After a week of controversy over embellished or manufactured accounts of reporting from the “war zone” during the Falklands War of 1982, Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly was the subject of a Monday night New York Times report bundling together the mounting evidence that O’Reilly repeatedly mislead readers and viewers about his purported wartime exploits. But the biggest news out of the story wasn’t the compendium of news evidence – most of which had appeared in other news outlets over the course of Monday. It was bracing new evidence of the emotional toll the controversy is taking on O’Reilly himself.
During the course of the reporting, O’Reilly threatened one of the Times reporters on the story: “I am coming after you with everything I have,” said the embattled host.
From the Times …
Mr. O’Reilly’s efforts to refute the claims by Mother Jones and some former CBS News colleagues occurred both on the air and off on Monday. During a phone conversation, he told a reporter for The New York Times that there would be repercussions if he felt any of the reporter’s coverage was inappropriate. “I am coming after you with everything I have,” Mr. O’Reilly said. “You can take it as a threat.”
Contacted late Monday evening, Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn told TPM: “Mother Jones published a story that was based on reporting and facts. O’Reilly replied with insult, denial, bombast, and threatening rhetoric. He said I deserved ‘to be put in the kill zone’–and he and Fox News have refused to renounce this violent remark. Now we see he has threatened another reporter. It’s not shocking that he resorts to such bullying. Perhaps the only surprise is how easily he gets away with all this.”
