Video: O’Reilly Factor ambush on Moyers backfires at media conference

Paul Schmelzer — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:53:59 +0000

One of the worst kept secrets at this weekend’s National Conference for Media Reform at the Minneapolis Convention Center is that Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show sent a crew to record the “real nuts” who are advocating for changes in the media — “the furthest left people in the face of America,” according to O’Reilly. He promises to show footage on Monday of what the crew captured. O’Reilly’s teaser suggests it’ll be anything but “fair and balanced.” On his show he said, “I gotta tell you, these people are crazy.”

Noah Kunin from The UpTake has been tracking the crew all weekend as they’ve been trying to compile footage for Monday’s piece. He was there when a producer from The O’Reilly Factor ambushed Bill Moyers after his talk Saturday morning — or, more accurately, tried to ambush him.

Moyers, uncowed, turned the table on the under-gunned producer, inviting him to appear on next Friday’s show. “If you can’t come on my show, send somebody below you. Send Bill O’Reilly,” he said. “Bill is not a journalist, he’s a pugilist.”

The indignant producers persisted in his questioning of Moyers, but the PBS mainstay fired back, with a kinder approach. “I like to honor the people who do the real work in journalism; that’s the producers and reporters,” he said. “It isn’t anchors. It isn’t blowhards.”

The producer’s feeble comback to Moyers’ anchors-and-blowhards dig: “That’s you.”

Look for more on this altercation from The UpTake and the American News Project‘s Davin Hutchins who appears at the end of Kunin’s footage.

6/9/08: Minnesota Monitor is now the Minnesota Independent. Check out our new digs.

MinMon Interview: Josh Silver on the National Conference on Media Reform

Tom Elko — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:09:40 +0000

The media landscape in the Twin Cities has changed dramatically over the last year, and that’s exactly why the organizers of the upcoming National Conference for Media Reform chose Minneapolis as the site of its 2008 event.

This past year the Twin Cities media market has perilously held on to its two-newspaper status and seen the end of print publication of the weekly magazine The Rake, while enterprising upstarts The UpTake and MinnPost joined Minnesota Monitor in providing compelling community journalism on the Web.

“This community has experienced the damaging impact of consolidation,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, the national, nonpartisan media-reform group that organizes the conference. “But also the growth of a vibrant noncommercial, community and ethnic media sector.”

This three-day conference begins this Friday at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Event organizers are expecting thousands of journalists, educators, policymakers and media activists to convene and discuss the future of media. The conference boasts an impressive list of prominent media reformers, including Arianna Huffington, Dan Rather, Naomi Klein and Lawrence Lessig, as well as many local media leaders, including Minnesota Monitor’s Paul Schmelzer and Robin Marty, as well as over 60 panels and workshops with a focus on the media reform movement, the future of media system, new technology and media policy.

In a conversation with Minnesota Monitor, Silver offered a preview of the conference and a few of the topics to be addressed.

Listen: Josh Silver previews the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (1:14)

Listen: Silver on community journalism and the Internet (1:31)

Listen: Silver on media consolidation and its impact on journalism (2:15)

Minnesota Independent » National Conference On Media Reform

Video: O’Reilly Factor ambush on Moyers backfires at media conference

MinMon Interview: Josh Silver on the National Conference on Media Reform