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A week ago, Mother Jones published a piece called “Bill O’Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem.” The Brian Williams Problem being “a newscaster is a fantasist and a liar and has openly told lies on camera.” Which, if you have an even passing familiarity with Bill O’Reilly, is the opposite of shocking. The Brian Williams thing was awful because he was a network news anchor, on a network with one of the most expensive and organized news divisions in the world. With O’Reilly, he’s a primetime anchor on a cable news station, Fox News, which might have high ratings but they also have a reputation for telling outright lies on the air.

In any case, I’ve been loosely following the controversy even though I think most people already knew that O’Reilly was full of it. The reason O’Reilly’s history of untruths is being unearthed now is because A) the Williams stuff is making every media figure suspect and B) Bill O’Reilly went after Williams repeatedly as BW’s lies were unearthed. In the past week, various accounts and stories taken directly from O’Reilly’s show and interviews have been called into question. Like, was O’Reilly really on the ground during the Falklands War? Probably not. But he’s repeatedly claimed just that. Mother Jones fact-checks many of O’Reilly’s claims over the years involving all of the times he’s faced down death and riots and war. And most of it is probably… lies and half-truths. Oh, and did O’Reilly lie about witnessing the murder of nuns in El Salavador?

But does it even matter? The Daily Beast did a summary/analysis of the O’Reilly situation, which you can read here. Some people think that O’Reilly should be seen as merely an “entertainer” and not really a journalist, so the standards are different. But one of the big problems is that O’Reilly is going crazy now that his record is being questioned, and he’s attacking anyone trying to fact-check his history. He said – ON THE RECORD – to a NYT reporter this week: “I am coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat.” Damn. Now I’m kind of hoping everyone continues to pile on.

Photos courtesy of WENN.
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