Tag Results for Bill O'Reilly

Why would anyone at CNN think it was a good idea to give a prime-time talk show to former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker? There is only one reason anyone thinks Spitzer will be a ratings winner, and it's not his non-existent journalism background or even his sharp analytical mind.

I'm not going to rehash what I've said before about CNN; you can read it here if you like.

Briefly, though, CNN touts itself as a profitable, news-driven alternative to the ideological talk shows on Fox and MSNBC. So why act as though your every programming decision is based on ratings?If CNN is truly in a different business from Fox and MSNBC, then what does it mean to say CNN comes in "third"?

Given that there is almost no way CNN can have an impact at 8 p.m. against the O'Reilly-Olbermann juggernaut, Jon Klein and company should have tried something radical. Like news. How about an hour of CNN International, which everyone who has traveled overseas tells me is exponentially better than what's on the three U.S. cable nets?

I can’t say I’ve ever watched Campbell Brown’s program (photo) on CNN. In fact, I almost never have the TV on at 8 p.m. So this has nothing to do with what she is offering viewers.

Instead, I want to ask a question about her announcement that she is leaving because she concluded her non-partisan program couldn’t compete for ratings with the opinion-driven talk shows hosted by Bill O’Reilly on the Fox News Channel and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

Simply put: Why?

CNN executives keep telling us that they alone are offering news, while Fox and MSNBC are just talk stations. They also keep telling us that CNN is very profitable. Given those two pieces of information, why should they see Fox and MSNBC as their principal competitors any more than they worry about TLC or the Food Network?

There’s a real disconnect here, and CNN honchos had better figure it out as they go about retooling their ratings-challenged prime-time line-up.

"Beat the Press" panelists sound off on their rants and raves of the week: Topics include the Tea Party closes its doors to the media; Candy Crowley's new gig at CNN; demanding more transparency from South Hadley school officials following a student's suicide; Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly square off; and Katie Couric's photoshoot for Harpar's Bazaar.

The media-watch vultures have begun to circle over MSNBC weeknights at 8 p.m., anticipating that the show widely considered to be the great liberal counterbalance to Fox News will soon be a bloated carcass.

Jeff Bercovici, the media guy for Aol Daily Finance, says Olberman's ratings in the 25-54 demographic have tanked over the last year, down 44 percent in January from the same period in 2009. That column earned Bercovici an Olbermann blast during his Worst Person in the World segment, in which Olbermann inexplicably called Daily Finance a "right wing site."

Olbermann also countered with some numbers of his own, insisting that his 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. "Countdown" broadcasts were both up in January over December and that his 8 p.m. show still owned a substantial lead over CNN and HLN. Olbermann didn't mention Fox's ratings, probably because the "The O'Reilly Factor" has more than three times his audience among 25-54 year olds.

But it's not all about the numbers. Several commentators have written lately that Olbermann's over-the-top histrionics are getting tiresome - the latest example being his thinly-supported rant about U.S. Senator-elect Scott Brown.

The rant - in which Olbermann branded Brown  "an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against woman and against politicians with whom he disagrees" - earned Olbermann the Jon Stewart treatment.

Adding insult to injury, Stewart will be bumping up the ratings of Olbermann's Fox rival for the next two nights, making a must-see-TV appearance on O'Reilly.

When the worst earthquake in more than a century struck Haiti this week, plunging the poor country into chaos. The media faced a difficult challenge reporting from a country in ruins in delivering reports and making sense of information.

The Taunton Gazette reports a 2nd grader is suspended and must undergo an evaluation after drawing a picture of a crucifix.  The school department won’t comment claiming confidentiality. The story goes national. A day later the school department claims the story was misreported.

Our Beat the Press panelists unload on media topics that they find amusing, alarming or just plain annoying. This segment is only available on BeatthePress.org and on the radio broadcast of Beat the Press on WGBH FM 89.7 FM.

In the wake of the Ft. Hood rampage, reporting focused on the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.  Much of the conservative commentary  focused on Hasan’s heritage in attempting to explain his alleged motive.  Why does conservative media control and frame these stories?  Are they right?

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said this week that Fox News is “not a news network at this point” and “a wing of the Republican Party.”  Why the war of words and how might it impact other news divisions?

Keith Olbermann issued his declaration of independence last night. But in doing so, he smeared New York Times reporter Brian Stelter (photo), whose account of a peace settlement between Olbermann's employer, MSNBC, and his nemesis Bill O'Reilly's employer, Fox News, had created the need for Olbermann to renew his feud with O'Reilly in the first place.

Stelter reported last Friday that executives at both networks had moved to stop the on-air sniping between the two hosts. "Bill-O the Clown," Olbermann's pet nickname for O'Reilly, was frequently featured in his "Worst Persons in the World" segment. O'Reilly, for his part, had started taking aim at the corporate agenda of MSNBC's owner, General Electric.

Although Stelter, not surprisingly, was forced to rely quite a bit on unnamed sources, he had an on-the-record comment from GE spokesman Gary Sheffer, who confirmed that a deal had been cut: "We all recognize that a certain level of civility needed to be introduced into the public discussion. We're happy that has happened."

Stelter also included a quote from Olbermann: "I am party to no deal."

Seems pretty well nailed-down. Yet Olbermann, on last night's "Countdown," designated Stelter as his number-three villain in the "Worst Persons" segment, with O'Reilly coming in at number two. Among other things, Olbermann said:

Problem, Mr. Stelter asks me at least twice last week if there was such a deal, and I told him, on and off the record, there was not. And told him I rather obviously would have to be a party to such a deal. And I told him that not only wasn't I, but I had not even been asked to be by my bosses. And he printed it anyway.

This is intellectually dishonest, as it implies that Stelter deliberately did not use Olbermann's quote because it didn't fit with what he wanted to write. In fact, Stelter did use it, and he placed it in context. It's very clear from Stelter's story that the deal had been cut by higher-ups, and that Olbermann might or might not go along.

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