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Bill O'Reilly (political commentator)

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Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly at Camp Stryker (December 2006)
Born (1949-09-10) September 10, 1949 (age 75)
New York City, NY, U.S.
Occupation(s)gigolo, cocaine distributor, columnist, television and talk radio personality.
SpouseMaureen E. McPhilmy (2 children)
Websitebilloreilly.com

William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American political commentator, and the host of the cable news program The O'Reilly Factor. Prior to hosting The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly served as anchor of the entertainment program, Inside Edition. O'Reilly also hosts The Radio Factor, a radio program syndicated by Westwood One, and has written seven books.

Biography

Early life/Education

O'Reilly was born in New York City to Irish Catholic parents William and Angela O'Reilly, from Brooklyn, New York and Bergen County, New Jersey. His father was an accountant for the oil company Caltex. In 1951, his family moved to Levittown on Long Island. After graduating from Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys high school in Mineola in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College, a small, co-educational private (and at the time, Catholic) institution in Poughkeepsie. While at Marist, O'Reilly played punter in the National Club Football Association, and was also a writer for the school's newspaper, The Circle. An honors student, he majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London. O'Reilly received his B.A. in History in 1971. He played semi-professional baseball during this time, as a pitcher for the Brooklyn Monarchs. He unsuccessfully tried out for the New York Mets. O'Reilly later earned a masters degree in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University (where he attended school with shock jock Howard Stern) and another Master of Public Administration from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Broadcasting career

File:0301061billo1.jpg
Bill O'Reilly in 1975 as the "Action Consumer trouble shooter" for ABC affiliate WNEP in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

After graduating from Marist College, O'Reilly moved to Miami, Florida at age 21, where he taught English and history at Monsignor Pace High School for two years. After leaving Miami, O'Reilly returned to school, earning a M.A. in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University in 1976. While attending Boston University, he was a reporter and columnist for various local newspapers and alternative news weeklies, including The Boston Phoenix. O'Reilly did his broadcast journalism internship in Miami during this time, and was also an entertainment writer and movie critic for The Miami Herald.

O'Reilly's early television news career included reporting and anchoring positions at WNEP-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he also reported the weather. At WFAA-TV in Dallas, Texas, O'Reilly was awarded the Dallas Press Club Award for excellence in investigative reporting. He then moved to KMGH-TV in Denver, Colorado where he won a Local Emmy Award for his coverage of a skyjacking. O'Reilly also worked for KATU-TV in Portland, Oregon, as well as TV stations in Hartford, Connecticut (WFSB-TV), and in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1980, he anchored his own program on WCBS-TV in New York where he won his second Local Emmy for an investigation of corrupt city marshals. In 1982, he was promoted to the network as a CBS News correspondent and covered the wars in El Salvador and the Falkland Islands from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He later left CBS over a dispute concerning the uncredited use in a report by Bob Schieffer of riot footage shot by O'Reilly's crew in Buenos Aires during the Falklands conflict. (A 1998 novel by O'Reilly, Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder, depicts a television reporter who has a similar dispute over a Falklands War report. The character proceeds to exact his revenge on network staff in a series of graphically-described murders.)

In 1986, O'Reilly joined ABC News as a correspondent for ABC World News Tonight.

In 1989, O'Reilly joined the nationally syndicated King World (now CBS) program Inside Edition, a tabloid/gossip television program in competition with A Current Affair. He started as senior correspondent and backup anchor for British TV host David Frost, and subsequently became the program's anchor after Frost's termination. In addition to being one of the first American broadcasters to cover the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, O'Reilly also obtained the first exclusive interview with murderer Joel Steinberg and was the first television host from a national current affairs program on the scene of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In 1995, O'Reilly was replaced by former NBC News and CBS News anchor Deborah Norville on Inside Edition. He then enrolled at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he received a master's degree in Public Administration. After Harvard, he was hired by Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of the then startup FOX News Channel, to anchor The O'Reilly Report. The show soon moved to a new time slot, and was renamed The O'Reilly Factor.

O'Reilly's radio program reaches 3.25 million-plus listeners and is carried by more than 400 radio stations. Conservative magazine NewsMax's "Top 25 Talk Radio Host" list selected O'Reilly to the #2 spot as most influential host in the nation.

Personal life

O'Reilly married Maureen E. McPhilmy, a public relations executive, in 1995. They have a daughter, Madeline, born in 1998, and a son, Spencer, born in 2003.

The O'Reilly Factor

Main article: The O'Reilly Factor

O'Reilly's television show, The O'Reilly Factor, is routinely the highest-rated show of the three major U.S. 24-hour cable news channels. The show is taped late in the afternoon at a studio in New York City and airs every weekday on the FOX News Channel at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

American Red Cross and the United Way

After the September 11 terrorist attacks, O'Reilly devoted substantial time on his television show and wrote pieces on the subject of how the United Way of America and American Red Cross failed to deliver millions of dollars in donated money, raised by the organizations in the name of the disaster, to the families of those killed in the attacks. In O'Reilly's view the organizations misrepresented their intentions for the money being raised by not distributing all of the 9/11 relief fund to the victims. Congressional hearings were called on the matter and an investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer took place. Bernadette Healey, the president of the Red Cross, resigned shortly thereafter. In sworn testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee in November 2001, Congressman J.D. Hayworth asserted that media pressure, most notably from O'Reilly, helped cause the Red Cross to increase payments to affected people and helped cause other charities to participate in an oversight database established by Spitzer.

Political beliefs and points of view

Main article: Politics of Bill O'Reilly

The O'Reilly Factor is a show which focuses on news related to politics most of the time, which O'Reilly then offers commentary about. Given the amount of time O'Reilly has been on the air, his beliefs and views have been well chronicled on a variety of subjects.

In the lead up to the 2008 presidential election, The Daily Telegraph newspaper ranked Bill O'Reilly 82nd on its list of the "100 most influential conservatives in America".

He has recently adopted the term "traditionalist" when describing his points of view on various topics, saying the term is not limited to the normal party lines.

I'm not a political guy in the sense that I embrace an ideology. To this day I'm an independent thinker, an independent voter, I'm a registered independent ... there are certain fundamental things that this country was founded upon that I respect and don't want changed. That separates me from the secularists who want a complete overhaul of how the country is run."

— Bill O'Reilly

Controversy and criticism

Main article: Criticism of Bill O'Reilly

Over the years, O'Reilly has been criticized by or had disputes with rivals including Al Franken, Bill Moyers, George Clooney, Joe Scarborough, Keith Olbermann, sometimes in response to commentary by him. He draws criticism from political media watchdog groups like Media Matters for America and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

Andrea Mackris lawsuit

On October 13, 2004, O'Reilly filed a lawsuit against O'Reilly Factor producer Andrea Mackris, her lawyer Benedict P. Morelli, and Morelli's law firm for extortion, contending Mackris had privately threatened to charge O'Reilly with sexual harassment unless he paid her more than $60 million (USD). Later that same day, Mackris filed a complaint of sexual harassment against O'Reilly.Both parties reached a private settlement whereby the sexual harassment and extortion lawsuits were dismissed. Newspaper reports said that O'Reilly paid Mackris millions of dollars as part of the settlement, but the terms of the agreement are confidential. Mackris' complaint had also sought additional damages and described alleged actions of retaliation by Fox, et al.

Books and other media

O'Reilly's Culture Warrior

O'Reilly writes a weekly syndicated newspaper column that appears in hundreds of newspapers, including the New York Post and the Chicago Sun-Times.

  • Those Who Trespass. Novel.
    Bancroft Press, April 1998; reprint, Broadway Books, February 2004. 288 pages. ISBN 0-9631246-8-4.
  • The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, and the Completely Ridiculous in American Life. Non-fiction.
    Broadway Books, September 2000; reprint, Broadway Books, March 2002. 224 pages. ISBN 0-7679-0528-8.
    Reached #1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.
  • The No Spin Zone. Non-fiction.
    Broadway Books, October 2001; reprint, Broadway Books, March 2003. 208 pages. ISBN 0-7679-0848-1.
    Reached #1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.
  • Who's Looking Out For You?. Non-fiction.
    Broadway Books, September 2003; reprint, Broadway Books, September 2004. 224 pages. ISBN 0-7679-1379-5.
    Reached #1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.
  • The O'Reilly Factor For Kids: A Survival Guide for America's Families. Non-fiction.
    HarperEntertainment, September 2004; reprint, Harper Paperbacks, September 2005. 208 pages. ISBN 0-06-054424-4.
    Co-authored with Charles Flowers. Best-selling non-fiction children's book of 2005.
  • Culture Warrior. Non-fiction.
    Broadway Books, September 2006. 240 pages. ISBN 0-7679-2092-9.
    Reached #1 on the New York Times' Non-Fiction Best Seller list.
    Achieved more than one million copies in print in its first three months.
  • Kids Are Americans Too. Non-fiction.
    William Morrow (October 16, 2007). 160 pages. ISBN 0060846763.

References

  1. Forbes, Bill O'Reilly, The Top 100 Celebrities. Accessed January 8, 2007.
  2. Pragoff, Cat. "Fox News' Bill O'Reilly was in classroom before newsroom", New Hampshire Union Leader, February 9, 2005. Page D10
  3. "Bill O'Reilly Bio". Retrieved 2007-09-26.
  4. O’Reilly and the Levittown Issue: Answered
  5. Duffy, Don (1970). ""Campus Stuff" (The Circle)" (PDF). Poughkeepsie, NY: Marist College (Originally published in The Circle on November 19, 1970). Retrieved December 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  6. Marist (2001). "2001 Commencement Program". Poughkeepsie, NY: Marist College, Office of Alumni Relations (Originally published in the May 19, 2001 Commencement Program). Retrieved December 26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  7. ""Bill O'Reilly, Big Pimpin': At 26, the future Fox News star just wanted out of Scranton" via heirs of an O'Reilly correspondent". Retrieved 2007-09-26.
  8. Bill O'Reilly's Bio Accessed August 2006
  9. ^ Malinowski, Scoop (November 8, 2004). "Get 2 Know Bill O'Reilly!". TheBioFILE.com. Retrieved September 9. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  10. "Fear Factor - Bill O’Reilly’s baroque period", Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, March 20, 2006
  11. The State of the News Media 2007.Annual Report on American Journalism,2007.
  12. Influential Talk Radio Hosts.NewsMax.com,October, 2006.
  13. Johnson, Peter (October 3, 2006). "Cable rantings boost ratings". USATODAY.com. Retrieved June 21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  14. "O'Reilly rips celeb 'phonies'", Richard Johnson with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson, PapillonsArtPalace.com, November 2, 2001
  15. "Fight the power", Bill O'Reilly, WorldNetDaily, December 13, 2001
  16. "Red Cross Diverts Donations From Sept. 11 Victims", Kevin Curran, NewsMax.com, October 31, 2001
  17. "Red Cross President Resigns Under Pressure From Board", Grant Williams, Philanthropy.com, October 26, 2001
  18. Opening Statement of the Hon. J.D. Hayworth, Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of the House Committee on Ways and Means, Hearing on Response by Charitable Organizations to the Recent Terrorist Attacks, Committee on Ways & Means, November 8, 2001
  20. "NRP Interview]". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help); Unknown parameter |http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/dmg_wmref_em.php?id= ignored (help)
  21. "Media types trade shots". Associated Press. 2002-12-09. Retrieved 2007-06-19.
  22. "O'Reilly: Female Aide in $60M Extort Bid". The Smoking Gun. Courtroom Television Network LLC. October 13, 2004. Retrieved 2005-07-11.
  23. "O'Reilly Hit With Sex Harass Suit". The Smoking Gun. Courtroom Television Network LLC. October 13, 2004. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  24. Howard Kurtz (October 15, 2004). "O'Reilly, Accuser Air Their Cases". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  25. ^ Howard Kurtz (October 29, 2004). "Bill O'Reilly, Producer Settle Harassment Suit". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  26. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136997,00.html
  27. BillOReilly.com, Newspaper Column List, Accessed January 8, 2007.
  28. ^ New York Times Best Seller; Number Ones Listing; Non Fiction By Date, Hawes.com
  29. "Bill's Bio". BillOReilly.com.

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