Bill O'Reilly Out At Fox News

rugcat · Apr 19, 2017

Bill O'Reilly has been forced out at Fox news.

I was surprised to hear this, even though the pressure has been mounting. I thought they'd try to ride it out, seeing as he is the most popular cable news host in broadcasting, bringing in millions of advertising dollars. Even though the advertisers were leaving, they might well have returned if Fox had given him a suspension or something of the sort.

It's possible there were more women lined up ready to level charges, and Fox simply decided they could no longer deal with a situation which showed no signs of slowing down – if anything, it was getting worse.

In any case, it's a tiny ray of sunshine in a dark world.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/...egations.html?referer=https://www.google.com/

Maze Runner · Apr 19, 2017

In between his sightseeing and his papal audience, it's rumored that he's been frantically scribbling his next book, Killing O'Reilly - How Political Correctness Killed The King

I was a little surprised to see them cut him loose. It couldn't happen to a better guy. A bully and a punk.

regdog · Apr 19, 2017

Had it not been for the massive loss of advertising revenue I don't think FOX would have booted him or suspended him. Since Trump's election and the nasty, abusive climate that has followed it, people are taking a much harder stance.

Manuel Royal · Apr 19, 2017

I guess this creates an opening for some eager young racist who despises women. ("Young" for a man at Fox News is maybe 50.)

To give Bill O'Reilly his due, let's not forget he's also a terrible writer.

Gregg · Apr 19, 2017

From Fox:

Starting Monday, Fox will air Tucker Carlson’s show an hour earlier, in O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. ET slot, and move the popular ensemble show “The Five” from 5 to 9 p.m. On May 1, “Five” member Eric Bolling will debut a one-hour program at 5 p.m., and Martha MacCallum will make her “First 100 Days” show permanent at 7 p.m.

nighttimer · Apr 19, 2017

About damn time. :fistpump

The Bill Cosby of talking heads is gonzo.

You cost your employer $13 million in settlements because you can't keep your flirty words and filthy hands off of women, and you'd be let go too. Albeit without a multi-million dollar golden parachute as Bill-O and the equally vile Roger Ailes got.

Proving yet again, pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered.

cornflake · Apr 19, 2017

He's probably got a deal lined up elsewhere.

RedRajah · Apr 19, 2017

I'm half-expecting him to replace Spicer.

msuss · Apr 19, 2017

Wonderful news. Couldn't have happened to a bigger pinhead. He is a despicable blowhard, bully, and hypocrite.

Brightdreamer · Apr 19, 2017

cornflake said:
He's probably got a deal lined up elsewhere.

My thought, as well. The market he caters to is unfortunately too large to ensure his career death; he'll either start his own thing (podcast, web site, etc.) or someone out there even more right-wing than FOX will snap him up - though they may wait a while for the scandal to die down, and so it makes a bigger splash when they announce his "new" home.

RedRajah said:
I'm half-expecting him to replace Spicer.

I wouldn't be surprised. But, then, I wouldn't be surprised if a waste-flinging monkey replaced Spicer at this point. This administration is really pushing the boundaries of "surprised" to unforeseen frontiers...

ElaineA · Apr 19, 2017

I wish I could say Yay! to the O'Reilly news, but really, I'm just sad.

Sad that it took an avalanche of allegations and payouts to finally push him out the door. One complaint wasn't enough. Nor 2 or 3. It had to get into the upper single--probably well into double digit--numbers of complaints before he was reluctantly pushed out. I spent my teens and twenties seeing women's rights and opportunities steadily pushed forward, an awareness that women aren't grope-dolls, acknowledgement in the corporate world that we can operate on equivalent intellectual planes with men, that we can do the job.

But it's all sliding so far backward. I find myself demoralized by the news, frankly, which is dumb because I'm glad he's out, but the attitude he represents is stronger than it's been in a long, long time. *sigh*

mccardey · Apr 19, 2017

Brightdreamer said:
I wouldn't be surprised if a waste-flinging monkey replaced Spicer at this point.

We can only hope...

mccardey · Apr 19, 2017

Replacing O'Reilly?

Why, Tucker Carlson—who, in 2015, responded to the revelation that a writer at his Daily Caller site [Carlson's brother] had written him an email that speculated about whether a female professional contact had ever been ejaculated on by refusing to apologize and joking that the email had been meant “in the nicest way.” (Funny!)

The email in question is quoted in the Slate article. Not going to put it here, though.

My goodness, they do hate the women.

Opty · Apr 19, 2017

Brightdreamer said:
But, then, I wouldn't be surprised if a waste-flinging monkey replaced Spicer at this point.

It'd certainly be a step up from Spicer.

blacbird · Apr 19, 2017

It's not impossible that Fox knows more about Oh-Really than has been revealed to the public. He may have been even a worse pig than we know.

caw

noirdood · Apr 19, 2017

I am puzzled how many people cannot recognize a person who is so self-centered s/he cannot see the world beyond his/her nose.

nighttimer · Apr 19, 2017

cornflake said:
He's probably got a deal lined up elsewhere.

Bill-O was making $20 million a year, and you can bet he got something more than a gold watch to go away without making a stink. He'll resurface somewhere. Maybe CNN will come a'calling? If you can't beat 'em, hire 'em.

blacbird said:
It's not impossible that Fox knows more about Oh-Really than has been revealed to the public. He may have been even a worse pig than we know.

Oh, to be sure since they told Bill-O to hit the bricks only after an internal investigation was conducted into his sexual harrassment habits You can bet there's a LOT more unsavory stuff about what was going on The O'Reilly Factor when the cameras weren't on.

Here are some of the things Bill O’Reilly has done, allegedly, to the women he has worked with throughout his two decades at the Fox News Channel:

approaching an African American woman whose desk was near his, referring to her as “hot chocolate,” and grunting like a “wild boar”

offering multiple unwanted sexual advances and lewd comments to a woman producer on his show, phoning her “when it sounded as if he was masturbating” and describing “various sexual fantasies”

suggesting that she “buy a vibrator,” “engage in phone sex or a threesome with him,” and listen to “the details of his alleged sexual encounters with a cabana masseuse, airline stewardesses, and Thai sex-show workers”

threatening to make any woman who dared to complain about his behavior “pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born”

Here are some of the things that happened to O’Reilly in reaction to these allegations, some of which have long been public, over that time: ... not very much. The accusations may have been reported in the media, and progressives may have had some laughs at O’Reilly’s expense because of them (Google “Bill O’Reilly loofah”), but there O’Reilly remained, the star of the Fox News Channel, pugnacious and indestructible. And he stayed on his perch in large part because from there O’Reilly was able to make massive amounts of money—for himself, and for the company that had elevated him. From 2014 through 2016, according to one report, The O’Reilly Factor generated more than $446 million in advertising revenues.

While Don Imus was fired for a racist comment, and Dan Rather was fired for an isolated journalistic indiscretion, and Brian Williams was suspended for exaggerating the truth … O’Reilly, the company’s statement on the matter suggests, was let go because of a pattern of behavior that is offensive not merely to the people who were its most direct targets, but to our broader ideals of decency, and respectfulness, and empathy.

Another factor in the death of the Factor: 21st Century Fox’s pending takeover of Sky TV, the European pay-TV company, in a deal said to be worth $14 billion. “On May 16,” New York magazine reported, “the British media regulator Ofcom is set to judge whether the Murdochs are ‘fit and proper’ to own such a large media property.” And “removing O’Reilly could appease critics and help close the Sky deal.”

You know what’s worth more than $446 million? $14 billion.

The justified feeling of schadenfreude of the ignole fall of a pompous asshole like Bill-O, is diminished somewhat due to the fact it came 20 years later than it should have and he's still going to be richer and happier than you or I will ever be. Faux News will find another Angry White Man all too happy to take their millions and reassure the folks at home that made and kept O'Reilly at the top for decades, how everything is screwed up, but none of it is their fault. Those guys never seem to go out of style.

But at least it won't be this particular Angry White Man jabbing his finger at the viewer and spouting drivel and nonsense. At least until his new show starts somewhere else. Jeff Zucker may be calling Rupert Murdoch at this very moment...

Haggis · Apr 19, 2017

O'Reilly's gone?

clintl · Apr 19, 2017

Haggis said:
O'Reilly's gone?

I thought he only knew how to use the next finger over.

AW Admin · Apr 19, 2017

cornflake said:
He's probably got a deal lined up elsewhere.

I'm expecting that this is a sabbatical rather than an exodus.

cornflake · Apr 19, 2017

In case anyone would like to experience O'Reilly getting his due a bit before today.... He was on Letterman a number of times. More than once, Dave was just not having it. It's really magical; the two of them verbally sparring is like the textbook example of someone bringing a knife to a gun fight. Dave is the Indiana Jones in this -- just sighing and shooting the flailing ass.

One here, in which, among other things, Dave says: "You’re putting words in my mouth. Just the way you put artificial facts in your head."

One here, in which Dave just can't with the "War on Christmas" idiocy, and ends up destroying O'Reilly.

MaeZe · Apr 19, 2017

Haggis said:
O'Reilly's gone?

That's precious.

MaeZe · Apr 19, 2017

AW Admin said:
I'm expecting that this is a sabbatical rather than an exodus.

Well there is this: The trouble with Fox: O'Reilly scandal threatens Murdoch's deal for Sky

nighttimer · Apr 21, 2017

AW Admin said:
I'm expecting that this is a sabbatical rather than an exodus.

For Bill-O, it's an exodus. He's done. He's over. He's toast. He's yesterday's cold toast. Flush him and forget him.

You don't get at least $25 million to go away only to come back. No, he's gone, but the ugly legacy of O'Reilly will last because the end of his show does not mean the end of his swaggering, condescending paternallsim and the repellent sexism he displayed whenever the opportunity came along.

Here's a particularly cruel example of it.

For years when I was growing up, Fox News was the soundtrack of my family home. I'm convinced my father slept with it on so he could sublimely absorb more Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and friends. So my parents were thrilled in August 2002 when producers from "The O'Reilly Factor" called to book me for a segment to promote my book "A Girl's Life Online." Before taping the show, O'Reilly came out to introduce himself, and my mother was giddy to tell him that she watched him when she was hot and sweaty, while on the treadmill. O'Reilly seemed baffled.

Though this was almost 15 years ago, I can remember the experience of being a guest on "The Factor" so well because it's an episode that still haunts and disturbs me to this day. And the dismissive way O'Reilly dealt with my own history as a victim of assault made the allegations that finally pushed Fox News to fire him this week feel all too familiar.

At 19, I appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" to tell my story in the hopes that it would prevent sexual assault. Six years earlier, I had been molested by a man I went to go meet after I spent six months developing an online relationship with him. The assault occurred in 1996 and resulted in a landmark federal case.

O'Reilly challenged me about the fact that I decided to go meet this person I didn't know. He then insisted that at 13, I should have known better than go meet someone, and I should have been able to predict what would happen. Fair enough; in the back of my head, even then, I did know I was taking a massive risk. In typical O'Reilly preaching, though, he told me I made a huge mistake and appeared to suggest that I deserved to become a victim of sexual assault because I knew I was doing something I shouldn't have done.

I sat there speechless. I stared at him. All I could think to ask was, "You've never made mistakes at 13?" His answer, "Well, that's a really big one to make."

Of course, I didn't know it when I was on the air, but the women whose accusations of sexual harassment forced O'Reilly out of his job say he was already subjecting them to sexist remarks, leers and worse at the time. Which means that in O'Reilly's mind, meeting a stranger off the Internet who you think is your friend at 13 is a mistake. But sexually harassing your staff as an adult is just fine.

A number of his viewers were so outraged by his treatment of me that he felt moved to address it the following night. One viewer wrote to tell him he'd "judged" me in a way that was "very unfair" and "cruel." O'Reilly disagreed. "I didn't do that," he said on air.

"I pointed out that she made an enormous mistake, so that children watching 'The Factor' would get the point."

Swine.

MaeZe · Apr 23, 2017

When there is a culture, you can expect more:

Fox News fires Ailes, O'Reilly over sexual harassment claims. Will Sean Hannity be next?

Columnist, attorney, and former Fox News contributor Debbie Schlussel appeared on today’s Pat Campbell Show and accused Fox News Prime Time Host Sean Hannity of the same type of behavior that lead to Bill O’Reilly leaving the beleaguered network earlier this week. [...]

Schlussel says that after she turned down his advances, she was not invited back on his program.

Color me unsurprised.

Bill O'Reilly Out At Fox News

rugcat

Lost in the Fog

Maze Runner

regdog

The Scavengers

Manuel Royal

Gregg

Life is good

nighttimer

No Gods No Masters

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

RedRajah

Special Snowflake? No. Hailstone

msuss

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

ElaineA

All about that action, boss.

mccardey

mccardey

Opty

blacbird

noirdood

nighttimer

No Gods No Masters

Haggis

Evil, undead Chihuahua

clintl

Represent.

AW Admin

cornflake

practical experience, FTW

MaeZe

MaeZe

nighttimer

No Gods No Masters

MaeZe