Comments on: Bill O’Reilly e-mail bombs Mike Thompson

By: Jon Jacobs

Jon Jacobs — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:11:43 +0000

Poor Bill. It is so difficult to be Bill O’Reilly. He is so thin skinned and sensitive. He would appear to be the intellectual equivalent of Sarah Palin. And for that I do feel sorry for the schmuck.

By: Henry Clausner

Henry Clausner — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:10:23 +0000

i like the cartoon…but where’s Rush Limbaugh?

By: Smosongesmorp

Smosongesmorp — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 01:20:11 +0000

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By: Derf Backderf

Derf Backderf — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 19:25:23 +0000

Perhaps NPR should hold a listener survey, ya know just like the comics polls editors love so much. The five lowest-rated personalities get the ax. Anything to get those Cartalk guys off the air….

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 23:40:05 +0000

Shane, he was on Fox before he was on NPR. And I’ve often been uncomfortable with Mara Liaisson’s off-network gigs, but I’ve listened to her and also the Cokie Roberts, and they do offer some very certain predictions and very specific comments about why something happened or what someone’s intentions were. But they don’t spend a lot of time drawing on or referencing their personal experience (and Roberts has plenty that is germane). Williams exposes a lot of his personal feelings about things, and that’s what NPR kept telling him was inappropriate.

I went into more detail about how this all works on my personal blog, at http://nellieblogs.blogspot.com, but the bottom line is that, while NPR is more restrictive than some other places, those of us who have worked the newsroom understand that some newsrooms are tight@ss and some are pretty casual. It’s no big deal — If you don’t like the rules, you don’t take the job.

But you don’t take the job, break the rules and then whine about the outcome.

By: Shane Davis

Shane Davis — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:47:30 +0000

Mike,
I’ll take what you say at face value, it frankly wasn’t important enough to me to dig deep enough into his history with NPR to know that, although I”ve heard plenty of ‘analyists’ wander into the personal and not get fired for it. On the (admittedly thinly informed) surface, it still appears he was fired for being ON Fox News, not for what he SAID on Fox News. But I could be wrong.

Ted,
So Alan Colmes serves the same purpose as Elisabeth Hasselbeck does on ‘The View’?

By: Shane Davis

Shane Davis — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 21:42:34 +0000

Terry,
Here I am trying to think up a cogent response and I end up laughing at what you said…
I don’t wanna beat up on him either but your evaluation of Mr. Williams tickled my funny bone…hee hee hee…

You might be surprised to find out I have the same opinion of Bill O’Reilly…

By: Terry LaBan

Terry LaBan — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 18:34:15 +0000

I’m not defending the firing, Shane. I don’t know if he deserved it or not, but there’s no question that NPR handled it badly and in a way that made it appear to be punishing him for his politics. I’m just saying that are, in fact, plenty of credentialed, intelligent conservatives on NPR all the time(and almost no liberals of that sort on Fox). My general impression of Juan Williams, formed mostly when he hosted “Talk of the Nation” for awhile, years ago, was that he was a not that smart and out of his league.

By: Mike Peterson

Mike Peterson — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:18:54 +0000

Shane, read some of the news coverage rather than the commentary. He wasn’t fired for what he said. He was fired for what he kept saying. He consistently flouting the terms of his contract despite numerous sit-downs with the brass reminding him not to let his commentary go from the analytical to the personal. The final straw doesn’t have to weigh a ton.

By: Ted Rall

Ted Rall — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:47:05 +0000

Juan Williams was no liberal. He was radio’s version of Alan Colmes, just a paid punching bag for the right.