Last night, Bernard Goldberg had another conversation with Bill O’Reilly about Fox News bias. O’Reilly continued to deny Fox’s lack of fairness and balance. But Goldberg stuck to his guns, citing among other things, Fox’s championing of criminal, racist rancher Cliven Bundy as an example.
This was Part 2 of a discussion that began last week on The O'Reilly Factor.
Goldberg made it quite clear again that he hearts Fox News. But he was not buying O’Reilly’s continued insistence that Fox is not a conservative operation.
“Liberals in the media go easy on their people and tough on conservatives, and conservatives in the media go easy on their people and tough on liberals,” Goldberg said. “It’s like an ideological war, that we can’t give them ammunition; they can’t give us ammunition. I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
As examples, Goldberg said the so-called liberal media “didn’t cover Occupy Wall Street so much as they championed it. And, sorry, but Fox News didn’t cover, in the initial stages, the Tea Party as much as they championed and were cheerleaders for the Tea Party."
But Goldberg didn’t stop there. “Some people on this channel," he continued, "they tried to turn this yahoo rancher (Bundy) from Nevada into an American folk hero simply because he was against the federal government and so are they.”
O’Reilly interrupted to argue, “We went over the roster of successful Fox News hosts. The only one who is conservative as far as his presentation is Sean Hannity.”
O’Reilly said conservative Americans “deserve a conservative program one hour out of the day, do they not?”
Yes, Goldberg agreed, “But it’s not one hour out of the day.”
O'Reilly claimed the Bundy story originally seemed to be about “a guy who was being oppressed.” But O’Reilly “wanted to know more," he said. I believe he is correct when he said he “didn’t do the story.” However, O’Reilly added, “I don’t blame the people who dove in because it was presented that way. And when we saw what it was, it turned.”
Can you imagine Fox’s hysterics if MSNBC promoted a group of armed black squatters who decided they had the right to graze sheep in Central Park and that the land should be exempt from New York laws?
Goldberg didn’t challenge O’Reilly’s description of Fox’s Bundy coverage but he made another good point. He said, “The reason that certain people turned this guy - or tried to turn him into a hero, is because he was against the federal government and they know that their audience also detests the federal government. …It may be good for ratings but pandering to the audience is not a good thing, even if it’s good for ratings.”
I have to give Goldberg, a Fox News contributor, a lot of credit for challenging Fox this way. Fox host Tucker Carlson won’t even allow a writer to challenge Fox on his own, independent website.
So again, I ask, “What’s the excuse of all those so-called “Democratic strategists” who appear on Fox, who are not on the payroll, yet failtochallenge the network’s tactics even partially the way Goldberg did?
Watch the discussion below, from the March 23 The O'Reilly Factor.
So again, I ask, “What’s the excuse of all those so-called “Democratic strategists” who appear on Fox, who are not on the payroll, yet fail to challenge the network’s tactics even partially the way Goldberg did?
Bosh. They all get paid.
They are not only "contributors". This is different from certain brand-name recurring guests who are obviously under contract. Like Karl Rove who shows up at least once a month and just happens to make a guest appearance on all the FNC shows in one shot. Sarah Palin used to have the same deal until they dropped her. Bill Kristol got dropped as a regular contracted pundit but his employee Hayes is still part of the FNC contracted lineup on Special Report but not across all the network's shows. Krauthammer is contracted for Baier's show and there is some deal where other WaPo reporters get regular appearances, even including Bob Woodward on a minimum once-a-month schedule.
FNC's various contractual arrangements with its stable of contracted and guest workers is somewhat opaque. Apparently there is some NDA to keep them from ever telling what the contract negotiations are to the public.
So the irregular guests get paid and get travel/hotels and probably a few good meals paid for. We also saw this in Huckabee's million dollar annual contract where he got travel on the FNC jet and a paid hotel suite in NYC for the days he spent there every week.
