But wait, Bill O’Reilly chimes in and says that the media killed Whitney Houston! According Bill O‘Reilly, she was dying in the public eye for years and “the media” didn’t do anything about it. So…Bill O’Reilly isn’t part of the media? A guy that writes a weekly column, is a contributing editor of PARADE magazine and USA Today, and has a “highly rated” nightly prime time television program isn’t part of “the media”? How does that make sense?
Poor “the media”, always getting the finger pointed at it by all sorts of ideological viewpoints. This towering monolith was at first decried as being too liberal, so everyone involved panicked and started reporting two sides of a story to establish parity. Now they don’t even report news or facts, because that would make them appear to have an opinion. Even though there’s typically only one side of a FACT or the TRUTH and they could just report that.
As an aside, Bill O’Reilly really needs to cool it with the “working class I’m just another blue collar guy at the bar…just sayin’” shtick that he’s been riding since joining the Fox News Channel or since ever, really. He has been a multimillionaire much longer than he was ever a blue collar common man. In fact, it’s doubtful he’s ever been blue collar, more blue collar adjacent. What with going to private schools and universities in his youth. But that’s besides the point. Bill O’Reilly is in the media, and even he said nothing of Whitney Houston’s decline…ever…at all. More importantly his article isn’t even really about Whitney Houston, it’s about shoehorning talking points into an article that’s framed in Whitney Houston’s death.
Bill O’Reilly likes to pride himself on the numerous home runs of his rhetoric, when in reality it’s mostly ground singles and doubles, and even then he’s tagged out trying to steal third. That’s the established “conservative” DNA of a Limbaugh, where hubris makes up for the lack of substance, facts or a salient way to make a point without coming across as self-absorbed or out of touch; here he can couch his “blue collar everyman”, and still spout off about being a multimillionaire public figure.
Bill O’Reilly goes after the media saying “[they] pride themselves on being non-judgmental unless you are against abortion.” This is nonsense and Bill O’Reilly knows it. On top of this, what part of “the media” is he really talking about? If “the media” is being portrayed in black/white, as a monolithic entity that espouses one viewpoint, as is the right-wing wont, then sure “the media” is judgmental. But there’s news based opinion and theirs news based fact. Problem is entities like Fox News Channel took the editorial and the news parts of a news programs and mixed them together.
It’s why, back in the olden days, an anchor would wait until the end of a news report type show to say their piece. It was “their” opinion editorial, couched on a news program. Like how the opinion column of a newspaper is clearly labeled, most of the time, as an opinion section and not surrounded by the daily news. But with news/opinion media being eroded in the cable news arena (CNN, MSNBC, FNC), somehow it’s being lumped in with traditional media, to create the best of “the media”. To top it off, the right-wing IS pretty much the media these days. They control most of talk radio, FOX News is an echo chamber that has proven influence on “the media” at large, their pundits dominate 24 hour news networks, and so on and so forth. Exactly how is the right-wing and conservatism getting the short end of the stick in terms of coverage and the spotlight?
This article is mostly just Bill O'Reilly reinforcing his persecuted minority stance as a right-wing ideologue, it has nothing to do with Whitney Houston or her demise. Classic Bill O'Reilly. He wedges in a dig on the media about anyone (Bill O'Reilly, right-wingers) who’s against abortion is called out as a religious zealot and anti-woman. But to Bill O'Reilly, the media has no problem ignoring addiction and irresponsible human behavior when it comes to drugs. It’s hamfisted, but at least it allows him to shoehorn in a current talking point.
Somehow the current societal movement, or ruse as Bill O’Reilly refers to it, of legalizing marijuana for medical usage gets wrangled up in to his article. This is Bill O’Reilly’s evidence of a society walking away from a responsible position. Because we all know that to get to Oxycontin and heroin, you have to have smoked weed before that. A classic Bill O’Reilly move also finds itself in his article. “Ask any drug rehab counselor and her or she will tell you that pot often leads a person to harder drug use and is mentally addictive itself.” His preponderance of evidence to this notion is that you can just ask lots of people about a topic, and that‘s just as good as facts, right? This is right-wing baloney at it‘s finest “some people say” is another way to phrase it. “Believe me, I know people who get stoned or drunk every day. They become incredibly desensitized to those around them.” I’m sorry your teenager hates your face Bill O‘Reilly, but they’re probably not drunk or stoned. Also note to Bill O‘Reilly, if you’re going to say “Believe me” before you saying anything, it’s probably a good sign of you’re lying. How often has utter bullshit followed the phrase “believe me”? So no, I don’t believe that Bill O’Reilly knows lots of people who are “stoned or drunk” on a daily basis. He may “know of” people, namely his interns, but he doesn’t personally know anyone who functions like that.
Finally, Bill O’Reilly does argue my point that Whitney Houston was an adult and didn’t do enough to help herself or have the stability necessary to get sober. But still, cautionary tale? Nah.
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