On the May 3 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly again purported to find a nefarious link between Media Matters for America and philanthropist George Soros. Responding to an Indiana University study that found that “O'Reilly called a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the ['Talking Points Memo'] editorials that open his program each night,” O'Reilly stated: “But somehow, some way, their research wound up in the hands of Media Matters, the smear Internet site partly funded by enterprises connected to George Soros. And guess what? Media Matters issued a press release about the terrible 'Talking Points Memos.' ” The “somehow, some way” that Media Matters found out about the research was through an IU press release promoting the study and its results.

On the May 3 show, O'Reilly filled viewers in on what he called “the back story” on the Indiana University study: “Last week we showed you this chart detailing where far-left billionaire George Soros contributes money and how his propaganda machine works its way through the Internet and into the mainstream media. Soros and his gang were furious with that exposition. So we knew blowback was coming. Thus, the Indiana/Media Matters nonsense."

O'Reilly's self-proclaimed “exposition” was the utterly false claim that Media Matters received money from Soros. After Media Matters noted that Soros had never given the organization money, O'Reilly claimed that Soros funneled money to Media Matters through the Tides Foundation. As Media Matters documented, on the April 26 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly accused Media Matters of lying about its funding and noted that Tides donated over $1 million to Media Matters in 2005, "[a]nd just by coincidence Soros' Open Society Institute [OSI] donated more than a million dollars to Tides in 2005." He then added: “Figure it out.” But O'Reilly's conclusion that Soros donated $1 million to Media Matters through the Tides Foundation is false. OSI's donations to Tides were earmarked for several specific programs, and Media Matters was not included on this list. O'Reilly's reference on May 3 to Media Matters as “the smear Internet site partly funded by enterprises connected to George Soros” represents a complete -- though unacknowledged -- abandonment of his previous claim that Media Matters has received money from Soros. While O'Reilly made that claim, however, on-screen text described Media Matters as “party [sic] funded by George Soros.”

O'Reilly purported to complete the Soros-Indiana-Media Matters connection with the following: “By the way, did you know that Soros' Open Society Institute [OSI] donated $5 million to Indiana University? I'm sure that was just a coincidence,” suggesting that the study was the result of the donation. O'Reilly is presumably referring to a $5 million donation by the OSI to the school in 2005; in fact, that donation was directed to establish an endowment for the American University of Central Asia in Kyrgyzstan, with the U.S. Agency for International Development providing another $10 million. OSI has partnered with IU in other ventures, such as higher education curriculum development in Azerbaijan, preparing Burmese refugees for college, and a degree program for teaching second languages in Kazakhstan.

Further, according to the IU press release on the O'Reilly study, “The researchers received no grant funding for this study.”

So the link that O'Reilly was purporting to expose amounts to the following: Soros gave Indiana University $5 million for a project in Kyrgyzstan; researchers in IU's journalism and communications departments produced a study on O'Reilly that has no connection to Kyrgyzstan and received no grant money; and Media Matters learned of the study through the means by which presumably everyone else did -- a press release.

From the May 3 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us tonight. Calling people names, that's the subject of this evening's “Talking Points Memo.”

Did you know that I, your humble correspondent, call somebody a name every 6.8 seconds during my T-Points presentation each evening? Did you know that? That's awful! I should be ashamed. I denigrate somebody nine times every minute. How could I? Now, that astounding analysis, if you want to call it that, comes from three Indiana University researchers. I'm sure they're excellent folks.

But somehow, some way, their research wound up in the hands of Media Matters, the smear Internet site partly funded by enterprises connected to George Soros. And guess what? Media Matters issued a press release about the terrible “Talking Points Memos.”

What the press release did not say, however, is that the Indiana researchers consider pretty much every description to be name-calling. Quoting from the study: “The terms conservative, liberal, left, right, progressive, traditional or centrist were treated as name-calling if they were associated with a problem or social ill,” unquote. Aha! Now here's the back story.

Last week we showed you this chart detailing where far-left billionaire George Soros contributes money and how his propaganda machine works its way through the Internet and into the mainstream media. Soros and his gang were furious with that exposition. So we knew blowback was coming. Thus the Indiana/Media Matters nonsense.

By the way, did you know that Soros' Open Society Institute donated $5 million to Indiana University? I'm sure that was just a coincidence. Also sure that Soros is very disappointed he didn't get more bang for the buck this time around. Most of the committed left press didn't mention the nutty Indiana paper. Only those truly bought and paid for elements at NBC News and Rosie O'Donnell spit it out there.

[begin video clip]

ROSIE O'DONNELL: Go ahead, Behar, what do you got?

JOY BEHAR: I said do you want to have a fight with O'Reilly because he calls people names every 6.8 seconds apparently. Bill O'Reilly on his show.

O'DONNELL: Yeah, there was an article in the paper. He insults someone or calls someone a name every 6.8 seconds.

BEHAR: Wow!

[end video clip]

O'REILLY: The problem is, Rosie, that no newspaper we could find printed that propaganda. You and Behar got it from Media Matters, your daily source of deception. So once again, it's beyond a reasonable doubt that the radical-left Soros has built a very smooth propaganda machine that has direct access to both the ABC and NBC television networks. Think about that. That is power.

Finally, let's add up the name-calling tonight. Let's see, there was humble correspondent, smear sites, radical left, committed left, nutty, deception, Behar, and Rosie. Wait, wait -- the last two were real names, so that's only six examples of name-calling in three minutes. Far below my average. I must be slipping. That's the “Memo.”