Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly alluded over the past week to the growing firestorm of critics blasting his habit of stretching the truth -- but he has stopped directly addressing their accusations against them, instead shifting tactics to simply attacking critical outlets of bias, inaccuracy, or low ratings without bothering to disprove the allegations or defend himself.

In his most recent March 5 broadcast, O'Reilly appeared to respond to the latest criticism of his habit of fabricating and exaggerating his reporting experience -- this time from MSNBC host Rachel Maddow -- not by addressing the substance of Maddow's critique against him, but by noting the “collapse of the ultra-liberal MSNBC network.”

But two weeks ago, when Mother Jones first revealed that O'Reilly had been untruthful about his reporting in Argentina -- he claimed that he was in a “combat zone” in the Falklands War and had seen protesters shot and killed during rioting, despite all evidence to the contrary -- he responded to the charges directly on air. On his next broadcast, on Friday, February 20, he lashed out at the magazine as “the bottom rung of journalism in America.”

O'Reilly also directly addressed the story on his next two broadcasts. 

On February 24, in a story published after O'Reilly began taping his broadcast, Media Matters reported on comments from O'Reilly's former colleagues, who said he lied about being on scene as a figure in the JFK assassination, George de Mohrenschildt, committed suicide. The next day, Media Matters further reported that O'Reilly never witnessed the murders of nuns in El Salvador.

As the number of fabrications piled up, O'Reilly appeared to shift tactics. February 25 was the first time O'Reilly didn't address the reporting on his tall tales directly on his show, instead addressing the controversy on the sly.

In a statement to Mediaite that night, O'Reilly changed his El Salvador story to claim he was referring to “horrendous images” of murdered nuns, rather than the first-hand observation he earlier claimed. His statement did not mention the JFK allegations.

Meanwhile, on-air O'Reilly instead began making indirect references to the controversy, telling viewers:

It's clear to anyone with eyes and a brain that the internet has become a superhighway of defamation. Anything goes. No accountability. We all know that. That situation has a chilling effect on democracy because falsehoods can become truth in weak minds. And there are plenty of those. So here's the truth. The truth really doesn't matter anymore, does it? At least in cyberspace there are scores of websites set up to injure people. I actually feel sorry for Hillary Clinton and the republican contenders. Each and every person who runs for president will be slimed beyond belief.

On February 26, the controversy again went unmentioned, with O'Reilly instead obliquely complaining in a segment on viewer mail that “The truth does not matter in many precincts including the media. It doesn't matter.”

The Guardian reported on February 26, after The Factor was already recording, that more of O'Reilly's former colleagues disputed yet another claim, that he had been attacked by protestors while covering the 1992 Los Angeles riots. O'Reilly was off on February 27, a Friday, when he would have had time to respond.

But on Monday, March 2, O'Reilly hosted two segments on the media, neither of which addressed the newest fabrications. O'Reilly complained in the first that “the rise of the internet” combined with “no editorial standards in many precincts” would contribute to “an unbelievable smear experience” in coverage of the 2016 election. After that, O'Reilly hosted Megyn Kelly to discuss a lawsuit that has been filed against Comcast and MSNBC host Al Sharpton.

Two days later on March 4, while discussing Google, O'Reilly complained, “Another one of these cyberspace things, you can throw my name, your name and then all kinds of garbage comes up about us that's not true and any human being in the world, the same. If you Google somebody half of what you read, three quarters of what you read won't be true.”

O'Reilly added the claim that “75 percent” of information on the Internet is “flat out false, lies, defamation and slander.”

And last night, O'Reilly lashed out at Rachel Maddow, ignoring the growing evidence against him.