Why can Couric have O'Reilly on to discuss the president's Iraq plan?

Perhaps I should ask why is it OK? Why does an ostensible news show have a person with an acknowledged conservative bias on to discuss Bush's new Iraq plan without any views from a different perspective?

On another issue, why do so-called news organizations use headlines that ask questions unless they wish not to report the news but to make it? This seems a thinly disguised effort to shape public opinion rather than an attempt to present the news.

It sure ain't the lib'rel media!

I imagine it seems a little redundant to y'all but it helps me. I hope y'all bear with me.

morning....after his San Fran rant, I would have thought OhReally was a bit toxic to have on as a guest.....what an asshole.

It's not the first time. What dumb show.

Wishing he had some falafel

program.

Big shocker there.

...bang my head against the wall before I changed the channel or left for work.

wasn't trying to deride you at all...that's one thing I love about DU: it's a great place to vent. :hi:

Otherwise, I don't see why they would have him on solo to discuss Iraq. Unless they're trying him out as a potential commentator? (Bleh...)

it's about entertaining them under the guise of news.

O'Reilly makes for good theatre - albeit of a low-brow type.

The "news" has been dumbed down and is packaged as entertainment. Its nothing more than a parody of serious news reporting.

The news isn't being "packaged". This is just another planted story, just like saying they have conservatives on because they do better. We've seen Air America radio skyrocket to success. We saw Donahue be the most popular show MSNBC had before the war, and it was the only countervailing opinion show to the nationalistic media pro-war presentation.

Entertainment has nothing to do with it. I'd find it very entertaining to get someone like Franken or perhaps a little faster more witty, and loud democrat up there who wasn't afraid of talking O'Reilly down. Even better, give O'Reilly a chance to bloviate without interruption, then put on Mike Moore, or someone with the opposite opinion.

No, sorry, it isn't about entertainment, it is about the brainwashing we all get from the media, and from others from birth who are brainwashed by it. It is necessary to keep the majority uneducated, and duped. They have been quite successful. Think about McCain's presidential run, or Dean's demise. Who brought those about? Imagine a responsive media. Would they have played Dean's scream 3000 times? Wouldn't they have pointed out the obvious racism of the McCain black-baby story? No, and what happened? In both cases a generally duped population followed them like drunk sheep over the cliff. I know; I ran a Dean group, and after the scream, all we were left with were the original bunch who were there before his meteoric rise, the original thinkers, almost all were readers of books, and intelligent. All of the followers left with the media.

Maybe it would have been more accurate for me to have said that the broadcast media packages bias in an entertaining format.

I agree with you about brainwashing and the desire to keep the public uneducated and uninformed to further an agenda but that propaganda is packaged in an entertaining manner because Americans want to be entertained. Why else would commentators like Ann Coulter be booked on programs that are considered to be serious in nature to discuss important issues? It sure isn't because she offers intelligent, insightful commentary; its because she's the TV equivalent of a radio shock jock.

Think about the run-up to the Iraq war as it played out on television. Not only was the public spoon-fed BS but it was done in a slick, attention grabbing way. Colorful graphics, animated flags, music, computerized simulations, shocking sound-bites, the whole nine yards.

put their faces on camera talking about this so-called plan? Never any problem getting O'Reilly to put his face in front of a camera, no matter how much ridiculous BS he has to spew. Unless a liberal leaning program has invited him, of course.

They stack the deck, put the corporate finger on the scale, etc...

that's the best they can do at the today show..that's all their measely ge brains can come up with..bo on *'s "Iraq plan" which I'm sure was fulla bs.

katie couric is going way down hill with this propoganda tripe.

:shrug:

And BTW, we don't refer to the current male resident of the WH as "the president" here.

he was there for entertainment purposes only. I hope and pray that no one uses Bill O Reilly on the TV or Radio for the purpose of getting any kind of perspective on current events. (well, except for blondes lost in arruba)

If anybody doesn't "get it" it is O'Reilly, well, except for the big bucks he gets paid to shill for the president and Rupert.

It is sad isn't it; the fairness directive was done away with in the mid-eighties, and with it the media's presentation of both sides of the argument. They are into everything like the tentacles of an octopus, even the last bastion of truth, public media.

and they have him on the Today Show as a guest????

That's beyond whoredom, that's Stockholm syndrome

nbc if he really thought msnbc was worth "boycotting"?

If he did, in the coming days look for him to deny ever having said it and to bloviate about how it's all a big plot by the "liberal" media to take away his freedom of speech. (Nevermind the fact that there'll be taped evidence to the contrary.)

Why? Because that's what the lying, splotchy bully always does.