Mar 5, 2015

Geoff Nunberg Explains Why Bill O'Reilly Wasn't Suspended Over Allegations of Exaggerations

From The Philadelphia Inquirer

Why Bill O'Reilly wasn't suspended over allegations of exaggerations

By Tirdad Derakhshani

The Bill O'Reilly truthism scandal is dead.

It's well and truly over despite an ever-growing list of allegations that the Fox News commentator misrepresented events during his career as a TV journalist while covering the aftermath of the Falkland Wars, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the Nicaraguan Contras, not to mention the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

It will soon be forgotten even if new accusations arise daily....

Geoff Nunberg, a linguist and social critic at [the School of Information at] UC Berkeley, said O'Reilly and many of his colleagues at Fox News couldn't be judged by the same criteria as Williams because O'Reilly and his fans believe conservatives and liberals have such radically different notions of the world they cannot share the same notion of truth about anything.

In that way of thinking, O'Reilly can brush off criticism as politically motivated.

"You have no obligation to believe anyone about anything. It's the same with some radical liberals," said Nunberg, author of The Way We Talk Now and Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times....

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Last updated:

October 4, 2016