FNC’s O’Reilly Calls LAT’s Robert Hilburn a Liar and Dishonorable
On Friday evening’s Bill O’Reilly show, O’Reilly said he was duped by Robert Hilburn, the music writer for the Los Angeles Times.By O’Reilly’s account, Hilburn called him for a quote and he agreed to provide one, on the condition that Hilburn not put an adjective in front of O’Reilly’s name (e.g., bombastic, fascist, etc.). Hilburn agreed to the terms.
As you can see from the quote from Hilburn’s article below, Hilburn put the adjectives “controversial” and “ultraconservative” in front of O’Reilly’s name.
Bono has been so persuasive in his advocacy of debt relief for Africa that he has won the respect even of controversial, ultraconservative Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly.
What did O’Reilly have to say about this on his show?
“He (Hilburn) lied, and you should know how dishonorable people like Robert Hilburn are, and there are legions of them in the print industry.”
No kidding.
[UPDATE 1, MON 7/11: Here is the recently posted link to the transcript of O'Reilly's Friday show. The Hilburn comment is at the bottom.]
[UPDATE 2, TUES 7/12: The LAT issued a correction. See our note here about it and the unsolved "ultra" problem]
[LA Observed and FishbowlLA Readers: Our other posts on the LAT are here.]
Similar Independent Sources posts:
- LAT Corrects Itself on Hilburn – O’Reilly Spat; “Ultra” Problem Remains: The Los Angeles Times issued a correction about their insertion of the words "controversial, ultraconservative" in front of Bill O'Reilly's name, in v ...
- Robert Hilburn leaving the LA Times: L.A. Observed reports that: Sacramento columnist George Skelton opted out of the L.A. Times buyout at the last minute. But a more prominent name put h ...
- Irresponsible Commenting Leads to ‘Baker Street’ Revival: 'Brett Guthrie' commented on our Robert Hilburn vs Bill O'Reilly item: Back in 1978 Hilburn gave a glowing review to Gerry Rafferty’s “Cit ...
- Live 8 Concerts: Fun to Watch, Won’t Do Much: AP Wire | 05/31/2005 | Philly to again host Live Aid concert Twenty years after the historic, yet ineffective, Live Aid concert, five concerts, dubbed ...
- L.A. Times’ Answer to African Famine: Country Music?: Too band that the Los Angeles Times has decided to drink from the same spiked Kool-Aid as Bob Geldof and other well-meaning liberal musicians in ...
July 9th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Back in 1978 Hilburn gave a glowing review to Gerry Rafferty’s “City to City” album. He called Rafferty “McCartneyesque” and since I was way into McCartney, I bought the album. What a downer that piece of vinyl was. Maybe Hilburn called him McCartneyesque because he had an ugly wife, I don’t know, but the dreary music had no similarities to what Paul was churning out back then. Hilburn’s been a poseur in my eyes for the last 30 years. He’s one of those phonies who pretend to like Springsteen’s acoustic shows because “the lyrics are so poetic”. Poetic shmoetic. I’ll give you poetry. Here’s a haiku:
Bob Hilburn sucks eggs
He owes me for Rafferty
And a Sting album
July 11th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Wha? Are you trying to make O’Reilly look even more foolish than he is? That he would devote precious airtime to a minor slight like this makes him look like a pompous windbag out of Gilbert & Sullivan. If you’re trying to help O’Reilly, the last thing you should do is call attention to his incredible vanity.
I am no fan of the mind-numblingly repetitive Robert Hilburn (every music act he likes has “inviting textures.” Like a nice sofa, perhaps?) But O’Reilly is a crybaby. Don’t stick up for him if you want to be credible.
July 11th, 2005 at 11:14 am
Independent Sources was neither sticking up for Mr. O’Reilly nor attacking him. We were simply relaying what we saw–something that we thought was worthing of reporting. Based on the coverage our story is getting, I’d say we were correct in that assessment.
July 11th, 2005 at 12:41 pm
Yeah, right! If you were “simply relaying what we saw”, why didn’t you state that Mr. O’Reilly DID NOT DISSAGREE WITH THE ADJECTIVES!
Oh, right… I forgot… you didn’t see that because Mr. O’Reilly was more upset about the inclusion of these adjectives than how he was described, the discription must be agreable to him.
Jeezzz… why bother…
July 11th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
The story is that we have a host of a very high profile television news show calling Robert Hilburn, a respected fixture at one of the largest media organizations in the world, a liar. The specific adjectives used are irrelevant though I understand you believe them to be accurate.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:33 am
O’Reilly is hardly “ultra-conservative” by any measure other than a moonbat yardstick.
Birchers are “ultra-conservative”
Attila the Hun was “ultra-conservative”
Wahhabi muslims are “ultra-conservative”
The problem is the moonbats are so far to the left, the middle ground looks far to the right from their POV. This lack reference frame is of course is why they keep losing elections..
November 23rd, 2005 at 2:27 am
[...] to have my own copy editor to insert biased language in to my posts and make me look like an idiot and a liar. Posted by orbital at [...]
March 31st, 2006 at 4:40 pm
[...] d not reflect that agreement or the critic’s views.
For a little back-story on this, go here. On his show Friday night O’Reilly called [...]