By Mary Mostert, Analyst, Banner of Liberty (www.bannerofliberty.com)
November 7, 2001
Bill O'Reilly calls his brand of news commentary the "no spin zone." Sounds good. There certainly is a lot of spin going on. But, I'm afraid what O'Reilly is doing is a very advanced form of spin, wrapped up as investigative journalism.
Beginning this year, almost from the day that Al Gore finally admitted defeat, O'Reilly was pushing the notion that the nation was headed into a recession. In March he was telling us that the "U.S. Economy is sinking fast" and it was all Alan Greenspan's fault.
Only, the U.S. Economy didn't sink. The October 2001 unemployment rate was 5.4%, nine months into the Bush administration. The October 1994 unemployment rate, after Bill Clinton was in office one year and nine months, was 5.8% and we were having an economic boom, remember? So far, there IS no recession, in spite of O'Reilly's near hysterical demand for Greenspan's ouster because he wasn't "doing" anything.
Then, the next crusade was an effort to destroy Gary Condit. O'Reilly, acting as accuser, judge and jury, declared that Congressman Condit should be ousted from Congress. Then, in August, a story circulated via e-mail that Chandra Levy was buried under a parking lot in Virginia. I filed that with the e-mail I'd received a few weeks earlier that had a picture of Chandra Levy sitting in front of a government building in Jerusalem that was accompanied by an e-mail claiming she was on a secret mission in Israel.
Bill O'Reilly, to his credit, did not pass along the rumor, but he did tell his audience about it and announced it was bogus. To his chagrin, however, when the overnight ratings came in the following day he said, "I got my clock cleaned. To my horror, a number of news outlets reported the Internet tip story as real. How could they have not known it was a hoax." A large part of his audience left him to listen to the news outlets giving the story a serious play.
Since September 11, of course, Gary Condit, Chandra Levy and even the recession have not been mentioned. They just evaporated. Now the 24 hour a day news channels have another story to milk. The first few weeks of spontaneous national unity following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was unnatural territory for news anchors engrossed in the ratings race. The Ratings war, apparently, have won out over National Unity in the War on Terrorism. Some sort of controversy was needed.
It appears that the new ratings game controversy is going to be the trashing of the Red Cross and other charitable groups. O'Reilly wrote in his October 26th column, and has talked about daily on his program:, about the money donated by thousands of concerned Americans to help the families of those killed on 9-11. He said:
"Here's an interesting ethical question. Say you're a celebrity, and you agree to do a benefit for the families of the victims of the terror attack. You go on television and ask your fellow Americans to donate money. And they respond. Hundreds of millions of dollars have poured in from the TV telethon and the concerts. You feel good that various charities are flush with donated cash partly generated by you. And of course you benefited from the public seeing you in an altruistic situation. "But then a logjam occurs. And the donated money does not get to the families very quickly. In fact, six weeks after the attack, less than 10 percent of the $1.4 billion pledged to help those grieving families has actually been distributed. Some families have received no donations at all. So what do you, the celebrity, do? What is your responsibility in this situation?"
Now, let's see. Ten percent of 1.4 billion "Pledged" (not received, pledged) averages out at about $25,000 for each of the nearly 6000 families affected. Since most of the people who worked in the World Trade Center, or who were police and firemen trying save people in the buildings, had insurance, and the insurance companies were quick to pay claims for those who died, it really isn't quite accurate to claim that there is a massive problem for the families.
Even those families O'Reilly has brought on his show, such as Vincent Camaj, the son of the window washer at the WTC who died September 11th, TOLD O'Reilly that both the Red Cross and the Children's Aid had assisted the family by paying "several months of mortgage" and providing his mother a check. He further pointed out that the family's concern was not "financial" but it was still grief - that he had started to call his Dad on the phone.
Dr. Bernadine Healy, out-going president of the American Red Cross, tried to explain to O'Reilly that the Red Cross wanted to raise $250 million to help the families of those who died in the Terrorist attacks on September 11th. Instead the public sent four times that amount. They plan to meet the needs of those families and earmark the rest, as she put it, "For the next victims of terrorism - including those with anthrax."
O'Reilly simply brushed off that sensible remark and insisted that the WTC families be given ALL the money pledged. Yet, quite a bit of that money has not yet been received.
Does that actually make sense? The obvious argument here is whether or not those donated funds were to help those who had financial problems and who needed extra help, or were to be divided equally among the survivors whether there was a need or not. If the $1.4 billion were divided equally among the approximately 6000 families who lost a family member on September 11, each family would receive approximately $233,333 each. That is over and above any insurance or aid from other sources, which would certainly make some of those survivors millionaires.
Then, of course, should there be another terrorist attack, the Red Cross would have no funds to assist them and would have to make ANOTHER appeal for public contributions.
After all the attacks on the Red Cross and other charities, how likely, do you suppose, is it that the public would respond as generously as they did after 9-11? Especially once it got out that the last Red Cross drive had made some people wealthy? How many celebrities, Red Cross and other charity executives who have been raked over the coals by Bill O'Reilly would want to take the risk of their reputations being besmirched for trying to raise money a second time?
Not many. O'Reilly has put the Red Cross, other humanitarian groups and celebrities who helped raise the money into a suspect category, apparently to increase his ratings. If there actually IS a problem, destroying the Red Cross and other charities with rampant cynicism, and no real facts, is not the solution.
To comment: mmostert@bannerofliberty.com