Bill O'Reilly opened his show by with the usual Talking Points memo, which is his top segment of the evening. His take was that the cable TV media complex coordinated with each other to promote the AR-15 as a weapon used in the Navy Yard shooting. Early reports had surfaced saying that Aaron Alexis had used an A-15 in his kill spree, but those proved to be erroneous. Bill went on to show a highlight reel of the media as well as stories from print media to highlight the conspiracy, but he forgot one media entity in his clips.
O'Reilly: Some in the liberal press used the murders to advance their anti-gun agenda. Awful. But not only that, they were wrong in what they reported.
Many of us watched the coverage and we know that the media were reporting bogus information all day. Jon Stewart spent a lot of time destroying CNN and the media for their coverage.(see video) Did Bill use TDS's segment to write his own talking points? Me wonders.
But he also took it much farther than that as he usually does.
Now everybody makes mistakes, but this was a coordinated effort. Kind of a hysterical reaction. There's no question the American media is opposing the majority of Americans over the second amendment and the reason is, most journalists live in secure places.
Bill went on to show a highlight reel of the media in action (as well as stories from print media) to highlight the overall conspiracy against the Second Amendment, but he forgot to name one media entity in his TPM, or in his clips. He went on to say that all journalists live in ivory towers that are impregnable or something. Anyway, Howard Kurtz came on:
O'Reilly: So where am I going wrong?
Kurtz: Well Bill, you're obviously right that this was a terrible blunder by the mainstream media including Fox and that we have seen this too many times with mass shootings and tragedies and journalists take half baked information from law enforcement sources reported as fact and it turns out not to be true. But I don't think--and you're certainly right that Piers Morgan and others are crusaders on the gun control issue-- but I certainly don't think it's fair to say that all the mainstream media is comprised of people who are anti-Second Amendment fanatics.
O'Reilly never mentioned that Fox News also reported that an AR-15 had been used. OMG! Now let's see how Bill gets out of this one.
O'Reilly: Are you kidding me, Howie? I mean, didn't you just hear every major news network, alright. All the newspapers (pause) I mean, am I hallucinating here?
Kurtz: Well. they...(interrupted by Bill)
O'Reilly: They all jumped on the AR-15. They all linked it to Colorado and Connecticut. All of them did the same thing. it was like one guy writing the script for all of them and you're going to sit there and tell me this wasn't a coordinated effort?
Kurtz: If you are basing your reports on the erroneous information (there) was an AR-15 assault weapon..
O'Reilly: But it's what they did with the information. You just referenced Fox made a mistake, but Fox didn't reference that way. We weren't coming out saying this is an outrage, another assault rifle involved in a mass killing. We didn't do that. We just said that the AR-15 was used. Now, yes, that was a mistake, but it wasn't seized upon to push an agenda. Surely you see the agenda?
Billy, Billy, Billy. There obviously was a law enforcement source who got the rumor started that an AR-15 was used in the shooting, and ALL the cable networks reported it at the time (because they were trying to get any breaking news out like they always do), but Bill's response was, well, Fox did it too, but we don't count as being part of a conspiracy---just because.
O'Reilly tried to coax him onto his side, but Kurtz didn't budge and had to remind him that the gun control debate was about high capacity magazines and background checks at gun shows and not on stripping away the Second Amendment. In the end, Bill-O let him leave without blowing his usual gasket.
But the whole thing made him look sorta like Alex Jones.
