Bill O’Reilly once got me off a nasty speeding ticket.
I was travelling too fast, going 95km/h on a Toronto road that suddenly went from an 80km/h zone to a 60. And sure enough, there was a cop hiding in a driveway. Flashing lights come on, I pull over, and the officer saunters smugly up to my window with that look that says he’s throwing the book at me and has me red-handed, red-faced and ready to squirm for any mercy.
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“Licence and registration,” he asks, adding that I was doing 95 in a 60 – as if I didn’t know.
I explained, rather sheepishly, that I was on my way home from work, explaining that I was journalist.
“O’Reilly?” he notes. “Any relation to Bill O’Reilly? The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News?”
No sir, none.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Just slow down next time.”
I could have kissed the cop for saving me three black points, a fine and more expensive motor insurance when it was next up for renewal.
And I could have kissed Bill O’Reilly too – he is not related to me. But it seems too as if Bill has had his fair bit of kissing too. Fox News and its parent, 21st Century Fox, have paid out $13 million – that’s Dh47.7 million – over the past years to settle sexual harassment cases brought by five women against the political commentator.
Over the past 20 years, The O’Reilly Factor has been the top-rated show on the news network, and the hour-long programme has become even more popular now, given the rise in the US of the angry, loud and highly opinionated right.
If you have any ambitions of running politically – even if you have little else to offer, as Donald Trump has so emphatically proved, the Fox channel is where your cockamamie fake news holds sway and takes on an alternative truth and reality. And Bill O’Reilly is akin to being the high priest, the snake-oil peddler, the cobra charmer and the journalist all rolled up into one programme that has netted billions in advertising revenue for Fox and 21st Century Fox.
In 2015 alone, the show generated $178 million in advertising revenues.
Looking at it from a purely business perspective and checking the maths, O’Reilly’s employers could easily write off the $13 million paid out over 15 years as simply the cost of doing business. He’s already the highest-paid on-air personality at the network, bringing home $18 million last year. If he is fired or walks, there’s a lot of revenue that goes with him.
Ratings talk, and there’s also a premium for advertisers who want in on his 8pm prime-time slot. That The O’Reilly Factor factors in generating so much profit for the network, then a little grope, an unwanted kiss, a nudge-nudge wink-wink can be over-looked, right? Or at least bought off as the cost of doing business?
Sadly, that’s in effect what Fox and 21stCentury Fox are doing – and saying – by settling five lawsuits against my namesake. For Pete’s sake, the folks at Fox will argue, even Donald Trump can get away with a bit of groping, an unwanted kiss, and some nudge-nudge, wink-wink; that was just locker-room banter, right? And it didn’t stop him from becoming President?
No. It didn’t. But that doesn’t make O’Reilly’s behaviour, or even that of the Commander-in-Chief, any less acceptable.
What the scandal does do is firmly establish that there is a dual standard at play in Fox News. It’s fine to preach and highlight inconsistencies on air, to hold others to account, to shine a light into dark corners. But what happens off-camera stays off-camera. Yep, there’s a reason why a news programme comes from a ‘set’.
Two of O’Reillys settlements came after the network’s former chairman, Roger Ailes, was dismissed last summer in the wake of a sexual harassment scandal. Back then, Fox and its parent said they would not tolerate behaviour that “disrespects women or contributes to an uncomfortable work environment.”
According to the New York Times, which broke the news of the settlements, the women who made allegations against O’Reilly either worked for him or appeared on his show. They have complained about a wide range of behaviour, including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if O’Reilly was engaged in a solo sex act.
The reporting suggests a pattern: As an influential figure in the newsroom, O’Reilly would create a bond with some women by offering advice and promising to help them professionally. He then would pursue sexual relationships with them, causing some to fear that if they rebuffed him, their careers would stall.
Of the five settlements, two were previously known — one for about $9 million in 2004 with a producer, and another struck last year with a former on-air personality.
Representatives for 21st Century Fox would not discuss specific accusations against Mr. O’Reilly, but in a written statement to The Times the company acknowledged it had addressed the issue with him.
For once – a rarity in fact – the 67-year-old O’Reilly is saying very little, other than offering that as a celebrity, he’s open to such complaints and settling them is a prudent and necessary thing to do. That’s a bit of stretch of credulity but, hey, it’s Fox News, right?
