Silke Jasso
Bill O’Reilly, who pressed President Donald Trump on his adoration for Russian president Vladimir Putin before the Super Bowl, questioned if the American press is indeed a free press during the “Talking Points” commentary on his show.
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The assessment comes on the heels of President Trump tweeting that the media is the enemy of the American people. O’Reilly, who works for conservative-leaning Fox News, makes the point that the mainstream press is overtly liberal and is aligned against the president: “When the press aligns itself with a political movement … then it is no longer objective or free because it’s sympathizing with a political point of view.”
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O’Reilly said he believes there are at least 10 liberal journalists for every one conservative journalist.
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He did say that President Trump has been criticized by both the left and the right, and to prove it he played a recent clip of Sen. John McCain telling NBC’s Chuck Todd that America needs the press: “We need a free press … It’s vital. If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press.”
That last part got O’Reilly going, suggesting that the American press isn’t actually free at all because it has become “an arm of the Democratic party.”
He said “their sympathies or sympatico with the party. On television, the overwhelming number of newscasters are liberal.” And then O’Reilly showed a clip of anchor Lawrence O’Donnell, a left-leaning broadcaster on MSNBC, as well as other MSNBC broadcasters as well as some from CNN.
O’Reilly played a clip of CNN’s Jake Tapper telling President Trump that he won the election, so get to work and stop “whining.”
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O’Reilly went on to say that when the media aligns itself with a political party it is no longer free. O’Reilly did say that “some believe the Fox News Channel is not fair and free.”
He said, “I dispute that. We put forth both sides here.”
MSNBC might take issue that statement.
