Former NBC newsman defends O’Reilly in war reporting controversy

Browne, who is also the former president of the Spanish-language Telemundo network, appeared on “The O’Reilly Factor” Monday to rebut a report by the liberal Mother Jones magazine last week that alleged O’Reilly embellished or lied about his experience covering the Falklands War in Argentina.

“You were there to cover the war because it was an opportunity for young journalists to get their ticket punched,” Browne said, referring to O’Reilly’s short tenure as aTV journalist for CBS News in the early 1980s.

Mother Jones writer David Corn reported Thursday, “O’Reilly has repeatedly told his audience that he was a war correspondent during the Falklands War and that he experienced combat during that 1982 conflict between the United Kingdom and Argentina.”

Corn added, “American reporters were not on the ground in this distant war zone.”

After the report was published, O’Reilly spoke with several publications to rebut the story. In each interview, O’Reilly lashed out at Corn, calling him “a disgusting piece of garbage,” a “smear merchant,” and a “pig.” O’Reilly also maintained that he never misrepresented his record as a reporter, saying he never said he was in the Falkland Islands but that he did cover its developments in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he said there were violent protests. (The Falkland Islands are hundreds of miles off of Argentina.)

For his part, Corn has maintained that his story is accurate and that O’Reilly is trying to “hide behind name-calling.”

Another former CBS News reporter who covered the Falklands War also disputed O’Reilly’s version of events.

“There is no doubt that this was an extremely violent and volatile situation where reporters were in danger, or am I wrong?” O’Reilly said to Browne on his show Monday.

“No, it was,” replied Browne. “In any situation like that when you bring that kind of intensity together … it’s a dangerous cocktail.”