GE Blasts O’Reilly for “unconfirmed” GE Story…
The AP’s David Bauder writes about GE’s on the record response to Bill O’Reilly’s GE story on last night’s Factor…
General Electric Co. called a Fox News Channel report about the company supplying terrorists with material used in bombs “irresponsible and maliciously false” on Wednesday, as a feud between Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann kept sizzling.
It was the first time that GE, the parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, had publicly responded to accusations made by O’Reilly on his Fox show.
And then there’s this…
GE spokesman Gary Sheffer said he was surprised by the report, given O’Reilly’s admission that he could not confirm GE’s involvement.
GE does not do business with Corezing, and does not produce the radio frequency modules that were described in the report, he said.
“We usually do not respond to the misleading and inaccurate claims made on this program because very few people take them seriously,” Sheffer said, “but tonight’s report took this smear campaign to a new low.”
A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, had no immediate comment about GE’s statement. FBI spokesman Steve Kodak said the bureau does not comment about any investigations it may be doing.
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August 12, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Let me see here, GE denied they were doing business with Iran and yet after heavy scrutiny on the O’reilly Factor they finally admitted they were doing business with Iran. Matter of fact, GE was still doing business with Iran as of 2008. Now Olbermann better pray to god that if any parts from IED’s that killed any US Soldiers are traced back to GE. They’re done, O’Reilly and Fox News will nail them to the wall and there will be no way in hell for Olbermann to spin out of this…
August 12, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Well… I did notice that O’Reilly was very careful last night to only imply GE had their hand in this issue… but not to say they did. He offered them as an example of an American company who has done business with our enemies, but didn’t say “they did this too,” or anything close to that.
He did a fair bit of dancing (which in the end, I thought looked like a weak attack on GE if that’s what it was intended to be)… but there’s was enough “We don’t know who is doing this,” and “We’re not suggesting anything,” that he could wiggle out of it.
As for GE’s response… it seemed a little too adversarial… and not in a good way. They had every right to attack (and attack hard) in response… but they did so a little more MSNBC-like than they should have:
Really? Sounds like something right out of MSNBC’s (or FOX’s for that matter) PR department… not GE.
Of course, the statement is a lie. If GE values O’Reilly so little… why do advertise during his program? Kinda hard to argue one’s irrelevance, and then buy some commercial space from them, don’t ya think?