Trevor Noah provides a fitting farewell to the odious Bill O’Reilly who has been given a golden parachute to leave Fox News in the wake of the latest revelations about his awful behavior that resulted in practically the entire stable of advertisers yanking support from his show. It has been clear for a long time that O’Reilly was an awful, abusive man who treated many of his co-workers at Fox abominably and yet Fox was quite happy to tolerate and make excuses for him when he was making money for them but once that money source started drying up, they turned on him.
Noah asks a very pertinent question as why it took these companies so long to make this decision, when O’Reilly has for so long been publicly and visibly expressing racist views and stoking white resentment. These companies were comfortable with O’Reilly’s demonizing of people of color and the poor and even treating women terribly but for some reason, the latest revelations were the last straw. I have no answer to that question.
In this clip, Al Franken exposes O’Reilly as a serial liar who then denies that he actually said the things that the record clearly shows he said. What is incredible is that immediately after Franken lists all the occasions in which O’Reilly repeated the same falsehood and attacked others for pointing it out, O’Reilly then denies saying it. He is exactly like Donald Trump in that regard.
O’Reilly’s the proto-trump.
Gosh, darn, you can see why Al Franken went into politics: he’s got no career as a speaker or comedian.
@ 2 Marcus Ranum
Gosh, darn, you can see why Al Franken went into politics: he’s got no career as a speaker or comedian.
Depends on your taste and, quite possibly nationality . I thought he was very funny, in a very understated and sarcastic way but then I find US sitcoms horrible.
In an emergency he might want to walk north.
I found everything Franken did performing on SNL to be creepy and cringe-worthy.
His writing was much better.
His performance as a politician is nothing but praise-worthy.
jr @3-
On the subject of the cultural element, I have often wondered about the difference between Canadian and USian senses of humor (not assuming yr Canadian, just a related topic for me). We’re so similar and do have a bunch of cultural exchange, but somehow Canadian standup and comedy shows are usually extremely unfunny to me. I’ll see Canadian comics who kill in the USA doing material for a Canadian audience and even jokes that don’t reference unfamiliar things just thud for me. I’m sure a Canadian comedy writer would be able to explain.
The classic example is French folks finding Jerry Lewis hilar well past when USians were done with him. I should cut a comedy album and see if I can get big in Tokelau or Estonia.
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Need math!
http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-fox-doesnt-actually-care-about-sexual-harassment/
(Not entirely serious)
@ 5 GASatan.
I have no idea why there is a difference but it definitely seems to exist.
I am probably an outlier as I don’t really like any sitcoms; it’s just that I find most American ones that I see (very very few, thankfully) even worse than Canadian or British ones.
@ 6 John Morales
It sounds reasonable to me. Clearly the reason for jettisoning O’Reilly was that he had become a financial liability.
He, likely, could have been harassing women, men and assorted pets and Fox would not have blinked an eye as long as the ratings were good and the advertising revenue held up.
It will be interesting now that this story has broken to see if more accusations of harassment (not necessarily sexual) will come out within Fox or in other corporations.
Murdock corporations are not looking great ethically or managerially. It is as if anything Rupert touches decays or becomes sleaze.