Fox News star Bill O’Reilly frequently accuses the New York Times of ignoring his success as an author and cable news anchor but it appears his setbacks aren’t much different for the newspaper either.
Reporters and bloggers at other news outlets have published several stories on O’Reilly and recent allegations by the liberal Mother Jones magazine that he embellished his experience as a war correspondent (O’Reilly denies the accusations). Mother Jones’ report broke last Thursday and since then Politico posted at least six stories on it. USA Today and CNN.com, four stories each. The Washington Post published at least 11.
By contrast, the Times has written one story on O’Reilly by reporter Emily Steel, which went online Sunday night. (The Wall Street Journal has also only published one story on O’Reilly, but that paper is under the same corporate umbrella as Fox.)
Even then, media critics called the story unsubstantial and critically shallow, since it was mostly a summary of what previously happened — Mother Jones accused O’Reilly, he defended himself — and contained no new information, other than a statement of support for O’Reilly by Fox News’s public relations department.
Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University, called the story “weak” on Twitter.
“Shame on [the Times] and [Steel] for this he said/she said garbage,” tweeted Eric Ethington, communications director at Political Research Associates, a liberal think tank. “Where’s the investigative reporting?”
By contrast to the single O’Reilly story, the Times has published at least 16 articles on embattled NBC News anchor Brian Williams, who is also facing scrutiny for having decidedly lied about being aboard a U.S. military aircraft gunned down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003.
Steel, the Times reporter who wrote the paper’s single O’Reilly story, declined to comment, directing the Washington Examiner media desk to her editor, who in turn sent us to Eileen Murphy, vice president of corporate communications at the Times. “We’re continuing to follow the story,” she said. “Not much to say beyond that.”
