Bill O'Reilly is a smart guy who prefers conservative values. Given this he tends to support Republican candidates in elections. It should then come as no surprise that in an effort to exploit the bias of his viewers he would use the tried and true fallacy of media bias to tip the scales in favor of "his" guys.
On his show from June 1st O'Reilly quotes from a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) a "nonpartisan" organization that just happens to get 86% of it's funding from conservative leaning sources. The study indicates that in the 2008 election cycle, ABC, NBC, and particularly CBS present more favorable views of Obama than McCain. Based on this study O'Reilly concluded that "(the coverage) was all favorable to Obama" and "it just wasn't fair the last time around, Barack Obama got kid gloves treatment."
Void of the fact that this same study also points out that not only is Fox News, which O'Reilly happens to work for, not fair and balanced on this topic, they actually show their own bias by giving more favorable views on McCain than Obama.
The beauty is that by putting this out there now in reference to the 2012 elections O'Reilly has already set the table to claim bias on anything he disagrees with over the next year and a half relating the coverage of the presidential candidates.
Unfortunately I'm not sure that O'Reilly is a good judge of bias. On this same program he claims that his staff has more liberals than conservatives. This may be true but it also could be true that O'Reilly believes he falls in the middle of the political spectrum and therefore anyone left of him is liberal. This reminds me of a George Carlin bit that one of my colleagues often quotes where he says “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?” Just because politically you passed Bill O'Reilly that is not proof that you are in fact a maniac.
The other unfortunate and telling issue I take with O'Reilly's definitive statements about how Obama was treated by the media is the fact the this same organization also put out another study titled: MEDIA BASH BARACK (NOT A TYPO) Study Finds Obama Faring Worse On TV News Than McCain. (take note of the bias in the title from this "nonpartisan" organization). This study shows the exact opposite results of the study that O'Reilly quotes. Additionally this study shows that Fox News was the worst offender of "bashing" Obama surpassing the bias that CBS showed that prompted O'Reilly to say "I am concerned as an American, that the three network news nightly broadcasts are in the tank for the Democratic candidate."
Ironically O'Reilly is using "gotcha journalism" here on his guest Diane Sawyer since she wasn't given a heads up on this topic to be able to defend her network against these accusations.
O'Reilly would have more credibility if he didn't exhibit such blatant bias when calling out someone else for showing bias.
The fight over bias may never end because there is no statistical measure that will come remotely close to settling the issue and the easiest way to discredit those whom you disagree with is to make a claim that is impossible to prove. As I said before, O'Reilly is a smart guy and you can bet he knows exactly what he is doing in continuing to represent bias as an important topic of political conversation instead of the diversionary tactic that it is.
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