My friend Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star is one of the best television observers and critics in the business. A recent post on his “TV Barn” site made note of an MSNBC appearance by Gwen Ifill. As Barnhart remarked, seeing the ex-New York Times reporter once derided as “a cleaning lady” by the self-styled I-Man on his former cable home “was a reminder that wounds can heal … and that Don Imus really is a jackass.”
As previously noted, after Jenna Kern, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, decided to write an Op-Ed piece for Newsday questioning whether shock jocks and hate speech contributed to the recent murderous shooting spree in a U-U church in Tennessee, the haters started to come after her as well. Among them — as usual — was Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. O’Reilly’s crew ambushed Kern with camera and microphone in her own driveway. Before Billo had a chance to air his ambush, his cable nemesis Keith Olbermann scooped him on it on his MSBNC program” and declared O’Reilly again to be the “Worst Person in the World.”
The ambush video has now aired. Go here, click on “reality check” (under playlist on the left hand side) and then click on the top of the list, one that says “Smear Patrol” Factor confronts Newsday editor. Clearly, O’Reilly is also going after Newsday hard, as the ambush interview with its editor also makes clear.
Last month, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County visited nearby Pima County for a book signing (“Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs and Everything Else that Threatens America”) at a Tucson Barnes & Noble. The event drew protests against the controversial and reactionary lawman, who has been running immigration sweeps in heavily Hispanic sections of the Phoenix area. Several immigrant and human rights groups, including the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, or The Human Rights Coalition, wanted to send a clear message that “Arpaio’s racist and divisive policies are not welcome in Pima County.”
After Jenna Kern, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, decided to
write an Op-Ed piece for Newsday questioning whether shock jocks and hate speech contributed to the recent murderous shooting spree in a U-U church in Tennessee, the haters started to come after her as well. The attacks started first in the comments section of Newsday. (“Hi Rory. Guess what?” Ms. Kern emailed. “Newsday has received 3,000 emails against my piece. The online forum comments at newsday.com have been 99% hateful… I actually had someone sitting in a car outside my house for a half hour. I got so freaked I called the cops!”)
The attacks then continued on the Newsbusters site — a project of the Media Research Center, “the leader in documenting, exposing
and neutralizing liberal media bias.” (Kern reports, “Wow, the blogs have gone crazy about the story I did. How did you handle all the nasty things! I don’t have the stomach for it, I’m afraid.”)
Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell sent a letter to Newsday Publisher Tim Knight demanding an apology for Kern’s opinion piece, and insisted that she “never again appear on the pages of Newsday,” stating that her article “was absolutely despicable ” and the newspaper “should be ashamed and embarrassed for having printed it…” since it was “nothing more
than an in-print character assassination of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, a foray into absurd Leftist delusions of links between them and the vile murderer in a Tennessee church this past July 27.”
“This is not a freedom of speech issue,” Bozell concluded. “This is Newsday giving this woman a license to assault these fine men in print, accusing them of complicity in murder. Newsday should immediately publish a full retraction, and an abject and absolute apology to those defamed by this woman’s wretched words.”
Finally, Kern was confronted in her own driveway, as her most recent email explains: “Bill O’Reilly’s people ambushed me in my driveway today. With camera and microphone. I guess I’ll be on the show tonight or tomorrow. This is not what I had wanted. Yikes. Wish me luck. I don’t feel bad about anything I said, but he’ll probably edit it to make me look like an idiot.”
But before Billo had a chance to air his ambush, his cable nemesis Keith Olbermann scooped him on it on his MSBNC program…and declared O’Reilly again to be the “Worst Person in the World.” I couldn’t agree more!
This recent in-depth interview with James Lowe out of Salina, Kansas was for KJAG Radio and Jiggy Jag. Nice chattin” with you, James! (Scroll down to 08/13/2008 08:00 AM EDT Rory_O_connor_08132008)
Watch Rory take part in this roundtable discussion with Katie Halper and Esther Armah (in which he defends President Bush against his fellow panelists) over at GritTV:
Immigration has always been a controversial topic along the border, almost as much as it is a favorite subject for right-wing shock jocks. Recently, civil-rights activist and Pima County Legal Defender (akin to a public defender) Isabel Garcia has been the focus of a heated debate which now involves Arizona Shock Jock Jon Justice.
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Jenna Kern-Rugile writes about shock jocks and the Tennessee Unitarian church shootings, and even quotes a phone interview with Rory, but misidentifies him slightly:
Two more mentions of Shock Jocks in the press this week, one from the left and one from the right:
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Here are some of Rory’s latest appearances from the rounds of talk radio, including an appearance on the Joey Reynolds Show (considered by some, including Wikipedia, as the original shock jock):
