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Does Bill O'Reilly have a Brian Williams problem?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by MisterCreosote, Feb 20, 2015.

  1. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Go back and read the thread.

    1) I posted that there is a major difference in the expectations people have when they tune into the NBC Nightly versus tuning into Bill O'Reilly.

    2) You posted something about how Bill O'Reilly claims he is legit journalist, etc.

    3) I posted then that it's great that Mother Jones cleared it all up for you -- if you actually watched Bill O'Reilly the way a lot of people watched Brian Williams.

    4) Then you asked me if I was aware that 75 percent of an entire mainstream party believes they can't get the truth, except from "O'Reilly and his ilk"?

    5) To which I responded that 75 percent of the people in that mainstream party can't possibly even be tuning in to see him (given the numbers), let alone believe that.

    6) To which you hit the Google and found something from PPP that affirmed the thing you want to believe (and of course PPP did).

    7) I said I'd accept a PPP poll if you can give me a good reason to accept any methodology they have ever used -- given their kind of well known lack of objectivity.

    8) To which you are now shifting the goal posts from that silly 75 percent thing, to telling me that I am arguing against the more generic "Republicans don't overwhelmingly trust Fox News."

    And at the end of the day, I'll get back to what I have ACTUALLY said that started this -- which you didn't just accept: There is a difference between Brian Williams and Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly's viewership (and it is not comprised of anywhere near 40 million people, the way you suggested) watches him to affirm what they want to believe (pretty similar to your posts on here -- hit the Google, ooh, a poll!). The general perceptiion was that Brian Williams is unbiased -- Walter Cronkite like.
     
    Songbird likes this.
  2. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I don't need polls and stats. I've watched O'Reilly myself. And if you ask anyone else who has watched him, they'll tell you: He's an ace, one of the best of his era.
     
  3. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    I'm not going to belabor this ridiculous argument, but your points quoted above are simply not true based on viewers' perceptions. And, they weren't true before the lying scandal, either.
     
  4. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    G-d
     
  5. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    This Brookings Institution poll was conducted before Williams recanted his lies:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. Ruben Rivas

    Ruben Rivas Member

    I could never go through a whole interview with Bill without punching him, he represents everything thats wrong with the human race.
     
  7. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Bill O'Reilly's viewership is less than a third of what Brian Williams' was every night.

    And what I am saying is that Bill O'Reilly attracts a self-selecting audience -- a relatively small one -- of people tuning in to have what they already believed affirmed.

    I am also saying that the nightly news does NOT attract that kind of audience. Brian Williams got a much larger audience of people than Bill O'Reilly does. ... and they weren't tuning in because Brian Williams was playing to their already well-known ideas.

    The fact that you are on here telling me that Fox News is the "Republican channel" demonstrates that you know what I am saying is correct

    You can't have it both ways. You want to equate the kind of people that Bill O'Reilly attracts to the people Brian Williams attracted -- because you want to equate what Bill O'Reilly does to what Brian Willaims did. And then in the next breath you are telling me that Bill O'Reilly attracts this skewed audience of people who are attracted to him because of their political beliefs. Which was my point! That Mother Jones piece is silly. Nobody who isn't being silly equates Brian Williams and what his audience expects of him to Bill O'Reilly and what his audience expects of him. The people who tuned into Brian Williams may or may not have trusted him. But they were NOT tuning in to have an ideology affirmed.
     
  9. Ruben Rivas

    Ruben Rivas Member

    Old clowns like him should never be alllowed on tv, he talks like he owns people, slavery days are gone in modern countries, I mean we still have walmart but we will like to think we are a much more civilized group.
     
  10. Ruben Rivas

    Ruben Rivas Member

    Btw Fox News is a comedy show that promotes Neo-nazism to unaducated people.
     
  11. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    You must never have heard of Rush Limbaugh. Or for women who want to throw a punch at someone, Ann Coulter.
     
  12. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Always enjoyable to watch as new members start to feel their oats.
     
    old_tony likes this.
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