This Can Get You Fired: Questioning Bill O’ Reilly
Bill ‘O Reilly has been chosen to receive the Governor’s Award at this year’s Emmys. Did you know that? I had no idea. This award is the highest honor given out by the committee. One journalist found a more subtle way to share his dissent with others in his field. He then got fired for it.
Barry Nolan is a veteran TV journalist, and had been working for Cable CN8 in Boston before Comcast gave him walking papers. Nolan wrote about the Emmy-related episode and his subsequent firing in a guest blog posted on Think Progress. Here is some background on the incident, in Nolan’s own words:
Now granted – you won’t find a lot of Albert Schweitzers or Mother Teresas working in television, but at least the people who had been honored in the past had pretty much followed the part of the Hippocratic oath that says, “First, do no harm.”
O’Reilly was an appalling choice, not because of his political views, but because he simply gets the facts wrong, abuses his guests and the powerless in general, is delusional, and, well, you might want to Google: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Plus there was that whole sexual harassment thing – the lawsuit he settled for an estimated $10 million. Not the kind of guy you normally think of when it comes time to pass out honors.
I found that most of my colleagues felt the same way. So, on May 10th at the Emmy Awards dinner, I quietly passed out a document that contained – not my opinion – but O’Reilly’s own words and quotes from his sexual harassment lawsuit. And that is what got me fired. I got fired from my job on a news and information network for reporting demonstrably true things in a room full of news people…
He continues by sharing his reasonable and inspiring perspective:
Normally, in the great scheme of things – this should be a total non-story. “Overpaid White Guy Gets Fired from Cushy Job for Shooting Mouth Off.” Yawn. But these are not normal times. After the word got out that I was fired – I started hearing from people from all over the country who were outraged. A guy in Texas who had once worked with O’Reilly and had seen a meltdown like the one on Youtube – a weather anchor in Arizona – a woman in China no less.
And it all got me to thinking about the myth of free speech. In today’s America, speech is only “free” when you are talking down to someone less powerful that you. Speak “up” – and look out.
In your work life, they can fire you, as I found out, for quietly saying something that is widely known to be true. Put a lid on it.
And in our role as citizens, we have been told by O’Reilly to shut up, or Fox Security may pay you a visit. We are called traitors if we simply speak the truth about the absence of WMD’s – the way the war is going – the disgraces of Abu Ghraib, of Gitmo, of waterboarding. Shut up.
So, when exactly do they think we have the right to speak up? To speak the quiet simple truth, to people who have more power than us?
Well, I think now would be a good time. The fog of fear is lifting. The balance of power is shifting. People are beginning to talk to each other again instead of shouting. I think it’s time to reclaim the right to free speech – even if it comes at a price.”
Now in fairness, this is the fired guy’s side of the story, and it may well have been spun to cover himself after the fact (although I’m not sensing that, but I’ve been wrong before). I have yet to read a counter-argument and honestly, I’m not likely to trust anything issued by Com- “we don’t want you to know that we want to govern the internet”-cast.
One particular comment posted below the full article shared this fitting quote:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
I say we’re living in such a time.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 6:26 am
Its a shame that we Americans have allowed businesses to determine what we say and how we say it. I DO hope that the fired writer is correct and that the “fog of fear” is finally lifting and people will start to challenge the “governing” elements in this country.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 8:33 am
speaking out against o’reilly? what a true revolutionary. a brave, brave man. if only this country had more zealots to pass out o’reilly pamphlets, then the world would truly be a better place.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 9:57 am
brobinson- you’ve got it right, it is a shame. People have woken up. Unfortunately I think complacency is winning the race against conviction.
anonymous- you sound like someone I know. Are you advocating that people not speak their conscience and that if they do- they SHOULD be fired? You seem to be missing the point.
-ian
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 10:39 am
sorry, didn’t mean to be a phantom blogger commentor, tis i, heim york.
dude, even if i don’t have my own blog, doesn’t mean i can’t think
i get the point. but self-aggrandizing (that’s a word, right) little barry isn’t some patriot in my view. so the fool leprechaun is getting an award and bar-dog disagrees. fine. he passes out pamphlets at the ceremony, what did he think was going to happen? they would read his little paper and suddenly give the award to him?
yes he has free speech and he exercised his right. whoops lost his job. anyone can get let go for any time for any reason. its in the papers you sign for any job. free speech doesn’t mean consequence-less speech. if you wore a shirt that said ‘my company don’t know diddly’ and passed out flyers in your building about how dumb your bosses were, i doubt you’d be getting a paycheck much longer.
and yes, i do get the point about speaking out against wrongs. but i don’t pity little barry and his feigned innocence. he protested o’reilly who’s a total boob. what a dumb thing to get fired over. hope all the bloggin sympathy makes him feel better.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 10:54 am
A_Corn:
i don’t get the sense that lil’ barry is puffing himself up in that article. if someone in your field were up for an award, and they were widely known for being one of the most corrupt, I doubt you’d see that as trivial, and I doubt you would shrug off the firing of any coworker who did something similar about it.
as for passing out the papers he was probably hoping to get others on board. decisions have been reversed before.
Your example is odd. Of course directly speaking out against one’s own company will get a person fired. This Nolan guy challenged the integrity of O Reilly- a guy and an award totally disconnected from his show or his duties there. That’d be like you getting fired for protesting some random thing on a weekend.
-ian
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm
“decisions have been reversed before”
really. on the day of the show? minutes before the award is handed out? i guess i didn’t give barry enough credit.
also, monsieur nolan was a ‘hard copy’ host? hahah. so both bill and barry had some pretty solid journalistic pasts. now o’reilly has a top rated show, and barry is…who? i smell jealously.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 12:01 pm
from the abc article about this:
Nolan, who competed against O’Reilly as an anchor of the tabloid show “Hard Copy” from 1990 to 1998 and later worked for “Extra!,” said that he’s not interested in being a champion of the left — though he has appreciated what he called a flood of support for his O’Reilly protest.
“I’m interested in telling everyone in the country to stand up and say something is wrong when something is wrong,” he said. “We’ve been through an awful dark time in our history where there are a lot of people telling you to sit down and shut up. From Dick Cheney to Bill O’Reilly, I’m done with bullies.”
He’s also looking for work.
—haha, i love how that ends. seriously, he is delusional. thinking that this stand against o’reilly really means something? come on dude.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 12:10 pm
A_Corn:
i was guessing at Nolan’s intent because you wanted to figure out his reasoning. I have no idea if he was trying to reverse the decision, stir the pot, etc. The point is he got fired for sharing O Reilly’s own words at something unrelated to his job.
Why assume jealousy?
-ian
ps- We’ll do it live!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 12:33 pm
to your second post, Heim_Corn:
what makes him delusional?
“I’m interested in telling everyone in the country to stand up and say something is wrong when something is wrong” he said. O’ Reilly works in his field, and that matters to him even if it doesn’t matter to you. At what point is something worth speaking out against?
He did a small thing and got canned for it. I doubt anyone thinks he was trying to end global poverty.
You don’t think our country would be better off if more people in every field bothered to say the uncomfortable truth and were an advocate for a higher standard?
And if you think Nolan did a meaningless thing, then the fact that he got fired for it should bother you even more.
-ian
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 4:42 pm
i’ll tell ya what it means….he’s a DAMN fooooel!
Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 8:52 pm
You get the last word, Counselor!