ERIC ENGBERG SAYS BILLO IS FULL OF SHIT

ERIC ENGBERG SAYS BILL O HAS SOME EXPLAINING TO DO

CNN's Brian Stelter spoke to former CBS correspondent Eric Engberg about his recent post questioning of Bill O'Reilly's version of events on his reporting in Argentina. Stelter asked Engberg at the end of the segment if he had a vendetta against O'Reilly and whether this was about a personal dispute.

ENGBERG: No. He's the one that started the personal dispute by saying that we were all hiding in our hotel rooms... By the way, I do have this personal dispute with him. He's not a real reporter and he was not in a combat zone that night. This was not a combat zone. Not even close.

Most humans with an IQ above 3 were aware of this but it's nice to hear someone say it on cable news. Engberg's description of O'Reilly is most definitely devastating hit to the blowhard.

Engberg on Facebook :
Did Fox News bloviater Bill O'Reilly commit Brian Williams type fabrications when he claimed he had been in a "combat situation" while working as a reporter for CBS News during the Falklands War in 1982? Did he pad his resume' as he was laying claim to personal knowledge about what happens in war? The issue has arisen because the "Mother Jones" magazine Washington bureau chief David Corn has written a story, largely based on recollections of CBS News senior staffers, comparing O'Reilly's statements about his war experience to the fabrications which sent NBC anchor Williams into a six-month suspension. 

I can provide some eyewitness information on this matter because I was one of the correspondents in Buenos Aires with O'Reilly and the rest of the rather large staff of CBS News people who were there "covering" the war. To begin with "covering" is an overstatement of what we were doing. Corn is correct in pointing out that the Falkland Islands, where the combat between Great Britain and Argentina took place, was a thousand miles away from Buenos Aires. We were in Buenos Aires because that's the only place the Argentine military junta would let journalists go. Our knowledge of the war was restricted to what we could glean from comically deceitful daily briefings given by the Argentine military and watching government-controlled television to try to pick up a useful clue from propaganda broadcasts. We -- meaning the American networks -- were all in the same, modern hotel and we never saw any troops, casualties or weapons. It was not a war zone or even close. It was an "expense account zone." 

O'Reilly, freshly hired by CBS, arrived in Buenos Aires a few days before the British expeditionary force defeated the Argentine occupiers. He was, as he is today, full of brio and confidence. I remember him asking me how I liked my assignment. When I said I was tired of living in a hotel and wanted to go home he said, "Call your agent." Back in those days calling your agent to complain about the company's decision-making would have been a career-ender, but he didn't seem to understand matters of the CBS internal secret wooglies, which included the rule that you did as you were told. I should have known he was headed for trouble, but I just thought he was a rookie who would learn. Yeah, right. 

Within a couple of days of his arrival the British Army and Marines had completed their land assault on the Falklands capital and forced the Argentines to surrender. The Argentine public, who had been living under a murderous, corrupt military government for years, were driven into the streets of their capital by rage over the loss of a war they had been repeatedly told their army was winning. As night fell after the surrender statement, several thousand people gathered in the streets around the presidential palace to protest. All the members of the CBS reporting staff and all the two-person camera crews we had in Buenos Aires were sent in to the street. I believe there were four or five crews. The reporters, as I remember, were O'Reilly, Chuck Gomez, Charles Krause, Bob Schieffer and myself. Somewhere it has been reported that O'Reilly has claimed he was the only CBS News reporter who had the courage to go into the street because the rest of us were hiding in our hotel. If he said such thing it is an absolute lie. Everyone was working in the street that night, the crews exhibiting their usual courage. O'Reilly was the one person who behaved unprofessionally and without regard for the safety of the camera crew he was leading. 

The CBS bureau chief in Buenos Aires, Larry Doyle, an ex-Marine LRRP, was something of a legend among CBSers because of his personal courage and his knowledge about how to do your job without exposing yourself to undue danger. Early that night in Buenos Aires he assembled the camera crews in our hotel newsroom and instructed them to refrain from using the lights on their cameras while around crowds. Television lights attracted potentially violent people and also made the camera-person an easier target for demonstrators throwing rocks. We all knew that the Argentine public was angry at the U.S. for supporting Britain in the war, so American journalists might become a target for mob violence. So, O'Reilly has been correct in describing the situation in Buenos Aires as somewhat dicey for reporters. If he was nervous, I can see why. 

The riot around the presidential palace was actually short-lived. It consisted mostly of chanting, fist-shaking and throwing coins at the uniformed soldiers who were assembled outside the palace. I did not see any police attacks against demonstrators. According to Doyle, O'Reilly returned to the hotel in a rage over the fact that his cameraman wouldn't turn on the lights to photograph angry crowds. Doyle defended the cameraman and chewed out O'Reilly for violating his instructions on lights. When Doyle looked at the tape shot by O'Reilly's cameraman he saw that the video included stand-ups -- on camera description by the reporter -- which O'Reilly had ordered the cameraman to shoot -- with his light on. Doyle was further upset by this tape, which clearly showed that his orders on lights had been unilaterally violated by O'Reilly. The issue here was safety. 

CBS was doing a late night re-cap of the Falkland's story. As always the Buenos Aires bureau had no combat video footage to offer, so our part of the special would be the demonstrations, which had been well covered by three or four camera crews, including the one working with O'Reilly. All that footage was blended into the main story, narrated by Schieffer, who had been in Buenos Aires for weeks as the anchor on the scene. When Doyle informed O'Reilly that Schieffer would be doing the report, which would not include any segment from O'Reilly, the reporter exploded. "I didn't come down here to have my footage used by that old man," he shouted. Doyle was stunned. First O'Reilly had defiantly ordered a cameraman to disregard his orders on using lights, and now he was claiming the right to do a story the producers had decided should be done by the senior correspondent on the scene, Schieffer. This confrontation led the next day to O'Reilly being ordered out of Argentina by the CBS bosses. Doyle had told them O'Reilly was a "disruptive force" who threatened his bureau's morale and cohesion. 

I remember looking on a monitor at the long stand-up O'Reilly ordered his crew to shoot, which was never used on the air. He shot this description in the middle of a clearly angry, chanting crowd. As a reporter I wondered why he would think he needed video of himself standing in the middle of the crowd when his own crew and others had taken plenty of good crowd pictures that didn't have O'Reilly standing in the middle of the frame blocking the action. You don't shoot a long stand-up when you have plenty of good pictures of the event you are covering. What O'Reilly was doing was in the realm of local news. I didn't know at the time that he had also violated the bureau chief's order on use of lights, but I wondered why would any correspondent would imperil his colleagues by turning on lights during a riot. 

O'Reilly has said he was in a situation in Argentina where "my photographer got run down and hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete and the army was chasing us." The only place where such an injury could have occurred was the relatively tame riot I have described above. Neither Doyle, who would have been immediately informed of injury to any CBS personnel, nor anyone else who was working the story remembers a cameraman being injured that night. No one who reported back to our hotel newsroom after the disturbance was injured; if a cameraman had been "bleeding from the ear" he would have immediately reported that to his superiors at the hotel. This part of O'Reilly's Argentina story is not credible without further confirmation, and O'Reilly should identify the cameraman by name so he can be questioned about the alleged injury. 

The gunfire reported by O'Reilly is equally suspicious. One of our camera crews reported that they believed the Argentine police or army had fired a few rubber bullets at the crowd. That was the only report we received of weapons being fired that night. The crowd had been confined to a relatively small area around the president's palace. It wasn't like there were protests going on all over the city. I did see soldiers armed with rifles on guard around the presidential palace. But they did not take aim at the crowd and I heard no gunfire. No one I talked to as the crowd was breaking up told me they heard gunfire. O'Reilly's claim that the army fired weapons into the crowd is not supported by anyone's recollection. Had that happened, I believe, the riot would have escalated into an uncontrollable attack on government buildings all over the capital. Nothing like that happened. Actually, the military chiefs, yielding to the public outcry over the war's outcome, were willing to give up their offices, which they did the next day. 

I am fairly certain that most professional journalists would refer to the story I have just related as "routine reporting on a demonstration that got a little nasty." O'Reilly, in defending himself yesterday against Corn's "Mother Jones" piece, said "We were in a combat situation in Buenos Aires." He is misrepresenting the situation he covered, and he is obviously doing so to burnish his credentials as a "war correspondent," which is not the work he was performing during the Falklands war. I don't think it's as big a lie as Brian Williams told because O'Reilly hasn't falsely claimed to be the target of an enemy attack, but he has displayed a willingness to twist the truth in a way that seeks to invent a battlefield that did not exist. And he ought to be subject to the same scrutiny Williams faced. He also ought to be ashamed of himself. By the way, "Old Man" Schieffer seemed to do okay as a TV journalist in the years (and there were plenty) after O'Reilly claimed to have been "big footed" by him. Maybe "Old Schieffer" called HIS agent.

Bill O is going down. It's only a matter of time now. His chapstick will soon lose its affect and his only value – his lasting grip to Fox is losing its hold. Everything he regurgitates should be dissected and torn apart. His number is up. We should be biding Bill O a fond adieu very soon - good riddance asshat!

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

BILL O’REILLY CAUGHT LYING ABOUT FALKLANDS COMBAT RECORD

DAVID CORN EXPOSES BILLO AS LIAR PHOTO BY DNOKEYHOTEY

Yesterday David Corn published a scathing piece in Mother Jones about the ridiculous combat lies of Bill O'Reilly. An excerpt:

In April 2013, while discussing the Boston Marathon bombing, O'Reilly shared a heroic tale of his exploits in the Falklands war: 

I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I'm looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important. 

Yet his own account of his time in Argentina in his 2001 book, The No Spin Zone, contains no references to O'Reilly experiencing or covering any combat during the Falklands war. In the book, which in part chronicles his troubled stint as a CBS News reporter, O'Reilly reports that he arrived in Buenos Aires soon before the Argentine junta surrendered to the British, ending the 10-week war over control of two territories far off the coast of Argentina. There is nothing in this memoir indicating that O'Reilly witnessed the fighting between British and Argentine military forces—or that he got anywhere close to the Falkland Islands, which are 300 miles off Argentina's shore and about 1,200 miles south of Buenos Aires.

It is recommended that you go to Mother Jones via this link to get the full story.

RAW Story is reporting that:

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly angrily denounced a Mother Jones report on Thursday questioning his statements regarding his reporting during the Falklands War in 1982. 

“It’s a hit piece,” O’Reilly told Politico. “Everything I said about what I reported in South and Central America is true. Everything.”

On Thursday, O’Reilly called Corn a “despicable guttersnipe” and said he never claimed to have been on the islands.

David Corn responded with a tweet:

“This Just In: O'Reilly resorts to spin and name-calling. Stay classy”

"To me, the issue here is whether a media figure and journalist like Bill O'Reilly, who claims to be a truth teller, can get away without answering questions about specific statements he's made, and hide behind name calling," Corn told the On Media blog on Thursday. "I would encourage anyone else who covers this story to get Bill O'Reilly to answer those questions - if not to me, than to anyone else."

Corn's full response via politico:

Corn's remarks came immediately after O'Reilly called Corn "a liar" and a "despicable guttersnipe" during an interview with On Media. O'Reilly said that he "never claimed to have been on the Falkland Islands" and that Corn's report, for Mother Jones, was "a piece of garbage."

Time for Billo to exit stage left like NBC's Brian Williams did.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

NOT NECESSARILY THE NEWS

Bill Maher last night in his New Rules section, visited the Brian Williams debacle and his take on what news should be.

You see Bill Maher doesn’t really care that much for Brian Williams‘ series of misstatements. No, the real reason Williams should “go away,” according to Maher, is that “NBC Nightly News sucks.” (But to be fair, he also thinks CBS Evening News and ABC World News Tonight suck too.)

See, what “destroyed” Brian Williams’ credibility in Maher’s eyes was “ten years of wasting precious news time with bullshit stories.” It really bothers him that national nightly newscasts shirk their “sacred responsibility” to report the news in favor of viral YouTube videos, cutesy human interest stories, and lots and lots of weather coverage.

Maher called it “journalistic malpractice” for Williams to spend so little time reporting on climate change and instead covering east coast blizzards “like white Godzilla is on the way.

VIDEO COURTESY OF HBO






NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

INFOTAINMENT CONFUSION SYNDROME

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart weighed in on the Brian Williams debacle and his tales about taking fire in Iraq and whether or not he was suffering from a case of "infotainment confusion syndrome" where the “celebrity cortex” gets its wires crossed with the "medulla-anchor-dala."

After having a bit more fun with Williams and showing the media frenzy over the scandal, Stewart told the audience that this might seem a bit overblown, but he was actually happy.

Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War! Finally! Now, it might not necessarily be the first person you'd want held accountable on that list, but never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot at in a war we probably wouldn't have ended up in if the media had applied this level of certainty to the actual fucking war.

After verbally bitch slapping the whiners opining over whether the media has a "credibility problem" following the ruckus with Williams, Stewart reminded his audience of the batch of lies we were fed leading up to the invasion of Iraq, and wondered if the incident with Williams would cause any reflection on their part. I think we all already know what the answer to that question is.

NFTOS

Blogger-In Chief

Roger West

CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER SUBSTANTIATES BRIAN WILLIAMS STORY

CWO RICH KRELL SPEAKING TO CNN SUBSTANTIATES WILLIAMS CLAIM

UPDATE: Since this post the pilot in this story has now recanted his original statement.

Yesterday we wrote about the mega Brian Williams lie; as it turns out, maybe ole Brian deserves an apology himself, as the pilot of the Chinook helicopter flying Williams substantiates some of Williams’ claim.

The pilot of the Chinook helicopter that Brian Williams was riding in back in 2003 says their chopper was hit by small arms fire, and that the lead chopper in their group was hit by an rocket-propelled grenade. These new details add confusion to the story in which Williams has been blasted for not telling the truth about the RPG hitting his helicopter.

“Mr. Williams was on board my aircraft. We took small arms fire,” the pilot, former chief warrant officer Rich Krell, told CNN exclusively today. “All I know is one RPG was fired. It struck the lead aircraft, which was about what we call six rotor disks in front of me.”

Those incoming bullets, he said “struck the belly up in the forward cabin area and one or two other side hits, but it didn’t cause any major damage, just some minor damage to electronic components.”



Krell said Williams would have been aware his helicopter had been hit because of the ping of the bullets and the fact the crew was returning fire.

“The door gunners were returning fire. M60s (machine guns) are very loud. The pings of the bullets hitting us…there were only a few, but it’s a distinct sound.”

Krell’s account of the incident stands in marked contrast to Stars and Stripes’ interviews with several crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s helicopter was struck by the RPG. They said Williams was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire.” Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday that “Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.”

And, on Wednesday, Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists, told Stars and Stripes: “No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft.”

“Some of things he’s said are not true. But some of the things they’re saying against him are not true either,” Krell told CNN today of the Stars and Stripes report.

According to Krell, three helicopters were flying in close formation, not four, as Williams had said; one of the choppers broke down, Krell said.

Williams was in the back of Krell’s aircraft along with three other NBC staffers. Krell referred to his Chinook as the “second bird” in the formation. The “first bird,” right in front of the “second bird,” was struck by the RPG.

All three of the helicopters were hit by small arms fire, Krell said, supporting Williams’ past claims about that.

Krell said his helicopter was hauling metal bridges, which “took most of the hits.”

He said the three Chinooks took evasive maneuvers and his helicopter dropped off its payload, then met up with the other two about 45 minutes later.

Krell said he had “not taking issue” with other elements of Williams’ account, adding “I agree he needed to apologize” to those on the helicopter that did in fact take an RPG hit that day. “That’s a life-or-death situation they walked away from. I can understand why they take issue” with Williams’ years-long incorrect account of what happened.

Williams’ claim his helicopter came under attack and was hit — “that is a true statement,” Krell said, adding, “We were all scared. That’s the truth…He was there at the time of the attack.”

Several times in since that day in 2003, Williams has said that he was aboard a U.S. Army helicopter when it was hit by an RPG on one of the first days of the Iraq War in 2003. He acknowledged on last night’s newscast he actually was in a different helicopter than the one hit by the rocket propelled grenade.

Yesterday's interview with the pilot of Williams’ helicopter would seem to help Williams survival chances at NBC News. The division has remained mum on the incident since Stars and Stripes broke the story that Williams’ account of taking an RPG hit — a story he’s been telling for years — was not true.

Stars and Stripes said Williams admitted on air that he was not on the Chinook that was struck by enemy fire. But the publication took Williams to task for saying he was “instead on a following aircraft,” reporting that Army flight crews said the NBC anchor was actually flying with a different helicopter company altogether — in a different direction, and linked to the attacked unit by radio only. The publication called it “another example of the anchor muddling the facts or providing misleading details” of the incident that he covered in the opening days of the Iraq invasion.

Confused yet? Stay tuned as NFTOS will keep you abreast of the ever changing saga of the Williams war story. 

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West

BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC GOLDEN BOY TAKES A PAGE FROM FOX NEWS ANCHORS

NBC BRIAN WILLIAMS APOLOGIZING FOR LYING FOR 12 YEARS

Brian Williams, NBC golden boy has a problem. It appears Brian has a problem with facts and truth from his own life. His job is to present the facts, yet all we got for 12 years was a fairy-tale story:

WASHINGTON — NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.

Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.

The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.

“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”



Williams made the claim while presenting NBC coverage of the tribute to the retired command sergeant major at the Rangers game, and the fans giving the soldier a standing ovation.

“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on the broadcast. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”

Williams and his camera crew were actually aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that came under fire, according to crew member interviews.

That Chinook took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert, according to Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists.

“No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft,” Williams said Wednesday.

Unfortunately Williams is no different than those I bash at Faux News [the liars club].

How does one go about misrepresenting themselves at such an event? I’ll tell you, deliberately and purposefully. In defense of Williams, Don't be too hard on yourself big guy. The whole fucking "war" was one colossal bullshit story, why should your heroics there be any exception?

Hey Brain, I hear Fox News is hiring.

NFTOS

Blogger-In-Chief

Roger West