This e-mail is a belated thank you to all of you who sent e-mails of support when our director, Bill Hartung, had his run-in with Bill O'Reilly on his syndicated radio program in mid-March. We are now able to update you on our demand for a debate with O'Reilly in a fair format.

If you want to be reminded of the full background on the original episode that prompted all of this, you can access Bill Hartung's "open letter" to O'Reilly at Common Dreams

The gist of it was that our Bill was winning a debate with O'Reilly on his own show, so O'Reilly called Bill a moron, cut off his mike and accused him of not caring whether his kid died in an anthrax attack... all the while giving his audience the illusion that Bill Hartung was still on the line, listening to this sleaze and saying nothing in return. How's that for fair and balanced?

As you probably know, Bill challenged O'Reilly to a debate in a neutral format, OR to let him come back on the radio show for ten minutes a week for ten weeks, with no funny business with cutting the microphone. After several weeks, we received the following response from David Tabacoff, the senior executive producer of O'Reilly's radio show:

Thank you for your letter to Bill about the radio broadcast in which you appeared a few weeks back. I am Bill's executive producer and want to let you know that while I agree that you and Bill had a spirited debate I reject your characterization of the conversation as "sleazy" or inappropriate in any way. We appreciated having you come on the radio show and would certainly consider having you on again if you are willing but the kind of debate you have proposed isn't realistic in light of our format and the flow of news from Iraq.

David Tabacoff
_________________________________________

Bill e-mailed Mr. Tabacoff back asking whether the part where O'Reilly cut the mike and accused Bill of not caring whether his kid dies in an anthrax attack fits his definition of "spirited debate." We have received no reply.

The other interesting thing we learned from this process is that O'Reilly refuses to give out tapes or transcripts of his radio show. Instead, people are required to join O'Reilly's web site as a paying member in order to get access to selective tapes and transcripts provided by O'Reilly's staff... a sort of "greatest hits" catalogue, NOT tapes or transcripts of specific shows in their entirety. So much for "free speech." The following two e-mail responses from Kathy Ritchie, an O'Reilly producer, outline this policy:

Mr. Hartung -
1) We do not have audiotapes of the O'Reilly Radio program
2) Those individuals who have "questions or criticisms" can go to www.billoreilly.com and fill out the appropriate e-mail forms.

Quite simply, we do not make audio recordings of our radio broadcasts nor do we have paper transcripts. Our webisite is the most responsible way for those individuals to direct their e-mail. You are more than welcome to forward those e-mails to me; however, they will be forwarded to the website where those "questions and criticisms" can be properly addressed.

The misspelling of "website" as "webisite" was in the original e-mail.

In the meantime, Ralph Nader has raised the issue of O'Reilly's treatment of Bill Hartung with Roger Ailes, the former Reagan operative who heads up programming at Fox News. Ailes said he couldn't do anything about it directly, since O'Reilly's radio show is separate from Fox TV, but he did offer to have Bill on a Fox show to give his perspective. It won't be a "free ride," according to Ailes (why are we not surprised), but Bill will get another crack at the Fox audience. We will pursue this lead, and we are thankful to Ralph Nader for going to bat for us. In the meantime, we HAVE been on Fox TV several times since the O'Reilly radio debacle, including Bill's appearance on Hannity and Colmes (www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms to see a transcript of that appearance, which was every bit as rowdy as Bill's appearance on the O'Reilly radio show).

On one level, O'Reilly trashing a guest is a classic "dog bites man" story. In fact, a lot of folks questioned why anyone of sound mind would go on O'Reilly's show in the first place. The answer is simple: a large segment of the American public get their news PRIMARILY from television, and Fox is the fastest growing cable news network. If we are going to win these folks over, we need to strategically go on Fox and other conservative outlets to engage in what my colleague Mark Sommer of the Mainstream Media Project describes as "mouth-to-mouth combat." No one should be under the illusion that Fox and O'Reilly are fair and balanced, but if we can beat them on their own "rigged" shows every once in a while, it should serve the larger cause of educating the public as a means of changing our society for the better. The most immediate change that needs to happen is to run George W. Bush and his gang of aggressive unilateralists, Iran-contra re-treads, and two-bit thugs out of Washington.

1) E-mail David Tabacoff and Kathy Ritchie and demand a tape or transcript of O'Reilly's March 14, 2003 radio program, on the grounds of the public's right to know.

2) Make your voice heard loud and clear against the FCC's recent proposal to allow media conglomerates like Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (which owns, among other things, Fox News, the New York Post, and the right-wing Weekly Standard magazine) own newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations in the same media markets. Go to www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/ for information on how to weigh in on the FCC proposal.

3) Support independent media. Consider subscribing to the World Policy Journal (details at www.worldpolicy.org/journal/index.html) Or contributing to a progressive site like Alternet or Common Dreams

Keep fighting the good fight, and thanks for your continuing interest in, and support for, our work.

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