Bashir vs. O’Reilly (vs. Mitchell)
Mediaite’s Noah Rothman writes about Martin Bashir going after Bill O’Reilly for criticizing Andrea Mitchell as biased…
On Thursday, Martin Bashir defended his colleague Andrea Mitchell from Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly who accused Mitchell of liberal bias on his program. Bashir took O’Reilly to task for a flimsy attempt to tar Mitchell and he landed a punch when he responded to a challenge by O’Reilly to point out a Fox News political reporter who had ever crossed the line and exhibited bias. Bashir proved he was up to the challenge.
Forget what Bashir said since he and it are irrelevant because this falls into “consider the source” territory given his POV track record. More importantly, there’s a far more damning argument that can be used to rebut Bill O’Reilly: the words of Bill O’Reilly…
Five years ago Mitchell was a guest on O’Reilly’s show and O’Reilly repeatedly stated how fair and not at all biased she was. ICN was the only blog to record this moment for posterity…
Example #1
O’Reilly: Now I want everybody to know that you’ve been a correspondent over there for thirty years at NBC and we checked you out thoroughly…we couldn’t find any bias in your reporting. None. Okay? So, I don’t have a problem with you. I do have a problem with NBC News. Tell me where I’m going wrong.
Example #2
O’Reilly: …like, I have it in for NBC. I’ll admit it. I don’t like you guys. I like you. I like the Today Show. But I think your management made a conscious decision to go to the left…
Example #3
O’Reilly: I’m giving you way too much of a hard time. I am. And I apologize. It’s not your fault.
Mitchell: I don’t think it’s fair to describe journalists as liberals or conservatives.
O’Reilly: I do. Because I think that it’s filtered through a prism. But I want to apologize to you. I’m giving you way too hard a time. It’s not your fault. And your book is excellent. And I have to tell people to buy your book because you are fair. You are balanced. You are accurate. And you have had a window on history for the last thirty years that none of us have had. And you can learn a lot from reading your book. But I am distressed…and I am…about what’s happening over where you work. And I’m sorry that I had to take it out on you.
So excuse me if I take with a bit of skepticism…oh…what the hell…a whole lot of skepticism…anything negative Bill O’Reilly now says about Mitchell given how he bent over backwards for her so far he would wind up being able to see his own belt buckle.
April 26, 2012 at 3:01 pm
That was five years ago. Mitchell is blatantly partisan these days.
April 26, 2012 at 3:05 pm
I was waiting for someone to (predictably) make that dubious argument. Thanks. With that out of the way I can now move on to other things…
April 26, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Whether O’Reilly is right or not about her bias it seems to me that to use his statements from five years ago BEFORE Mitchell had her own show on MSNBC isn’t a good argument against his claim.
I’ve occasionally seen Mitchell’s show and she definitely has shown a left-of-center viewpoint. But expressing an opinion on a opinion show doesn’t mean her straight reporting has bias.
So, O’Reilly is right about her “bias” on her opinion show but that doesn’t prove she has “bias” when she wears a reporter’s hat.
It does raise again the question that Spud has noted (and others) about these folks wearing two hats and viewers not always knowing what hat they’re wearing.
April 26, 2012 at 3:11 pm
“I was waiting for someone to (predictably) make that dubious argument”
Well I made it too (in part). It’s neither dubious or irrelevant.
Mitchell’s role on MSNBC has changed dramatically over the past five years, hasn’t it?
April 26, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Tip of my hat to Eric and the Texan. True and true and relevant.
April 26, 2012 at 3:31 pm
Mitchell has become more outspoken. MSNBC fanboys can pretend that Mitchell is the same on MSNBC as she is on Nightly News, but that’s not the case unless her reporting has also become blatantly progressive. Part of me thinks this is her overcompensating for being married to the guy who caused the financial crisis.
April 26, 2012 at 3:47 pm
“Tip of my hat to Eric…”
Welll, as Indira Gandhi once said to her Sikh guards, “I thank you for your support.”
A month later they all got together and shot her.
April 26, 2012 at 4:00 pm
I thought dayside shows were supposed to be “NEWS” on MSNBC and not opinion. Andrea Mitchell sure has changed over the last 5 years and maybe not be as blatant as some of the others at MSNBC but she does ask very biased questions if you watch her regularly. I used to watch her on NBC and actually really liked her reporting but since she has spent more time on MSNBC she has really turned. Didn’t someone just mention the other day that she now has a “I’m against voter ID” commercial? If that isn’t towing the Obama line I don’t know what is!
April 26, 2012 at 4:02 pm
I watch MSNBC a lot during the day when I work from home and see her program frequently. She is partisan. Very partisan. I don’t know what she did 5 or 10 years ago and I don’t care. I know what I see now.
April 26, 2012 at 4:05 pm
Lonestar, you see a liberal bias in the weather report.
Does the fable of the boy who cried wolf remind you of anything?
And don’t say liberal fairytales, please.
April 26, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I don’t know what she did 5 or 10 years ago and I don’t care.
If you don’t know then you can’t difinitively state she’s changed since the time O’Reilly talked with her, now can you?
Whether O’Reilly is right or not about her bias it seems to me that to use his statements from five years ago BEFORE Mitchell had her own show on MSNBC isn’t a good argument against his claim.
I went looking to find out when exactly Mitchell started anchoring on MSNBC and I can’t find a start date. The show “Mitchell Reports” started in 2008 but she was already anchoring regularly M-Fr on MSNBC before that going back to sometime in 2007 at least. It may be she wasn’t an anchor at the start of 2007 when this interview occurred. I just don’t know.
April 26, 2012 at 4:47 pm
Lonestar, you see a liberal bias in the weather report.
Oh how I enjoyed that.
April 26, 2012 at 5:12 pm
^If he says “Yes! Liberal weatherman pushing global warming” I’m putting my head through the monitor.
April 26, 2012 at 5:35 pm
^ I was going to do that, but I prefer my backstabbing when least expected.
April 26, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Look, Mitchell isn’t a spring chicken, and I think she saw the handwriting on the wall when Tucker Carlson got put in the rubber room untill his contract expired: start leaning or start packing.
April 26, 2012 at 6:12 pm
I watched the “somebody has to do it” quip and concluded for myself that it could easily have been a poorly-delivered joke line. Ms. Mitchell’s reporting has always seemed somewhat biased in its perspective to me, although never blatantly partisan. I haven’t watched her nearly enough recently to make any judgements on her performance now.
April 26, 2012 at 6:31 pm
I see liberal bias in liberals. I see conservative bias in conservatives. Its not hard to tell which way people vote.
April 26, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Well spud, if you’re arguing shes always been partisan, fine. I know she is now. I have eyes and ears.
April 26, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I don’t think it’s always so cut and dried. Everyone carries biases and some have nothing at all to do with being conservative or liberal. Sometimes it’s simply looking at things from too narrow of a perspective and questions that should be asked aren’t even thought of.
April 26, 2012 at 7:02 pm
Sometimes you don’t have to be biased to think the GOP is intentionally trying to limit liberal votes. People aren’t stupid.
April 26, 2012 at 7:05 pm
Some liberals certainly strive toward stupid.
April 26, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Ah, so taking a side in favor of liberal hysteria over voter ID isn’t “bias”, it’s just right. Because you agree with it. Yeah.
April 26, 2012 at 7:20 pm
I’m curious why Spud takes such offense to O’Reilly’s words regarding Mitchell. He rides in to defend her with quotes that are 5 YEARS OLD. Really? Spud digs up a 5 year old interview where O’Reilly complements Mitchell, who at the time was a “reporter” for NBC News & MSNBC. She is now the host of a midday program on the increasingly left leaning MSNBC where she does more than just straight news reporting. His only defense of quoting the 5 year old interview is that he expected the “dubious argument”, but offered nothing as to why the argument is dubious. I believe Mitchell’s role at MSNBC has changed in the past 5 years. I also believe the content at MSNBC has changed in the past 5 years. Even Spud has spent considerable ink reporting & commenting on the changes at the network.
April 26, 2012 at 7:31 pm
^ I can’t speak for Spud (mostly because my snorkel never runs away from home) but I noticed the degree to which O’Reilly changed his tune about her. Given the amount of praise he had for her unbias-ness just a few years ago I’d expect his criticism of her now would be more mild than it was.
April 26, 2012 at 7:42 pm
– I can’t speak for Spud –
He can, but his lips move.
April 26, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Hell, a lot of marriages don’t last 5 years. An eternity. Five months ago Olbermann was kissing Al Gore’s fat fanny. Not so much these days.
April 26, 2012 at 8:28 pm
“Olbermann was kissing Al Gore’s fat fanny.”
Yea also let’s see what KO said five years ago about Gore.
April 26, 2012 at 9:39 pm
The GOP only seems concerned about “voter fraud” in poor and minority communities. Any half-assed journalist can smell THAT rat.
April 26, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Because we’re all racists, and Andrea recognizes that. Keep talking.
April 26, 2012 at 9:54 pm
The day’s not complete until Joe makes baseless claims of racism!
April 26, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Oh c’mon folks. Let’s get real. All dayside programming on both MSNBC an FNC as a biased tilt. Sometimes it is the comments they make during panel discussions.
But it is most evident in the stories they cover (pro Obama or anti Obama).
Have the Andrea Mitchell critics never watched Megyn Kelly’s program?
April 27, 2012 at 4:56 am
Yeah, Megyn is a biased conservative. So what. Big deal. Could just once MSNBC stand on their own?
April 27, 2012 at 7:11 am
Megyn is fairly conservative though she loves her some Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
April 27, 2012 at 7:57 am
5 years ago, John Edwards was the leading candidate to become Attorney General.
5 years ago, Brett Farve was one of the 5 most popular athletes on the planet.
5 years ago, the thought of Al Sharpton hosting his own TV show on a non-BET related network would have seemed ludicrous.
5 years ago, Andrea Mitchell was mostly on the Foreign Affairs beat for a 3rd place news network that still tried to play it straight during the dayside and was only beginning to dabble in opinion shows during primetime.
April 27, 2012 at 8:09 am
I didn’t claim racism, so cut that crap out. I said the GOP is targeting districts which tend to vote Democratic, which is true.
April 27, 2012 at 9:15 am
Joe… would a NATIONAL voter ID law, be racist too? Then, instead of “targeting” certain areas… they would “target” the whole country.
April 27, 2012 at 9:24 am
Blue, pay attention. I DIDN’T CLAIM RACISM.
April 27, 2012 at 9:42 am
uh, yeah joe: ya did. Does this sound familiar?
“The GOP only seems concerned about “voter fraud” in poor and minority communities.”
April 27, 2012 at 9:53 am
Yes, Farris, I realize you’re a little dense. Poor and minority communities tend to vote Democratic, which is why the GOP is targeting them. I didn’t say they were doing it because they don’t like minorities, dumba$$.
April 27, 2012 at 10:38 am
Joe… my hair started to fall out a few years ago. Please don’t try to split any more of them.
You, me, we all, know what you were saying. Just answer the question.
April 27, 2012 at 10:47 am
You clearly don’t know what I’m saying. The GOP is targeting liberal districts for “voter fraud”. It has nothing to do with being anti any specific race, and everything to do with suppressing the liberal vote. If you can’t understand that simple concept – which apparently no one on this site can – then we have nothing to discuss.
April 27, 2012 at 11:20 am
Mitchell has a long accomplished career as a an honest, fair, straight reporter. Just because her show is on MSNBC, doesn’t make her a liberal. I think she does a good job of covering the news unbiased. The stories her show covers tend to appeal to a more liberal audience, but that hardly makes her a partisan. That is a strong charge, far more harsh than accusing her of bias.
I was a bit surprised she did the voter ID ad. Who wants to touch that rail?!?! I chalked it up to her love of the Amish in Pennsylvania – they are totally getting hosed by this voter ID law.
April 27, 2012 at 11:23 am
– touch that rail –
You don’t get it. She’s just right.
– PA –
If you can’t trust the Amish, we’re all screwed.
April 27, 2012 at 11:24 am
Just for clarification, does anyone disagree that poor and minority districts usually vote Democrat? Not making any judgments why, just sayin’ the numbers work out that way.
April 27, 2012 at 11:36 am
If the thrust of Joe’s argument was Repubs are targeting “liberal” districts why use “poor and minority” districts thereby making his statement less clear and open to others interpreting it as racist.
Why use two words that require an extrpolation to reach what he really meant when only one word would have been crystal clear and not open to debate.
Perhaps Joe was being too clever by half?
April 27, 2012 at 11:41 am
@Joe
Got it. It’s everyone else’s fault… not yours. The way it always is. Everyone else it to blame. Everyone but Joe.
Ugh.
April 27, 2012 at 11:47 am
Good point, Grammie. Everyone knows poor and minority districts tend to votel liberal, so “poor and minority districts” and “liberal districts” mean the same thing to me. Just so we’re clear, I never IMPLY racism. If I think something is racist, I use the word.
April 27, 2012 at 11:56 am
Personally, I think the voter ID law is a solution in search of a problem. Let’s get real, it is a smart political issue for Republicans because they look altruistic and it helps them suppress a Democrat constituency. Kudos to the Republicans for the smart political play. Dems need to disarm the Republicans by passing their stupid ID laws then launch a powerful grassroots campaign to get valid IDs in the hands of Democratic voters who don’t have a drivers license. Help the poor and disenfranchised get the right paperwork necessary to vote and drive them to the polls if necessary. Pay for their IDs, do whatever it takes. How do ya like that community organizing?!? Honestly, we have bigger problems in the country than this.
April 27, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Democrats prefer the narrative of accusing racism, directly or otherwise. It plays to their constituency by perpetuating the conservative bogeyman. They could easily accept the law, and many have. The map of states with ID-laws is easy enough to find. Hysteria is more fun and profitable.
April 27, 2012 at 12:08 pm
Actually, I was right the first time. The GOP isn’t targeting affluent liberal districts. It’s the poor and minorities who tend to have things like check-cashing IDs instead of a state ID. So “poor and minority districts” is accurate.
April 27, 2012 at 12:10 pm
“Hysteria is more fun and profitable.”
Yes, yes it is. Isn’t that why we have cable news?
Wha, wha, what? You mean Conservative Bogeyman isn’t real? Gosh, first Santa Claus, then Easter Bunny, now this? I’m sad.
April 27, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Just in the nick of time to be relevant to this discussion:
Haley Barbour Takes On Andrea Mitchell In Contentious Battle Over Obama Vs. Romney
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/haley-barbour-takes-on-msnbcs-andrea-mitchell-in-contentious-fight-over-obama-vs-romney/
Straight down the middle with blinkers on Andrea Mitchell sets Gov Haley Barbour in his proper place and that’s not questioning BHO’s greatness, period!
April 27, 2012 at 12:36 pm
– Isn’t that why we have cable news? –
After twelve years watching Fox, I’m amazed at the sober over-all tone of local news. When did that happen?
April 27, 2012 at 1:35 pm
“It’s the poor and minorities who tend to have things like check-cashing IDs instead of a state ID.”
What? Making people produce IDs just to cash a check?!? WHAT IS THIS, N*ZI GERMANY???
/Andrea Mitchell’d
April 27, 2012 at 1:58 pm
We have had voter ID checking here in Ohio the last year or so. No big deal. Lots of things can be used for IDs including utility bills, tax payment receipts to name but two. We have a huge Amish population. They can bring in a live chicken.