Bill O Reilly Case Summary
Bill O’Reilly and Fox News, which is a newer news station compared to all the other top news outlets, seems to always be getting themselves in trouble whether it be with the law or simply bad public relations. It may be true that the company is not capable of getting itself in trouble, but rather the people of the company that are, but when a company creates an environment in which you feel as if there will be no repercussions it becomes easier to slip into a situation that you may not be able to get yourself out of (Blake 1). At Fox, it has become apparent that this is the case – especially when discussing the higher-ups in the company. Over the past 2 years, two of the most well-known names in rightward-leaning media, Roger Ailes and Bill
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O’Reilly, have both faced sexual harassment cases. When two cases like each other occur in the same workplace, people begin to wonder why this is the case: is this something that this has been going on in the Ailes’ and O’Reilly’s lives for a while or is it new and brought on by the culture created at Fox? Bill O’Reilly, who faces the latter of the charges at the beginning of last month, had no previous history of any harmful nature. In fact, he had lived an admirable life up until this point. The first college that he attended was Marist College where he attained a bachelor’s degree in history (Waldman 1). After he got his history degree, he went on to teach high-school history for two years before going back to school at Boston University and attaining his masters’ degree in broadcast journalism. He then bounced around between some local news stations, CNN and ABC where he worked for three years: two of which he earned himself Emmy Awards. Then Bill joined the show “Inside Edition” where he stayed until going back to school for the last time at Harvard University and attaining his masters’ in public administration (Waldman 1). Finally, O’Reilly got hired by Fox in 2001 when they handed him his own show, “The O’Reilly Factor” which quickly became the most-watched cable news program in the country. After his initial success, O’Reilly started a radio show, “The Radio Factor”, which also had much success while it was on the air from 2002-2009. He has also written many books which have also been a success such as his “Killing” series which is complete with six books now. Nonetheless, it was apparent from the minute that Fox hired O’Reilly that he was going to have a successful career unless he messed up. Unfortunately, at the beginning of last month, the New York Times told the public that he had been messing up for a while now (Waldman 1). The article written about O’Reilly claimed that there was not just a single offense, but rather that there were five different offenses with five different females. It was claimed that O’Reilly and Fox News paid these women off with a total of $13 million to ensure that they would stay quiet. The problem with this is that eventually, people realize that money is just money and not worth keeping such an offense bottles up. The report included a wide array of offenses including, “verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating,” (Waldman 1). Three days after the article came out, big advertisers began to pull their support from the news station. Although O’Reilly tried to act as if he had done nothing wrong and that these accusations were false, this case would prove to be detrimental to Fox News. The year prior, Roger Ailes, who was the founding CEO of Fox News, also got in trouble for sexual harassment cases (Huddleston 1).
He, too, was charged with multiple cases of sexual harassment and, much like O’Reilly, these women all had some type of tie with Fox. Naturally, after the CEO of a company is found guilty of a sexual harassment charge, there is a lot of backlash on the company (Huddleston 1). However, Fox could not take too big of a financial hit by handling the situation properly and getting Ailes disassociated with the company almost immediately after the case had arose. Nonetheless, however, Ailes continuously denied the allegations and when Fox issued his release statement, they also made no mention of the …show more content…
case. So being that Fox does not like to admit when they’re wrong and O’Reilly was bringing in the most money to their business, questions started being asked as to whether this case was going to be enough to remove him from Fox.
Then, people remembered when he falsified information about his coverage of the war in 2015 and there were no repercussions. O’Reilly was quoted saying things such as, “I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands…” and, “Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash,” when the fact of the matter is that he was 1,200 miles away from the actual warzone covering a war protest (Waldman 1). Earlier that year, Brian Williams, who was working for NBC, also stretched the truth saying that he was in a helicopter that has taken fire when this was not the case (Wemple 1). NBC issued an immediate punishment and Brian Williams issued an immediate apology (Wemple 1). Fox News did nothing to reprehend O’Reilly for performing the same falsifying actions which was the first hint as to how the culture at Fox really
is. People really started to question whether this sexual assault case would have any bearing on Fox News or Bill O’Reilly when things started to look good for them. On April 5th, President Trump issued a statement in support of O’Reilly. This statement, however, like many of Trump’s others, could have proven to be detrimental if it was said by anyone else but Trump. In Trump’s statement, he said, “I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” which basically means that he sees nothing wrong with anything that O’Reilly did (Waldman 1). Trump very easily could have simplified his statement to make it both fit his political agenda and offer support in a way that doesn’t seem as if you’re offering support to a sex offender. Nonetheless, the ratings for “The O’Reilly Factor” skyrocketed that week, reaching 20% more viewers than they had on that same day the previous week. To some people’s dismay and to others’ relief, O’Reilly announced that he was going to be taking a vacation with his family on April 11th and that he would return on April 24th. What O’Reilly failed to realize was that the only reason he still had his position at Fox was because he was in the office every day to help defend his name. With him gone, there was no one left willing to speak too strongly on his behalf because of the severity of the crimes that he committed. Naturally, in his absence, many protests started occurring. The most important protest held was orchestrated by UltraViolet, a women’s group who stood outside Fox all day demanding that O’Reilly be fired. By the end of the day, they had put together a 140,000-person petition which led to Fox firing O’Reilly the next day (Waldman 1). Since being fired, O’Reilly has only issued one statement on a podcast that he says he plans on continuing for now until he clears his name. He stated in this podcast that, “The truth will come out.” The thing that makes it hard to believe that the truth isn’t already out is the fact that the paper trail matches the spoken allegations of O’Reilly. When the things being said about you by the victims of your crimes match whatever paper evidence, it is hard to believe that there is another side to the story. The past three years have made it overwhelmingly apparent that the culture at Fox has to change if they want to run a successful business. Within the past two years, they have had the two most well-known names in their company go through a situation in which their PR was hurt tremendously by O’Reilly falsifying a story and then they issued no punishment whereas NBC, who was put in the same situation just months prior, set a high standard for how those types of situations should be handled. Then, they had their founding CEO get charged with multiple sexual-harassment allegations and was therefore released, but no statement was ever made addressing the issue at hand. Then, finally, O’Reilly messes up and does the same exact thing that Roger Ailes did and he gets the same result with no formal apology. With all of this evidence, although it is disappointing to say, it is also fair to say that the culture at Fox news needs to change before they can re-establish themselves as a legitimate and elite broadcast company.
Work Cited
Blake, P. (2017, April 10). What to know about the Fox News and Bill O'Reilly controversies.
Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/fox-news-bill-oreilly- controversies/story?id=46628308 Huddleston, J. T. (2016, July 21). A Timeline of the Scandal that Brought Down Fox News CEO
Roger Ailes. Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/roger-ailes resigned-scandal-timeline/ Waldman, P. (2015, February 24). The Bill O’Reilly scandal, made simple. Retrieved May 03,
2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/24/the-bill oreilly-scandal-made-simple/?utm_term=.f9b0c86b2420 Wemple, E. (2015, February 05). The Brian Williams scandal is an NBC News-wide scandal.
Retrieved May 03, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik wemple/wp/2015/02/05/the-brian-williams-scandal-is-an-nbc-news-wide scandal/?utm_term=.625e0edd9b0d
O’Reilly, have both faced sexual harassment cases. When two cases like each other occur in the same workplace, people begin to wonder why this is the case: is this something that this has been going on in the Ailes’ and O’Reilly’s lives for a while or is it new and brought on by the culture created at Fox? Bill O’Reilly, who faces the latter of the charges at the beginning of last month, had no previous history of any harmful nature. In fact, he had lived an admirable life up until this point. The first college that he attended was Marist College where he attained a bachelor’s degree in history (Waldman 1). After he got his history degree, he went on to teach high-school history for two years before going back to school at Boston University and attaining his masters’ degree in broadcast journalism. He then bounced around between some local news stations, CNN and ABC where he worked for three years: two of which he earned himself Emmy Awards. Then Bill joined the show “Inside Edition” where he stayed until going back to school for the last time at Harvard University and attaining his masters’ in public administration (Waldman 1). Finally, O’Reilly got hired by Fox in 2001 when they handed him his own show, “The O’Reilly Factor” which quickly became the most-watched cable news program in the country. After his initial success, O’Reilly started a radio show, “The Radio Factor”, which also had much success while it was on the air from 2002-2009. He has also written many books which have also been a success such as his “Killing” series which is complete with six books now. Nonetheless, it was apparent from the minute that Fox hired O’Reilly that he was going to have a successful career unless he messed up. Unfortunately, at the beginning of last month, the New York Times told the public that he had been messing up for a while now (Waldman 1). The article written about O’Reilly claimed that there was not just a single offense, but rather that there were five different offenses with five different females. It was claimed that O’Reilly and Fox News paid these women off with a total of $13 million to ensure that they would stay quiet. The problem with this is that eventually, people realize that money is just money and not worth keeping such an offense bottles up. The report included a wide array of offenses including, “verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating,” (Waldman 1). Three days after the article came out, big advertisers began to pull their support from the news station. Although O’Reilly tried to act as if he had done nothing wrong and that these accusations were false, this case would prove to be detrimental to Fox News. The year prior, Roger Ailes, who was the founding CEO of Fox News, also got in trouble for sexual harassment cases (Huddleston 1).
He, too, was charged with multiple cases of sexual harassment and, much like O’Reilly, these women all had some type of tie with Fox. Naturally, after the CEO of a company is found guilty of a sexual harassment charge, there is a lot of backlash on the company (Huddleston 1). However, Fox could not take too big of a financial hit by handling the situation properly and getting Ailes disassociated with the company almost immediately after the case had arose. Nonetheless, however, Ailes continuously denied the allegations and when Fox issued his release statement, they also made no mention of the …show more content…
case. So being that Fox does not like to admit when they’re wrong and O’Reilly was bringing in the most money to their business, questions started being asked as to whether this case was going to be enough to remove him from Fox.
Then, people remembered when he falsified information about his coverage of the war in 2015 and there were no repercussions. O’Reilly was quoted saying things such as, “I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands…” and, “Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands war, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash,” when the fact of the matter is that he was 1,200 miles away from the actual warzone covering a war protest (Waldman 1). Earlier that year, Brian Williams, who was working for NBC, also stretched the truth saying that he was in a helicopter that has taken fire when this was not the case (Wemple 1). NBC issued an immediate punishment and Brian Williams issued an immediate apology (Wemple 1). Fox News did nothing to reprehend O’Reilly for performing the same falsifying actions which was the first hint as to how the culture at Fox really
is. People really started to question whether this sexual assault case would have any bearing on Fox News or Bill O’Reilly when things started to look good for them. On April 5th, President Trump issued a statement in support of O’Reilly. This statement, however, like many of Trump’s others, could have proven to be detrimental if it was said by anyone else but Trump. In Trump’s statement, he said, “I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally I think he shouldn’t have settled. Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” which basically means that he sees nothing wrong with anything that O’Reilly did (Waldman 1). Trump very easily could have simplified his statement to make it both fit his political agenda and offer support in a way that doesn’t seem as if you’re offering support to a sex offender. Nonetheless, the ratings for “The O’Reilly Factor” skyrocketed that week, reaching 20% more viewers than they had on that same day the previous week. To some people’s dismay and to others’ relief, O’Reilly announced that he was going to be taking a vacation with his family on April 11th and that he would return on April 24th. What O’Reilly failed to realize was that the only reason he still had his position at Fox was because he was in the office every day to help defend his name. With him gone, there was no one left willing to speak too strongly on his behalf because of the severity of the crimes that he committed. Naturally, in his absence, many protests started occurring. The most important protest held was orchestrated by UltraViolet, a women’s group who stood outside Fox all day demanding that O’Reilly be fired. By the end of the day, they had put together a 140,000-person petition which led to Fox firing O’Reilly the next day (Waldman 1). Since being fired, O’Reilly has only issued one statement on a podcast that he says he plans on continuing for now until he clears his name. He stated in this podcast that, “The truth will come out.” The thing that makes it hard to believe that the truth isn’t already out is the fact that the paper trail matches the spoken allegations of O’Reilly. When the things being said about you by the victims of your crimes match whatever paper evidence, it is hard to believe that there is another side to the story. The past three years have made it overwhelmingly apparent that the culture at Fox has to change if they want to run a successful business. Within the past two years, they have had the two most well-known names in their company go through a situation in which their PR was hurt tremendously by O’Reilly falsifying a story and then they issued no punishment whereas NBC, who was put in the same situation just months prior, set a high standard for how those types of situations should be handled. Then, they had their founding CEO get charged with multiple sexual-harassment allegations and was therefore released, but no statement was ever made addressing the issue at hand. Then, finally, O’Reilly messes up and does the same exact thing that Roger Ailes did and he gets the same result with no formal apology. With all of this evidence, although it is disappointing to say, it is also fair to say that the culture at Fox news needs to change before they can re-establish themselves as a legitimate and elite broadcast company.
Work Cited
Blake, P. (2017, April 10). What to know about the Fox News and Bill O'Reilly controversies.
Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/fox-news-bill-oreilly- controversies/story?id=46628308 Huddleston, J. T. (2016, July 21). A Timeline of the Scandal that Brought Down Fox News CEO
Roger Ailes. Retrieved May 03, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/roger-ailes resigned-scandal-timeline/ Waldman, P. (2015, February 24). The Bill O’Reilly scandal, made simple. Retrieved May 03,
2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/02/24/the-bill oreilly-scandal-made-simple/?utm_term=.f9b0c86b2420 Wemple, E. (2015, February 05). The Brian Williams scandal is an NBC News-wide scandal.
Retrieved May 03, 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik wemple/wp/2015/02/05/the-brian-williams-scandal-is-an-nbc-news-wide scandal/?utm_term=.625e0edd9b0d