Opinion: O’Reilly on NBC News/Arkin…
Johnny Dollar has the audio from today’s Radio Factor with Bill O’Reilly going off the deep end with his obsession over NBC News in an attempt to get back at Keith Olbermann. What was being hinted at Saturday turned out to be true on Monday; O’Reilly used Arkin’s comments in the Washington Post as proof that NBC has gone left because he’s a paid military analyst at the network, even though he wasn’t expressing those opinions there. Guilt by association. To try and make the case more ironclad, or more ridiculous depending on where you come down on this (I come down on the latter obviously), O’Reilly used NBC’s statement on the story against it by insinuating that nothing but an evisceration of Arkin for comments he didn’t make on the network would be appropriate and therefore this is the smoking gun that proves NBC has gone to the left. Insane. “A Watershed moment in American Journalism”? Hardly. O’Reilly has failed to show any connection between Arkin’s comments and NBC News. NBC did not provide Arkin a forum to make the comments. NBC News did not pay Arkin to make those comments. NBC News did not instruct the Washington Post to print Arkin’s comments. There is no connection.
Well, at least I know what this week’s Question of the Weekend will be now…
Surely even the most avid O’Reilly fans must admit he is really reaching here.
Comment by myview — February 5, 2007 @ 7:37 pm
I disagree. NBC News empliys this man as a Military Affairs columnist. With such far left views and statements as this, he’s clearly not the right person for this job. This would b[also be the case if he wrote from a far right perspective.
Comment by noisenet — February 5, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
But he has not given such opinions on NBC News (at least as a paid analyst to my knowledge) which is why O’Reilly has to point to the Post story in order to try to make his case. But it’s still guilt by association, not guilt by deed. O’Reilly can’t make the case that Arkin being an NBC analyst means that NBC News has gone left because Arkin hasn’t made such statement on NBC News. In things like this you have to prove intent and O’Reilly can’t do that. Not by the evidence he’s presented anyways. And it’s not like Arkin is the only military or middle eastern analyst on NBC’s payroll and he’s certainly not the most prominent. Barry McCaffrey, Jack Jacobs, Rick Francona have a far greater impact at NBC and MSNBC. Walid Farris and Steve Emerson have had lots of face time on NBC and MSNBC as well. And yet the best O’Reilly can do is come up with Arkin? And not something he did at NBC but in The Post? That’s pretty damn thin to me.
Does this incident reflect badly upon NBC? Sure, but only to a point. Arkin has now made himself radioactive and whatever benefit he has an analyst for NBC is negated by what he did in The Post. I suspect that Arkin’s contract won’t be renewed and that will be the end of it.
Comment by Spud — February 5, 2007 @ 10:11 pm
Honestly, I would agree that O’Reilly’s obsession has hit an overwhelming high point, I mean, the connection is honestly very vague at this point. Really, at this point, he just needs to move on and ignore Olbermann, if his viewers don’t watch Olbermann, why would they care what his views are (or aren’t)?
Comment by Chris — February 5, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
If O’Reilly goes after Walid Farris, then he would be attacking his own network. Walid has made several appearences on FOX News Channel… I’ve seen him in studio at FOX News, then an hour or two later, he is in studio on MSNBC… so O’Reilly needs to pick his fights carefully because these places share talent.
Comment by Not the Norm — February 5, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
The Factor showed a clip of Arkin with “NBC Military Analyst” and “Keeping Tabs” in the lower third.
Comment by erljr — February 6, 2007 @ 12:04 pm