Center for Online Investigative Research

This project is designed to track bias by Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly. On September 27, he interviewed President George Bush. In that interview he asked:

"The first one is, according to a poll taken by the Coalition Provisional Authority (search) last spring, only five percent of the Iraqi people see the United States as liberators. Are you surprised they don't appreciate the American sacrifice more?"

The above question linquistic frame is biased. It describes US involvement in Iraq as "the American sacrifice" as "liberators". If one disagrees with that bias, one sudden becomes anti-American and anti-liberation, when neither may be true. One may disagree with US involvement in Iraq for a number of reasons. The question, as framed, is not objective.

O'Reilly indicated bias in the following exchange:

O'REILLY: The "mission accomplished" statement in May 2003, if you had to do it all over again, would you not have done it?

BUSH: Well, first of all, the statement said: Thank you for serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thank you for being on one of the largest, longest cruises in our nation's history. Thank you for serving our country. And we've still got tough work in Iraq.

Now, I'm going to go and thank our troops every chance I get.

O'REILLY: But the press spinned it, you know how they spinned it.

BUSH: Well, they spin everything.

The addition of "the press spinned it" suggests that journalists who reported on those who opposed the use of or questioned the accuracy the "mission accomplished" sign were perpetrators of spin or slanted or biased news. Not true. They were reporting both sides of the story. Also, by accusing the press of having "spinned it", O'Reilly leaves the viewer with the impression that he is not a member of the press (he works for Fox News) and is, therefore, not a spinner of the truth.

For full text visit:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,133712,00.html