sarixe
6th June 2007, 01:40
The following was written on June 4th in my Latin class. I got bored.
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I was watching the O'Reilly Factor on Monday, June 4th, 2007, and he was continuing his rant about Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado.
His issue is that Boulder, markedly a far left town, had an assembly at the high school where four secular progressive panelists were telling students to have indescriminate sex and use drugs. He even played back a clip a recording of the assembly, which would make it seem like he was right.
I asked my stepdad what he thought about this, and he immediately agreed with O'Reilly, saying that Boulder High School was completely ridiculous, and the people responsible for hiring the assembly's speakers should be fired immediately.
But I took a different view. The recordings, which were but mere clips of an event with a 25-page transcript, seemed to be taken way out of context, grossly distorting their meaning. The one local reporter brave enough to appear on the O'Reilly Factor, Dave Kopel, who has a child in the school, said himself that O'Reilly was taking the quotes out of context, and challenged him to actually read the transcript.1
So I actually asked my mom and/or stepdad if I could read the transcript myself. They had no problem with it. In fact, they ended up reading it, and ultimately agreed with Kopel and myself. I then proceeded to read it, and confirmed my suspicion.
The assembly was actually a panel from the Conference on World Affairs (CWA), currently in its 59th year. It consisted of four people: Sanho Tree, Andee Gerhardt, Joel Becker, and Antonio Sacre. Its aim was to get kids interested in dealing with sex and drugs in a realistic, non-harming way. Their take was that kids are going to have sex and do drugs regardless of what people try to tell them. So they took the approach to educate the kids about doing them safely, rather than tell them not to do it and leave them in the dark as to the consequences.
This is only one example of how the media can grossly distort information simply by leaving some out of the public eye, giving them justification to spin it any which way they want. This isn't limited to Fox News channel, but all major media news outlets. People rely on these sources to be truthful, and with dishonest journalism such as O'Reilly's, the masses can easily be misled into a role of submission and conformity. This is dangerous.
I'm especially disappointed with O'Reilly's reporting, though, as he calls his show the No Spin Zone. Many people watch the Factor, and believe they're getting a balanced view. What they're really getting is a view that's spinning so fast to the right, that it's just a blur, hardly noticeable by the common uneducated viewer.
Bill O'Reilly, time and again, has attacked what he calls the Far Left and Secular Progressive movement, just to list a few token names. He always automatically takes the opposite position. But hoe many times has he even mentioned the far right on his show? I can only recall one instance, when he got an email confronting him about his anti-leftism. He said he disagrees with the far right, and all extreme points of view. However, he has never made a direct attack on the far right such as those on the left. He once even went so far as to defend militant Christianity, saying something along the lines of What's wrong with a few Christian folks gathering together and having a good time, as we see on this video?
O'Reilly is not only reporting lies to fuel his right-wing agenda, but is also destroying innocent people in the process. It may be that he hasn't considered this incidental byproduct of his dishonest reporting, or it may be that he really is out to destroy these people merely because their views are more left oriented than his. Either way, if his unfortunate, twisted crusade known as the Culture War succeeds, many people will have their lives absolutely devastated by a liar. In the case of the CWA panel, he's demanding that school administrators be fired, and that the panel members be severely reprimanded. This, of course, coupled with his false reporting, paints a very ugly picture for the school. He even takes the opportunity to slap around the liberal media, shaming them for not even mentioning the incident. It's all a very good time for O'Reilly. He's doing what he does best: looking out for you. And it's a very convincing story.
In fact, the whole thing is perched atop a very weak foundation: a dishonest story. Once this foundation is knocked loose, the whole report crumbles. But O'Reilly, a comparably handsome man with a convincing disposition, has his audience under the spell of his rhetoric. Nobody wants to challenge the good guy who's looking out for morality.
It's time for these lies to be exposed, and it needs to be done in a way that the people will notice it. The dissenting opinion provided by people invited to appear on the Factor can't be relied upon to have any real impact on the viewers. Anything they say that disagrees with O'Reilly is immediately put down either by a bad temper or a commercial break. There's never really a solid argument from O'Reilly when he's confronted with the truth. He'll never admit he's wrong, nor will his supporters, unless relentlessly opposed and argued with. I challenge you to take down the friendly face of biased reporting everywhere. Do your own research and gather your own conclusions. Expose the truth.
----
I was watching the O'Reilly Factor on Monday, June 4th, 2007, and he was continuing his rant about Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado.
His issue is that Boulder, markedly a far left town, had an assembly at the high school where four secular progressive panelists were telling students to have indescriminate sex and use drugs. He even played back a clip a recording of the assembly, which would make it seem like he was right.
I asked my stepdad what he thought about this, and he immediately agreed with O'Reilly, saying that Boulder High School was completely ridiculous, and the people responsible for hiring the assembly's speakers should be fired immediately.
But I took a different view. The recordings, which were but mere clips of an event with a 25-page transcript, seemed to be taken way out of context, grossly distorting their meaning. The one local reporter brave enough to appear on the O'Reilly Factor, Dave Kopel, who has a child in the school, said himself that O'Reilly was taking the quotes out of context, and challenged him to actually read the transcript.1
So I actually asked my mom and/or stepdad if I could read the transcript myself. They had no problem with it. In fact, they ended up reading it, and ultimately agreed with Kopel and myself. I then proceeded to read it, and confirmed my suspicion.
The assembly was actually a panel from the Conference on World Affairs (CWA), currently in its 59th year. It consisted of four people: Sanho Tree, Andee Gerhardt, Joel Becker, and Antonio Sacre. Its aim was to get kids interested in dealing with sex and drugs in a realistic, non-harming way. Their take was that kids are going to have sex and do drugs regardless of what people try to tell them. So they took the approach to educate the kids about doing them safely, rather than tell them not to do it and leave them in the dark as to the consequences.
This is only one example of how the media can grossly distort information simply by leaving some out of the public eye, giving them justification to spin it any which way they want. This isn't limited to Fox News channel, but all major media news outlets. People rely on these sources to be truthful, and with dishonest journalism such as O'Reilly's, the masses can easily be misled into a role of submission and conformity. This is dangerous.
I'm especially disappointed with O'Reilly's reporting, though, as he calls his show the No Spin Zone. Many people watch the Factor, and believe they're getting a balanced view. What they're really getting is a view that's spinning so fast to the right, that it's just a blur, hardly noticeable by the common uneducated viewer.
Bill O'Reilly, time and again, has attacked what he calls the Far Left and Secular Progressive movement, just to list a few token names. He always automatically takes the opposite position. But hoe many times has he even mentioned the far right on his show? I can only recall one instance, when he got an email confronting him about his anti-leftism. He said he disagrees with the far right, and all extreme points of view. However, he has never made a direct attack on the far right such as those on the left. He once even went so far as to defend militant Christianity, saying something along the lines of What's wrong with a few Christian folks gathering together and having a good time, as we see on this video?
O'Reilly is not only reporting lies to fuel his right-wing agenda, but is also destroying innocent people in the process. It may be that he hasn't considered this incidental byproduct of his dishonest reporting, or it may be that he really is out to destroy these people merely because their views are more left oriented than his. Either way, if his unfortunate, twisted crusade known as the Culture War succeeds, many people will have their lives absolutely devastated by a liar. In the case of the CWA panel, he's demanding that school administrators be fired, and that the panel members be severely reprimanded. This, of course, coupled with his false reporting, paints a very ugly picture for the school. He even takes the opportunity to slap around the liberal media, shaming them for not even mentioning the incident. It's all a very good time for O'Reilly. He's doing what he does best: looking out for you. And it's a very convincing story.
In fact, the whole thing is perched atop a very weak foundation: a dishonest story. Once this foundation is knocked loose, the whole report crumbles. But O'Reilly, a comparably handsome man with a convincing disposition, has his audience under the spell of his rhetoric. Nobody wants to challenge the good guy who's looking out for morality.
It's time for these lies to be exposed, and it needs to be done in a way that the people will notice it. The dissenting opinion provided by people invited to appear on the Factor can't be relied upon to have any real impact on the viewers. Anything they say that disagrees with O'Reilly is immediately put down either by a bad temper or a commercial break. There's never really a solid argument from O'Reilly when he's confronted with the truth. He'll never admit he's wrong, nor will his supporters, unless relentlessly opposed and argued with. I challenge you to take down the friendly face of biased reporting everywhere. Do your own research and gather your own conclusions. Expose the truth.