Leah McLaren on how the network firing its star was not a watershed moment, it was just recent history repeating itself
Tag Archives: Bill O’Reilly
Fox News is turning down the crazy
Fox News is betting a kinder, gentler approach will rescue it from its ratings slump
Newsmakers
Arianna Huffington’s new gig, Knut the polar bear goes nutty, and a princess’s contentious walk down the aisle
This apparently actually happened
Surely this calls for a debate. Do you suppose Ari Fleischer could get Ujjal Dosanjh or Jack Layton on The Factor?
“I Don’t See Race. People Tell Me I’m White, And I Believe Them, Because I’m Bill O’Reilly”
The exceptional thing about Bill O’Reilly is that he’s the master of blurring the line between sincerity and self-parody. Glenn Beck has an element of conscious self-parody in his work; he’s sometimes trying to be funny. (His show makes a clear distinction between “comedy” moments and the “sincere” moments when the audience is supposed to take his apocalyptic warnings with absolute seriousness.) Sean Hannity comes off as totally sincere and totally dumb (his persona is that of the good-looking, straight-talking Real American who destroys effete elite liberals with their fancy book-learnin’). O’Reilly doesn’t cross the line into obvious silliness, yet he always leaves room for us to wonder whether he really means what he says.
Newsmakers of the week
The GG raw food rivalry, Veronica finally wins Archie, and Kanye West is a “non-reader”