The O'Reilly Procedure [ Roger Ebert's Journal ]

[vow66]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/06/the_oreilly_procedure.html

Bill O'Reilly has been brought low by the same process that afflicted Jerry Springer. Once respected journalists, they sold their souls for higher ratings, and follow their siren song. Springer is honest about it: "I'm going to Hell for what I do, and I know it," he's likes to say. O'Reilly insists he is dealing only with the truth. When his guests disagree with him, he shouts at them, calls them liars, talks over them, and behaves like a schoolyard bully.

I am not interested in discussing O'Reilly's politics here. That would open a hornet's nest. I am more concerned about the danger he and others like him represent to a civil and peaceful society. He sets a harmful example of acceptable public behavior. He has been an influence on the most worrying trend in the field of news: The polarization of opinion, the elevation of emotional temperature, the predictability of two of the leading cable news channels. A majority of cable news viewers now get their news slanted one way or the other.
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How can one effect change? By sincere debate and friendly persuasion? O'Reilly sets the opposite example. He brings on guests who represent the "enemy," doesn't seriously engage their beliefs, and shouts: Be quiet! I'm right and you're wrong! I stand for good and you stand for evil! I'm not exaggerating. Sometimes those are the very words he uses.

[tularetom]

1. OK I know which cable channel slants their news to the right

What I want to know is which channel slnats their news to the left? Ebert says "a majority of cable news viewers now get their news slanted one way or the other". Who is the "other"?

[nomorenomore08]

3. Well, I guess Fox is "conservative," while the others are more "centrist,"

but it's all "corporatist" anyway. :shrug:

[tularetom]

5. But the point is Ebert said you could get "both sides"

I know you can get the right wing corporate slant from Fox. "Centrist" is not the opposite of right wing. Where can you get the other side?

You are correct, it's the corporate media regardless of which channel you tune to.

[nomorenomore08]

7. Other than Olbermann and Maddow and (sometimes) Cafferty, you don't really get

much "progressive" input. It really says something that arguably the best liberal TV journalist (Jon Stewart) is the host of a comedy show.

[county worker]

6. Let's see, CNN? No. CNBC? No. MSNBC? well not during Morining Joe but ........................

[Faygo Kid]

2. Now O'Reilly will go after Ebert with a vengeance. That's what he does.

That's all he does, anymore, is go after others for real or perceived slights. He's nuts. His interview with Joan Walsh (posted elsewhere here) shows he has lost it.

[nomorenomore08]

4. And Ebert will whoop his sorry ass!

Intellectually, I mean... O'Reilly's 6-foot-4 and several years younger. :P