D2 RED DEER ADVOCATE Friday, Feb. 27, 2015
Fox host goes for the jugular BY PAUL FARHI ADVOCATE NEWS SERVICES Bill O’Reilly and Fox News seem to have decided that the best defense is a good offense. A lot of offense. Faced with accusations that he exaggerated some of his reporting exploits over the years, the combative cable news star has gone into full battle mode, employing the public relations equivalent of the nuclear option. Since Mother Jones magazine published its story about O’Reilly’s claims last Thursday, O’Reilly has done far more than deny the allegations. He has called the story “slander” and labeled its principal author, David Corn, “a liar” and “a guttersnipe.” In one of the numerous interviews he has done with reporters, O’Reilly suggested that Corn should be put in “the kill zone” for his story. He’s also been pushing around the reporters reporting the fallout. O’Reilly began an interview with this newspaper last week by saying, “I’m recording this, so you’d better report this accurately.” On Monday, he made his intent explicit, warning a New York Times reporter that if the coverage was inaccurate or inappropriate, “I am coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat.” This may not be the best way to make a crisis go away. And indeed, O’Reilly may not want it to. O’Reilly’s aggressive statements have kept the Mother Jones story in the news for several days, which may have fueled a mini-bump in his ratings. The O’Reilly-hosted O’Reilly Factor attracted 3.33 million viewers on Monday night after several days of headlines, a 10 per cent increase over his average for the month. But O’Reilly’s tactics have also attracted more attention to the article’s central assertion: that O’Reilly has said on various occasions that he was in “a war zone” and “in the Falklands” when he was covering the British-Argentine conflict as a CBS News reporter in 1982. O’Reilly’s former colleagues at CBS have said he never reported from the remote islands during the war; O’Reilly has said he was referring to his coverage of a postwar demonstration in Buenos Aires that turned violent. Mother Jones, as well as O’Reilly’s former CBS colleagues, have disputed O’Reilly’s claim that the riot represented “a war zone” and that Argen-
Photo by ADVOCATE news services
Bill O’Reilly’s combative response to accusations that he exaggerated some of his reporting exploits over the years has reversed the usual crisis-management strategy, which is to recite the facts clearly and simply and then get out of the way.
COMMENT tine soldiers “slaughtered” civilians during the demonstration. They have also questioned O’Reilly’s repeated claim that he was “in the Falklands” when he acknowledges that the closest he came, Buenos Aires, is 1,200 miles away. O’Reilly, of course, has begged to differ, and in no uncertain terms. In doing so, he has reversed the usual crisis-management strategy, which is to recite the facts clearly and simply and then get out of the way, said Lanny Davis, the veteran Washington crisis manager who advised President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Redskins owner Daniel Snyder on the team’s controversial
name, among a string of high-profile cases. “I would have advised Bill to get out all the facts about what happened first before attacking,” said Davis, who has appeared many times on O’Reilly’s show and considers him a friend. “You can’t avoid the facts, so get them out there. And if you made a mistake, admit it quickly.” Davis also advises his clients against attacking an accuser’s motives. “Even if you’re right, it looks like you’re changing the subject or avoiding the merits of the case,” he said. Although the two situations aren’t entirely analogous, Fox’s response to the Mother Jones story is in stark contrast to NBC News’ reaction to allegations surrounding Brian Williams, its lead anchor. When first challenged late last month about the authenticity
of his stories about coming under fire during the Iraq war, Williams apologized and said little else. When further allegations emerged, NBC launched an investigation, and Williams voluntarily took himself off the air. Six days after the story emerged, NBC suspended him without pay for six months, effectively putting an end to the story. By contrast, Fox has given no indication that it intends to investigate O’Reilly’s Falklands statements, let alone discipline him for them. The network issued a one-sentence statement over the weekend: “Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes and all senior management are in full support of Bill O’Reilly.”
Please see O’REILLY on Page D3
Citizenfour and the power of personal stories “I’m a little concerned, the more we focus on that, the more they’re going to use that as a distraction,” world-famous whistleblower Edward Snowden tells filmmaker Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald in Citizenfour, Poitras’s documentary about Snowden, which won an Academy Award on Sunday night. In that scene, shot before Snowden went public, Snowden is concerned about the mass media’s obsession with personalities. In particular, he’s worried about whether coming out as the source of a huge cache of documents about American surveillance operations would detract from the content of those files. Whether Poitras intended it that way or not, Citizenfour is a testament to how necessary personalities and personal experiences can be to political reform. Citizenfour, which aired on HBO Monday night, is a dispatch from deep inside Poitras’ and Greenwald’s deposition of Snowden — Poitras filmed their 2013 meetings with him in Hong Kong — and it doesn’t always bridge the gap between the reporters’ experiences and a more general audience’s.
COMMENT “To see it, the physical blueprints of it, and the technical expressions of it, brutally hits home in a super-visceral way that is so needed,” Greenwald says of one document. I’m sure that’s true for him, given his deep absorption in the details of American surveillance. But if you’re not steeped in the story the way Greenwald is, the bolts from the blue aren’t as obvious. And while long scenes of anti-surveillance activists contain some powerful insights, they also add to the sheer volume of information in a way that can be more overwhelming than clarifying. To Poitras’ credit, part of the power of Citizenfour comes from the way the movie juxtaposes mundane facilities with the malignancy carried out inside of them. “We are building the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man,” Poitras reads from Snowden’s communications over shots of a bland construction site. We see still shots of green fields punctuated by satellite dishes, Menwith Hill station in the United Kingdom with its Epcot-like domes, Dagger Complex in Germany, which comes across as an office park
with bad lighting and better security. But the most powerful parts of the movie are the ones that show the surveillance state in action. Greenwald talks Snowden into coming out in part to provide a political rationale for his actions, but what’s done to Snowden has more impact than anything he actually says. During their meeting in Hong Kong, the fire alarms begin to go off, and it’s striking to watch Snowden and Greenwald tense, wondering if the alarms are a benign test, or an effort to flush them out for arrest. (It turns out to be the former.) Snowden’s affect is muted, but even
his tone can’t conceal all of the strain he obviously feels when he acknowledges that “I don’t think I’ll be able to keep the family ties that I’ve had for my life.” He’s proved right: His girlfriend Lindsay Mills (who now lives with him in Moscow and appeared on the Oscar stage on Sunday) is interrogated. “I just heard from Lindsay, and she’s alive, which is good, and free,” Snowden tells Poitras and Greenwald, revealing the full extent of his fears only in that expression of relief.
Please see SURVEILLANCE on Page D3
Call us for your CUSTOM BLINDS & DRAPERIES! 9-7619 - 50 Ave., Red Deer 403-348-8280
WANTED
1052B27
BY ALYSSA ROSENBERG ADVOCATE NEWS SERVICES
30 PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFICULTY HEARING
Try the latest in hearing aid technology
RISK-FREE! (no obligation) Hearing Sense will perform a comprehensive hearing screening at no charge.
1802B6-27
*Applicants who are selected will be asked to evaluate the latest hearing instrument technology for 45 days. Participants who wish to purchase the instruments after the trial period may do so at significant savings due to their participation.
Join us for our demonstration days
February 23rd to 27th 2015
* A deposit will be required
www.earls.ca | Earls Red Deer | 2111 Gaetz Ave
1760B3-27
#2-5116 52nd Street, Red Deer, AB 403.346.4647 | www.hearingsense.ca
1035B27
9:00AM - 5:00PM