shattering revelations, O'Reilly isn't going anywhere. Every time media critics hit Fox and O'Reilly, it just feeds the feeling that the left is out to get them, which in turn feeds Fox's success.