During the September 25 edition of his Fox News show, responding to criticism of his recent statement, documented by Media Matters for America, that “I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant [in Harlem] and any other restaurant in New York City ... even though [Sylvia's is] run by blacks,” Bill O'Reilly accused Media Matters of taking his comments “out of context.” During his nightly “Talking Points Memo,” he said that, "[e]very weekday, we do three hours of commentary -- two on the radio, one on TV" and claimed that, “every day, the far-left smear website Media Matters takes that commentary out of context and feeds the defamation out to the public.” O'Reilly added: "[W]e usually ignore it, until it is picked up by the so-called mainstream media. Elements at NBC News have made a living parroting Media Matters garbage, and now, sadly, CNN has jumped into the swamp." He also asserted: "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."
Media Matters provided the full transcript and audio of his comments talking about his dinner at Sylvia's with Rev. Al Sharpton.
Later, discussing other news organizations' coverage of O'Reilly's comments, Fox News contributor Juan Williams accused CNN of “rank dishonesty” and told O'Reilly: “They want to shut you up. They want to shut up anybody who has an honest discussion about race.” Then, in response to O'Reilly's claim that “CNN has joined NBC News in parroting far-left propaganda in an attempt to destroy me and Fox News Channel,” Williams said, "[T]hey want to marginalize you, Bill," later stating: "[W]hen you said you went up to Sylvia's, you said you went in there; the place was a normal restaurant, healthy discussion, people were pleased, and, in fact, they celebrated the fact that here is Bill O'Reilly with Al Sharpton -- 'Oh, my gosh, two celebrities are in the house.' And then you said everything settled down like a normal restaurant, ethnic like an Italian-neighborhood restaurant." O'Reilly replied: “Yeah ... it was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference.” In fact, what O'Reilly said was:
O“REILLY: Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they've had a very, very tough go of it, and some of them can get past that, and some of them cannot. I don't think there's a black American who hasn't had a personal insult that they've had to deal with because of the color of their skin. I don't think there's one in the country. So you've got to accept that as being the truth. People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible] ”You call me that, I'm gonna be more successful." OK, it depends on the personality.
So it's there. It's there, and I think it's getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out: “Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.”
You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he's made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.
And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin.
Finally, in a discussion with syndicated radio show host Laura Ingraham during his nightly “Unresolved Problem” segment, Ingraham stated: “And here comes this ridiculous, out-of-context play-around with your words when you were doing a segment condemning racism. It gets run on a [George] Soros-funded website. Then it gets picked up by lazy, lame-stream, dinosaur, old media, who are desperate for ratings. It is par for the course.” As Media Matters has repeatedly noted (here, here, and here), O'Reilly has made numerous and varying assertions about a link between Media Matters and Soros, and he has even created a "chart" purporting to depict Soros' “complicated political operation” in which “Soros and a few other wealthy radicals who help him are funneling money into the political process” by funding Media Matters. As previously indicated, Media Matters has never received funding from Soros, either directly or indirectly.
From the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
SANCHEZ [video clip]: He has some very strong things to say about some things that people are saying about him.
O'REILLY: CNN enters the dark side, spouting unbelievable far left propaganda. We'll have a report.
[...]
Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly -- thanks for watching us tonight. CNN goes over to the dark side. That is the subject of this evening's “Talking Points Memo.”
Every weekday, we do three hours of commentary -- two on the radio, one on TV -- and every day, the far-left smear website Media Matters takes that commentary out of context and feeds the defamation out to the public.
Media Matters, which acts in concert with the now notorious MoveOn, has labeled me anti-black, anti-Hispanic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. I'm sure I'll be a member of the Manson family shortly.
Of course, this is all nonsense, and we usually ignore it, until it is picked up by the so-called mainstream media. Elements at NBC News have made a living parroting Media Matters garbage, and now, sadly, CNN has jumped into the swamp.
Recently on The Radio Factor, I did an hour on how racism is dumb, how it is driven by fear, and I even used my own late grandmother as an example.
Now you can hear that radio hour on BillOreilly.com. It's very interesting discussion. And we didn't hear one complaint about the program that ran on more than 400 radio stations.
Well, yesterday, 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.
The reason CNN did this is because its ratings are abysmal. It is getting hammered by Fox News, so they're desperate for attention -- and smearing me is one way to get it.
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.
"Talking Points" has said many times on this broadcast that we respect CNN. We didn't attack them in any way. And in the past, they have been responsible -- but this is absurd. The Media Matters defamation was also picked up by the local ABC affiliate here in New York City -- again, totally irresponsible.
Finally, CNN did a documentary a few weeks ago by Christiane Amanpour. In that documentary, Ms. Amanpour put forth that religion has caused a lot of pain in the world. Now some considered her presentation anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. We could have easily hammered CNN and Ms. Amanpour. It would have been simple to do that, but we did not. They reported; the audience is smart enough to decide if anti-religion bias was present.
Failure leads to desperation. The Factor has been No. 1 for six consecutive years and defeats our cable news competition combined. The other cable news outlets are ratings disasters.
Last night, the Factor had six times as many viewers as CNN at 8:00 p.m., but that is no excuse for being dishonest -- and that's the Memo.
Now, for the top story tonight: Juan Williams was a big part of that Radio Factor hour. He joins us now from Washington with reaction.
You know, I'm all -- this is almost funny, if it wasn't so dangerous for the nation. We had you on because your book, Enough, which is now out in paperback, is a very intelligent discussion about racism in America, and to set up your appearance, I told l people about my grandmother and how she feared blacks even though she didn't know any blacks.
And then I proceeded to tell the audience how ridiculous the fear was by recounting a story about me going to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem with Al Sharpton. Now, you heard the comments. You saw everything. What do think about this dishonesty at CNN?
WILLIAMS: It's rank dishonesty. And the troubling thing is that if I hadn't participated in the discussion, if I was just tuning in to CNN, or listening to MSNBC, and heard that “Oh, Bill O'Reilly said he went to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem and they weren't using MF and all this kind of stuff,” I'd say “Oh, my God. What is he thinking? Where is that coming from? Why did he say something like that?” not understanding that that discussion -- Bill O'Reilly, you know, I'm telling you it's just -- it's so frustrating.
They want to shut you up. They want to shut up anybody who has an honest discussion about race. You mentioned your grandmother. You mentioned the idea that you know what? Your grandmother didn't know any black people. She watches TV. She gets these negative, horrible images of black people, and you had to say to her, “Grandma, you don't know anybody. You don't understand. I mean, you know, what are you going to say about Nat King Cole? What are you going to say about people like Willie Mays? What are you going to say about people that you admire?”
And now they take this discussion and somehow turn it on its head. I just -- I'm really appalled, and I say that as someone, you know, who's -- I mean, I just can't believe that this is going on. It's outrageous because the discussion we had was about how, too often, the images on TV are these rappers glorifying drugs, glorifying violence, degrading women, and that people like your grandmother -- and I defended your grandmother -- I said, “Your grandmother's watching TV and what does she see? All these negative images of black people.”
O'REILLY: Yeah, I was tougher on my grandmother than you were.
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
O'REILLY: I mean, but anybody listening to it -- and we have it on BillOreilly.com, so the whole world can listen to it -- would, I think, have appreciated the discussion for being an exposition of why people are afraid of not only blacks, but everybody they don't know. That was the theme.
But here's the danger, Juan. I've been attacked 109 times in one year by Media Matters. They attack conservative and traditional commentators. They never attack liberals. OK?
This -- what can we do? It's freedom of speech. They can do whatever they want.
But 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. I think -- I've never seen anything like this in the media, ever.
WILLIAMS: Well, you know what?
O'REILLY: In a presidential year, this becomes ultra-dangerous. Go ahead.
WILLIAMS: It's very dangerous,, but it's -- they're -- they want to marginalize you, Bill. They want to shut you up.
But here is my complaint. They're trying to shut up anybody who's having an honest thought about race relations in this country and wants to speak honestly about the damage being done by the likes of these rappers and these comedians who use the “N” word --
O'REILLY: Absolutely.
WILLIAMS: -- and all of that. You know what? They don't -- they're willing to celebrate Snoop Dogg or Twista or any of these guys who go out there and present these minstrel-show images of black people.
But then when these images go out and they impact not only white people -- and I think too often white people enjoy watching black people act the fool on TV -- these minstrel shows like Flavor of Love and all the rest, but it has such a pernicious impact on young black people who are trying to establish their own identify because they say --
O'REILLY: Right, and that's the theme of --
WILLIAMS: -- if you act -- if you walk around like a clown and talk badly, that's authentically correct.
O'REILLY: That's cool, right.
WILLIAMS: Oh, my gosh.
O'REILLY: And that's what you talk about in the book, and that's what our discussion was about.
WILLIAMS: That's what the discussion was about.
O'REILLY: Right.
WILLIAMS: And when you said you went to up to Sylvia's, you said you went in there; the place was a normal restaurant, healthy discussion, people were pleased and, in fact, they celebrated the fact that here is Bill O'Reilly with Al Sharpton -- “Oh, my gosh, two celebrities are in the house.”
And then you said everything settled down like a normal restaurant, ethnic like an Italian-neighborhood restaurant --
O'REILLY: Yeah, there wasn't any -- it was an attempt to tell the radio audience that there is no difference.
WILLIAMS: Correct.
O'REILLY: Black, white, we're all Americans. The stereotypes they see on television are not true. None of that --
WILLIAMS: That's right and I'm glad you said that.
O'REILLY: None of that was mentioned. Right.
WILLIAMS: You should repeat that so they hear it again. You said, “Stereotypes are not true.” I said to [you,] you should go up there more often. It shouldn't be a foreign trip. But it had nothing to do with races ranting by anybody --
O'REILLY: Right.
WILLIAMS: -- except these idiots at CNN.
O'REILLY: Well, CNN has lost all credibility with me and this network, and it's just a shame. We knew that MSNBC were a bunch of smear merchants. We didn't expect this from CNN.
Juan, thanks very much. By the way, Al Sharpton will be here tomorrow. He was my dinner companion up there, and it should be an interesting discussion.
[...]
O'REILLY: “Unresolved problem” segment tonight: Most of the left-wing press in America condemned Ahmadinejad's words, but not his appearance at Columbia University.
Joining us now from Indianapolis to analyze -- radio talk show star Laura Ingraham, the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-seller, Power to the People. Congratulations to you. That will tee them off over there. Your book debuts at No. 1.
LAURA INGRAHAM: Oh, they're not going to like it. Thanks, Bill.
O'REILLY: Good for you. Good for you.
INGRAHAM: Thank you.
O'REILLY: You want to react to the CNN thing with Juan Williams? I just -- you know, just when I think it can't get any worse, it gets worse.
INGRAHAM: Well, Bill, actually, during the break, I went on one of the Soros websites -- the websites that he funds -- and not only are you racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Hispanic, you also are now are [sic] anti-Eskimo. So there's something else going on in the air. So, it's just --
O'REILLY: What did I do to be anti-Eskimo?
INGRAHAM: I don't know. I'm looking into it, but it's -- but, look, here's where we are. We have these so-called mainstream media in the United States. CNN is still part of it, even though it's on cable. And they always are saying that the bloggers can't be trusted because the bloggers don't do enough investigation, that CNN and ABC and NBC, they have the investigative teams, and they're going to give us the real news.
Remember during the Swift Boat situation and with the National Guard documents? And here comes this ridiculous out of context play around with your words when you were doing a segment condemning racism. It gets run on a Soros-funded website.
Then it gets picked up by lazy, lame-stream, dinosaur, old media, who are desperate for ratings. It is par for the course. They're basically just going to the Internet, not doing any work, and repeating.
O'REILLY: Right.
INGRAHAM: And that's actually -- that's dangerous.
O'REILLY: But they were told, and they knew it was dishonest and did it anyway.
But here's the thing: In a presidential year, you now have two outlets -- NBC News and CNN, which we proved -- we have proven, are taking far left propaganda and spitting it out at their audience, and that's dangerous, because how are people going to be able to make an intelligent decision on who to vote for?
INGRAHAM: Well, I think we have to be responsible news consumers, even if they're not responsible news producers. That means we have to watch this show, other great shows on Fox, go on cable networks that will actually give you a different perspective, maybe even a spiritual perspective.
O'REILLY: But you're asking people to be responsible, Laura, and you know that a lot of people --
INGRAHAM: Yeah, we have to be.
O'REILLY: -- just aren't. They're just going to be --
INGRAHAM: Well --
O'REILLY: -- swayed by it.
INGRAHAM: Right, I think -- yeah. I think you're right, but, look, I think it's been proven now The New York Times is in the pocket of groups like MoveOn.org. George Soros is -- I think he's still shorting the dollar, isn't he? I mean, he's always betting against America.
O'REILLY: This guy might buy the election, Soros. He's got a lot of power. As you said, he runs these websites --
INGRAHAM: Well --
O'REILLY: -- and they do this dishonest stuff --
INGRAHAM: Yeah.
O'REILLY: -- and now it's picked up.