KILLING TRUTH

Chapter One Self-Made Man

“Here's the truth: Everything I’ve said about my reportorial career -- everything --is true.” Bill O’Reilly,
February 20 , 2015.
It all started with a tweet. At 5:28 PM on February 19, 2015, David Corn‟s
tweet announced“Bill O'Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem.” And with
that, Mother Jones

magazine‟s examination of O‟Reilly wartime
reporting exaggerations went off like a media grenade and the Fox  News host scrambled to salvage his reputation. The news arrived in the wake of the Brian Williams scandal at  NBC News, in which the revelation that the longtime anchorman had exaggerated his war reporting experience eventually forced him off the air for a six-month suspension.
Corn‟s new exposure of O‟Reilly‟s penchant for stretching the truth about his own
journalism glory days immediately had journalism wags shaking their heads in disbelief
. Given that O‟Reilly had condemned Williams for his fabrication sins, the
Mother Jones story presented a nearly airtight case of public hypocrisy.
Worse for O‟Reilly, Corn‟s debunking shone a spotlight on O‟Reilly‟s
fondness for self-aggrandizement. Soon other, even more astonishing allegations of wrongdoing came tumbling out about
O‟Reilly‟s reporting past; revelations that largely left the
blustery host speechless, or at least unwilling to wage a public  battle to defend his reputation.


The avalanche began when Mother Jones detailed how O'Reilly had “recounted dramatic stories about his own war reporting that
don't withstand scrutiny.”

O‟Reilly suggested he had reported from the Falkland Islands combat zone while reporting for CBS News in 1982; but no CBS reporter had made it to the islands. He had said that “many were killed”  in a June 1982 Buenos Aires protest following the Falkland Islands war, and compared reporting from that protest to being in
a “war zone.” But news accounts from the time cited injuries and chaos, no deaths.
Media Matters then documented two more jaw-dropping O'Reilly fabrications. Copious evidence was uncovered contradicting his  previous claim about hearing a shotgun blast that killed a key figure in the investigation into President John F. Kennedy's assassination.

O‟Reilly also lied about personally witnessing the execution of four American churchwomen while reporting from war-torn El Salvador. (Who lies about murdered nuns?) And there was more:

The Guardian reported that six former O'Reilly colleagues from his time at Inside Edition
disputed accounts he has told over the years about his allegedly harrowing work covering the Los Angeles riots in 1992, in which he claimed
to have been “attacked by protesters” with “bricks and stones.” And as for previous claims that O‟Reilly had seen “Ir ish terrorists
kill and main their fellow citizens” while reporting from war-torn  Northern Ireland? Scratch those
from his resume. O‟Reilly made it all up. As the face of Fox News, the most powerful cable news channel in the country, as well as a best-selling author, the controversy
brought into focus O‟Reilly‟s unique brand of patholo
gy. He appears to be a man focused on reinventing a version of himself
that‟s more compelling than the real thing. O‟Reilly has insisted that while he might be a “ champion bloviator ”

http://www.scribd.com/doc/261133416/Killing-Truth



I really hope there's a movie

Well, it would have to be a comedy!