Bill O’Reilly has recently come under fire after an article published by Mother Jones claimed that he has misled audiences about his reporting of the Falkland War in 1982 in Argentina, and citing ‘multiple accounts‘ of doing so.
O’Reilly responded to critics, saying that the article is a lie and “is splitting hairs, trying anything they can to bring down me because of Brian Williams’ situation,” he said during a CBS phone interview Sunday. He said that the the author, David Corn, is “a hatchet man” and “an apparatchik for the far left”.
The article begins with the parallel between the reporting of Williams and O’Reilly:
After NBC News suspended anchor Brian Williams for erroneously claiming that he was nearly shot down in a helicopter while covering the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly went on a tear. On his television show, the top-rated cable news anchor declared that the American press isn’t “half as responsible as the men who forged the nation.” He bemoaned the supposed culture of deception within the liberal media, and he proclaimed that the Williams controversy should prompt questioning of other “distortions” by left-leaning outlets. Yet for years, O’Reilly has recounted dramatic stories about his own war reporting that don’t withstand scrutiny—even claiming he acted heroically in a war zone that he apparently never set foot in.
Soon after the publication of the article, a former CBS correspondent and colleague, Eric Engberg had commentary to add within a lengthy Facebook post. In it he states that O’Reilly’s reporting in the Argentine capital was inaccurate. Engberg stated the capital was considered more of an “expense account zone” than a war zone as the event he reported was a “relatively tame riot” at the time, as it was after Argentina had surrendered to the British on the islands.
O’Reilly shot back in the interview, saying that Engberg’s Facebook post was a personal campaign against him because he had accused Engberg back in 1998 of “big-footing”.
Referencing the New York Times Article published at the time, he challenges Engberg’s accusations.
“I’d like everyone to ask [Engberg], ‘Were you there?’ because his reputation, his nickname, was ‘Room Service Eric” – that he never left the hotel.” O’Reilly continues skewering Engberg, calling him a “coward”, after declining an invitation to appear on O’Reilly’s show to discuss the allegations.
“I don’t think he was there. “I don’t think he knows what happened,” adding that he had requested the video of the protest from CBS News.
If Bill O’Reilly is being truthful, where is the proof?
O’Reilly discussed the events that lead to “almost getting killed” in a 2009 interview with a television station in the Hamptons, during which, according to O’Reilly, no other journalist was to be found. O’Reilly claims to have witnessed the army firing into crowds with “real bullets”. This is when the cameraman, Roberto Marino, was said to have been trampled by a crowd and injured. O’Reilly discusses this event as being one the instances where he experienced being almost killed while reporting overseas.
“¡Periodista ! ¡No disparen !”, translates to ‘Journalist! Don’t fire!’ in spanish, is what he said to the soldier who was pointing a gun to his head.
O’Reilly admits in the 2009 interview that journalists exaggerate, and being a ‘bloviator’ from time to time, but separates himself from the rest as having actually “been there”. He has on more than one occasion referencing having been “almost killed a couple of times”, however, only specified this one account.
The Mother Jones article reported the following:
During his radio show on January 13, 2005, he declared, “I’ve been in combat. I’ve seen it. I’ve been close to it.” When a caller questioned him about this, O’Reilly shot back: “I was in the middle of a couple of firefights in South and Central America.” O’Reilly did not specify where these firefights occurred—in The No Spin Zone, the only South America assignment he writes about is his trip to Argentina—and then he hung up on the caller.
According to Deadline, CBS News confirmed that they are in the process of locating the video of the incident O’Reilly is referencing and plans to settle the score on his show on Monday evening.
