Phone Sex And Payoffs: What I Learned About Bill O'Reilly After Writing His Biography

[DonViejo]

With allegations of embellishment or outright lies about his work as a journalist falling out of the sky like acid rain, countless talking heads have called into question the character of iconic cable network news anchor Bill O’Reilly.

I don’t need to take their word for it: I am the author of The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O’Reilly.

While it was an “unauthorized biography,” he did give me 29 interviews. As a Long Island boy, the dean of Fox News screaming had grown up reading my columns in Newsday, so he seemed thrilled to have the personal attention of his local TV critic for the 30-minute-a-week sessions over a two-year period, undisturbed by the cyclone fence and storm windows ads, the other staples of Newsday’s contribution to western civilization.

Among the laurels he handed out to himself in singing the praises of his 25-year apprenticeship as a TV newsman—rising from local TV beat reporter in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton market in 1970 to the top Fox News in 1996—is that nobody could tell him what to say or write.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/what-i-learned-from-writing-a-book-about-bill-o-reilly

[Journeyman]

1. ". . . the modern-day Wizard of Ooze."

Nice.

[Octafish]

2. No one told him what to say or write other than Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch and their CIA chums.

Other than that, nobody outside Operation MOCKINGBIRD's Mighty Wurlitzer tells Bill O'Reilly what to say or write.