Publishers say they stand by Fox's Bill O'Reilly

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By DAVID BAUDER

NEW YORK (AP) — Bill O'Reilly's book publishers say they stand behind the Fox News Channel host's work despite questions that have been raised about his reporting.

O'Reilly's series of books about the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and Jesus Christ have sold millions of copies and been turned into successful movies for the National Geographic channel. The latest adaptation, "Killing Jesus," is set to premiere on that network on Palm Sunday.

The liberal watchdog Media Matters for America this week reported on a 2013 Web post that questioned O'Reilly's claim that in 1977, he was outside the Florida home of George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, when he killed himself with a shotgun. De Mohrenschildt had been contacted by congressional investigators looking into the assassination.

O'Reilly's claim that he was there was in his book, "Killing Kennedy." Media Matters quoted police reports, media accounts, former colleagues and other sources that dispute O'Reilly's claim that he was there. At the time, O'Reilly was a reporter for a Dallas television station.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2013 file photo, political commentator Bill O'Reilly attends the National Geographic Channel's "Killing Kennedy" world premiere screening reception at The Newseum, in Washington. O'Reilly, Fox News Channel's prime-time star, is accused of claiming he had reported in a combat zone for CBS News during the 1982 Falklands War when he was more than a thousand miles from the front. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Invision/AP, File)

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150225/us--tv-oreilly_reporting-ef263fb06d.html

[randys1]

1. Proof that the world has gone mad is that he sells books

[Duval]

8. x1000

[eggplant]

12. They are bought up by the warehouse

by PACs and others, then are given away or sold as premiums for fundraisers. In one fell swoop, the book ends up on the NYT bestseller list, Billo cashes a big check, and the GOP noise machine turns its crank another time.

[Fred Sanders]

17. That could be the next phase of taking him down and tying all of Fox to him.

[eggplant]

25. No, it's SOP for politicians and pundits.

On both sides of the aisle, unfortunately. I do think their side does a lot more of it, though.

[Tom Ripley]

2. I guess they expect big sales for his upcoming "Killing Snipes"

[Fred Sanders]

19. Next book has to be "Killing Truth".

[SoapBox]

3. Who...us?

Well, we only printed the lies...we didn't make them up.



Companies like this deserve to go out of business.

[BlueJazz]

4. "questions that have been raised about his reporting" Questions?? Questions ??

No..every reporter who was with Bill O'lier (back when) said he Lied.
Questions my ass.

[onehandle]

5. Pasty Pile of Putrid Palafel.

I may have spelled falafel wrong.

...loofah.

[tanyev]

6. They just need to put a tiny little endnote at the back of the book--

*not intended to be a factual statement

[underpants]

7. He's a cash cow. I doubt Fox news viewers even know any of this is going on

[Fred Sanders]

16. Since Bilbo has spoken about it for two nights straight on his #1 rated show, how would they not know?

[underpants]

21. They don't know the multiple details

They just see their invincible hero playing victim

[Fred Sanders]

22. One too many times...at some point the damn of damned lies was going to burst.

[Cheviteau]

27. True

I suspect your doubt is well grounded...not that it would make any difference if they did know.

[Kingofalldems]

9. O'Reilly was at the VE Day celebration:

https://twitter.com/TomAdelsbach/status/570734588504477697

[yuiyoshida]

10. OF COURSE THEY DO...

He makes them money. Nuff said.

[RufusTFirefly]

11. Jonah Lehrer/Bill O'Reilly: Compare and contrast

Lehrer: Good writer, genuine scientific credentials, very bad judgment.
Offenses: Fabricated quotes. Plagiarized himself.
Fate: Two of his books were abruptly withdrawn from the market, including Imagine, which was on the LA Times bestseller list for many weeks.

O'Reilly: Blowhard, narcissist, stalker, yellow journalist
Offenses: Repeated pattern of lying, falsely claiming to witness and report on crucial events.
Fate: Publisher stands by his work despite mounting allegations about his serial tendency to fudge the facts.

[kimbutgar]

13. I work this job sometimes where I pack people up for moves

The two right wingers we packed for had all these right wing books and none of them appeared to have been read. The spines never were cracked. One guy had all the o wrongly books never read. He was such a jerk. The move was so stressful his wife separated from him at the end if it and she moved in with her son and he moved to Reno where he said the " right" kind of people lived like him.

[albino65]

14. I had no idea about the National Geographic

I vow to never watch that channel again

[tsites]

24. Nat Geo has been moving right

for a long time. They stopped being a reliable scientific pub a long time ago. It is now just a popularity driven media enterprise. Their screw up with the fake bird fossil a few years back will be feeding creationist propaganda for a long time. Most of what they have in the magazine is little more than travelog for the wealthy. It could easily be mistaken for a Conde Nast mag. The little science they have rarely goes into any depth and they avoid controversy by selectively avoiding many topics.

You used to have to be a member of the society to get the magazine and you could not become a member without a recommendation. If you didn't know a member, they would accept the recommendation of a member of the military, preferably a retired officer. This tended to skew the kind of people who received the magazine and supported the society with donations. Whereas in the past (50 years ago or more) they supported all kinds of scientific explorations and projects, now days they only fund rich person fantasy projects like James Cameron's dive into the Mariana Trench (he should have enough money to fund it himself), in which they have withheld all scientific data for three years now so as not to impact revenue from their feature film (don't want to spoil the excitement). I'm tempted to believe they didn't find anything worth paying to see on the big screen and have been working frantically trying to come up with some way to stretch 5 minutes worth of interesting into two hours of razel dazel without the movie being panned so badly that no one comes.

[Fred Sanders]

15. Fox itself refused to make a statement on the book lies...referred all media to the publisher

How long can Fox itself avoid culpability?

[JHB]

18. Of course they do

It's not as if this will deter the people who buy Billo's books. They'll slurp up his sneering denials and fork over more money for his next exercise in stilted history.

[Fred Sanders]

20. Who knows? Nothing like this has ever happened to Fox, the highest rated show in cable news.

This is no ordinary exposure of lies at Fox.

[DescendantOfMany]

23. Goebbels.

He would be proud of these publishers and Mr. O'Reilly.

[arcane1]

26. Of course they stand by him, because he didn't write the damn books!