Just one month ago Bill O’Reilly was threatening a New York Times reporter covering alleged fabrications in his reporting about the Falklands War, but on Tuesday night he swung by The Late Show with David Letterman to brag about how well he handled the situation. “We had a controversy, and we put forth what my side was, and they put forth what their side was, and folks decided. And it worked out okay for me — I got even more viewers,” O’Reilly said, claiming his ratings are up 20 percent.
An incredulous Letterman asked how that was possible when people thought he was “making stuff up.” “But they didn’t think that, because I hit it immediately, hard, and said, ‘Look, this is the facts; this is what happened,’” the Fox News host explained.
Ah, the joys of working at a network where, as New York’s Gabriel Sherman put it, “factual accuracy matters less than whether an anchor is advancing the daily agenda.” Brian Williams should try it some time.
