If you watched the two separate nights over which Bill O’Reilly cut up his O’Reilly Factor interview with Jon Stewart on Fox “News” this week, as we did, you probably found that both nights fell surprisingly flat, given that Stewart, at least, usually offers a reason to make these things “must watch” moments.
Well, there’s a reason it fell flat, as noted by Gawker today, O’Reilly cut out most of the best stuff…
Last night on his show-Part Two of a ludicrously overhyped “faceoff” between O’Reilly and Stewart in which Stewart attempted, among other things, to present a critique of Fox as a fear-mongering GOP messaging operation-O’Reilly boasted that his edit of their 42-minute interview for broadcast was “a fair cut” and invited viewers to have a look at the unedited version online to judge for themselves: “Some of these idiots in the press who hate us, ‘O’Reilly cut the interview to make Stewart look’-OK, all of that is bull. It’s a fair cut. And then when you watch the cut and watch the whole interview you’ll see it.”
So we took him up on the offer, and guess what? If by “fair cut” O’Reilly means “cut in a manner that left some of Stewart’s best lines, most effective arguments, and most convincing evidence out of the interview and hidden from the broadcast audience,” then he’s absolutely right.
Gawker’s selection of some of the best video that never made air — along with descriptions of how some of them were cleverly gutted before making it onto air — is posted right here.
Now they’ve got the “must watch” stuff. Really. And all of it, far more entertaining and interesting and challenging than what actually made it onto O’Reilly’s air. Go figure.
I liked the edited stuff, but OReilly did leave the best line in when Stewart said Fox had taken reasonable concerns about this Prez and this economy and turned it into a full-fledged panic attack about the second coming of Chairman Mao….best sum up of the last year politics, evah
By they way, where would be without Daily/Colbert, MSNBC and blogs? Fox and their their lapdogs, the network news/CNN, sure don’t give us much counter to Fox’s talking points. If Fox says its not being covered (when it is) they then must cover it more (tea party demo)…when Fox ignores it, networks/CNN ignore it (gay rights demo) on and on…
Reading the comments following the gawker article, this was good:
I mean, really, how do you compete with that business model? There’s so much ignorance to go around.
Soul Rebel,
great comment and loved the last line:
“There’s so much ignorance to go around.”
That sums it up, a recent poll showed Fox News in top place with 49% saying they trusted Fox News.
Fox News provides an easy way out for viewers who don’t want to deal with any alternative views, who can’t think for themselves, and love to share the hate.
I’ve always said I trust Fox News 100%
… to always slant things to the conservative perspective.