Eric Alterman and CAP Smear Bill O'Reilly
Last week the "Center for American Progress" published a piece by Eric Alterman and George Zornick: Hatred for Sale. The article posits that certain cable news personalities serve up a "steady diet of fear, anger, and resentment" over the problem of illegal immigration. The unholy trio? Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O'Reilly.
Alterman spends most of his time on Beck and Dobbs, but O'Reilly gets singled out for misstating a statistic, and for raising the issue of illegal immigrant crime 66 times over the course of the year. The author's riposte to this coverage is to cite a study about crime rates among immigrants--not illegal immigrants, mind you--all immigrants.
But this bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand is not our main focus. Let's look at another of Alterman's criticisms, in his own words:
Where Dobbs, O’Reilly, and Beck are on even shakier ground, if that’s possible, is when they devolve into a discussion of an imaginary “NAFTA Superhighway”... It’s nuts for sure, but this hasn’t stopped Dobbs, Beck, and O’Reilly from flogging the issue relentlessly.Alterman goes on to cite specifics: Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and... And? That's it. No examples from Mr O'Reilly are cited.
Early on, Alterman credits a report from Media Matters as a primary source for his piece. Perhaps we will find substantiation for this criticism of O'Reilly there. But this is what we find:
Dobbs and Beck have perpetuated two related myths, that there are plans to construct a "NAFTA Superhighway" running from Mexico to Canada, and that there are plans to join Mexico, Canada, and the United States in a "North American Union"They say nothing about Bill O'Reilly advancing either of these theories. In detailing both of these of "urban legends", they give examples from both Beck and Dobbs (including the same one used by Alterman), but O'Reilly's name is never even mentioned!
We didn't leave it at that. We did a search through available transcripts and internet sources for any evidence that O'Reilly has been "flogging" the superhighway story "relentlessly" and found nothing. O'Reilly's own website has an archive of program topics and discussions that goes back for years. No reference to a "superhighway". Even the term "highway" turned up nothing related to the issue at hand.
So where did Mr Alterman come up with the notion that Bill O'Reilly has been flogging this issue "relentlessly"? Why did Alterman add O'Reilly's name to a Media Matters analysis that only dealt with Dobbs and Beck? We asked:
Date: June 5, 2008 2:04:38 PM EDTAfter five days, Mr Alterman has not replied to our email. The wording of his commentary remains unexplained, and unchanged. fox news bor eric cao
To: ealterman@americanprogress.org
I just linked to your article on immigration hate at my website. However, I notice you say this about the NAFTA superhighway hoax:
"It’s nuts, for sure, but this hasn’t stopped Dobbs, Beck, and O’Reilly from flogging the issue relentlessly."
Dobbs and Beck: you are correct. But when did O'Reilly ever even mention it, let alone flog it relentlessly? I may be wrong but I don't recall that EVER being a topic on the tv show, and the only reference I can recall from radio is when it came up once and he dismissed it as a phony issue. I know you want your article to be factually correct, so I would appreciate knowing if in fact O'Reilly has flogged this issue relentlessly, or if that is an error on your part. Thank you so much.
