Wednesday, July 12, 2006

You've got to be kidding me

From ThinkProgress

Last night, Bill O’Reilly and radio host Laura Ingraham tag teamed to slam the New York Times for publishing a picture of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s vacation home. O’Reilly repeatedly called the publication of the picture “awful.” O’Reilly didn’t mention that the pictures were taken with Rumsfeld’s permission and the Secret Service said the photo did not constitute a security threat. Watch it:

I keep hearing the refrain, "why waste your time writing about Michelle Malkin and the like" whenever someone spends time addressing her and her compatriots. This is the short answer: because we have to.

The utterly ridiculous furor over the Times Travel section story (which resulted in the home address and phone number of the Travel section photographer being posted on the internet along with another blogger issuing a call to "Go hunt [Times editors and reporters] down and do America a favor. Get their photo, street address, where their kids go to school, anything you can dig up, and send it to the link above" to be posted on the internet) started at the blogs of Malkin and compatriots. Those bloggers should have been left with zero credibility after this incident.

Yet here we are, a week later, and one of the most influential pundits with one of the largest audiences in the country, is recycling the complaints of the bloggers as if they are legitimate complaints without mentioning or addressing the thuggish behavior that resulted from their posts.

O'Reilly reaches a target audience of millions. That's millions of people that this nonsense is transmitted to.

So that's why we must spend time responding to these bloggers. Ignored, their message only amplifies and gets louder.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Re: Bill O'reilly - website only, which he's been running around 4 years - some figures.

we have what we call a 'toxicity index' which records his web/net appeal in ppm.

this year his traffic is down 23 percent.
his TI Nov/04 peaked at 1200ppm. This year from January - TI=100 - thro June - TI=40.

Marked changes. To some extent I'm told reflected in his other media profilings.

I can understand and admire your need for prompt rebuttal of his mouthings but 'millions' might suggest more for his audience than is the case. Today.

With best wishes

Anonymous said...

O'Reilly should be fired for this. Either he did no fact checking whatsoever (not only failing to duplicate your results, but failing to even *find* where they had already been published by you and others), or he knew it was a lie when he aired it.

Even aside from the death threat issue, he put his name on statements that were already well known to be lies.

Gross incompetence or outright dishonesty.