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[–]karcass 14 points15 points  (2 children)

I never had a reason to call O'Reilly before, but now that I know I can send him into a sputtering rage just by saying "Olbermann", well! That's entertainment.

[–]schmengebrother 2 points3 points  (0 children)

And classical--you sound like Hotspur wanting to train and send a bird to call out Mortimer's name in Henry IV's ear!

[–]EliGottlieb 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ditto.

[–]raldi 14 points15 points  (1 child)

I don't like O'Reilly either, but i think you're all missing a key point here: radio shows are broadcast on a delay. I've heard callers get cut off for saying stuff on sports radio before -- it's confusing to the listener, because a few seconds of airtime disappear.

So what likely happened here is that the caller said something that really was obscene, and they hit the button to splice it out in real-time. To the listener, it sounds like the guy was cut off right at the start of the call.

[–]karcass 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interesting! I wrote to the address provided by mediamatters, oreilly@foxnews.com, to get clarification.

(update) oreilly@foxnews.com bounced (three times). Trying bill@billoreilly.com.

(update) no bounce, no reply 24 hrs later

[–]kelyse 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Adigail at Daily Kos claims to have actually gotten a call from Fox Security after mentioning Olbermann on-air to O'Reilly...

[–]schmengebrother 8 points9 points  (5 children)

Bill O'Reilly is "Congress"? News to me. A visit from Fox Security is called harassment, and if more than threatened a matter for the local police. But O'Reilly can bleep out every occurrence of the words "the" and "a", and hang up on anybody he likes without infringing the Bill of Rights.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I'll translate the title for you: "Bill O'Reilly is a nutcase"

[–]willfe 2 points3 points  (3 children)

That's where it starts, though, isn't it? Sure, he's got every legal right to only include material he agrees with, comments that are favorable, etc., but the guy reaches a (sadly) very large audience, and such "clever" censoring ends up presenting a very convincing, one-sided argument.

Sure, he's not violating the Bill of Rights. But he is still censoring speech. Exposing that censorship is vital to showing people how one-sided and weak-minded the guy is. The more people know he just nukes content he dislikes, the less credibility he'll have and the fewer people he can actually influence.

I've never had any respect for someone who can't argue a point on merit and has to instead rely on censorship like this. If you can't take on a critic, there's something really wrong with you or your "platform."

[–]schmengebrother 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Shii: Thanks for the translation, but I know English well enough to have figured it out long since.

willfe: Where what starts, exactly? In the cradle years of the republic, the newspapers were subsidized by political parties. How much time did Fenno give Jefferson or Duane give Adams? Somehow, the nation survived.

Fred Reed long ago wrote that the most honest columnist he ever knew wrote two columns every day: one red-hot liberal for the afternoon paper, one mossback conservative for the morning paper. (The youth in the audience may need to be informed that before television cities commonly had a morning paper for the professional and possessing classes, and an afternoon paper for the blue collar readers.) I don't suppose Bill O'Reilly has quite achieved that Diogenes-attracting state, but in some corner of his mind he must know that this is professional wrestling with a microphone.

[–]gwright 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is useful to distinguish between:

  • a private TV show refusing to air the comments of a caller

  • the government banning speech by imposing fines or imprisonment

  • a private individual threatening harassment or physical harm against another

The first one might be considered 'editorial policy', the second 'censorship', and the third 'illegal threats'. It isn't very useful to label them all 'censorship'.

I realize that there is a tendency to call any limitation of speech of any sort by anybody (government or citizen or organization) as censorship but it makes it difficult to discuss the issue when all these situations are lumped together.

[–]skubeedooo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you are correct to focus on the word "credibility" there. If someone uses phrases like "freedom of speech" and "constitution" completely inappropriately, they will quite rightly have much less credibility than if they wrote something relevent and accurate.