Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLastBoyScout
No, it often pretends to be.. O'Reilly routinely claims to have "broken" various stories. If you're in competition with other news agencies to be the first to cover a story, you're trying to be a news program.
It is an opinion show, but O'Reilly has a news background and he fancies himself as a journalist as well as a bloviating know it all. He's incorportated the tabloid style of 'Inside Edition' into "The Factor" and it shows. He's created an entertaining show as a result. O'Reilly has about the same journalistic legitimacy as the 'Colbert Report'.
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It is entirely possible for him to "break" a story and still be a news
opinion program. When he does that, he clearly couches as, "Here's what's happening and here's what I think/feel [too often "feel" IMHO] about it...". That is all that it is. It is very similar to what might happen on
The Daily Show - yes, you'll get "news" items from it, but realize it is going to be slathered in unvarnished
opinion (with a comedic aspect, in this case).
In either example, you are a fool to use it as an actual source of news. If either brings something up that is "news to you", you owe it to yourself and the people to which you blather your opinions on the subject to find some more objective information on the topic, first. This is simply just understood.
More commonly O'Reilly will seize something he judged to be under-covered or ignored and go after it from that angle, though. It's not necessarily "news" up to that point - maybe warranted some Page 19 coverage - but he aims to bring it to the forefront as a sort of advocate (does this a lot RE: cases involving child abuse or, sadly, murder). This does not change the fact that the show is clearly an hour long editorial on the news.
The major resentment of O'Reilly from the standpoint of the left stems from the fact that there is no equally effective "liberal" alternative - in terms of audience share and, yes, impact. They've tried. If nothing else, they can take solice in the myriad things O'Reilly is downright liberal about - he's just as ferocious in those matters as it his in his conservative ones.
It is interesting to see how the left tries to disparage O'Reilly in the same vein they did (still do?) Matt Drudge and his website (primarily). Both are overwhelmingly popular. Both are apt to put a slant on things (if nothing else in their selection of items to address), but both, undeniably, take shots at both sides of the political spectrum. The Left poo-poo's them at thier own peril and, in the case where either of them make a point
for the left, at the risk of weakening their own arguments.