For his part, Silverglate says: “I never like to shirk from a challenge ... I like to address audiences that disagree with me.”
Jones clearly felt the need to fight back against O’Reilly, saying “I think he was grossly distorting the Shorenstein Center.”
Brock, who says that representatives of Media Matters for America have tried unsuccessfully to get on the program for over a year, says targets of Factor can either decline to go on “or risk having no representation. I often suggest if you can prepare yourself, I think it can be worthwhile.”
Rendall offers basically the same advice, but stresses the caveat emptor part. “You have to be well prepared.... I advise people, ‘Look, if you’re not going to do the homework, don’t go on these shows that are rigged.’”
Another daunting aspect of a show appearance by an O’Reilly antagonist is the inevitable outpouring of vox populi.
“Whenever I’m on his show ... I get overwhelmed with abusive name-calling e-mails,” says Jones. So does Walters, who treats them like a badge of honor.
“I’ve gotten some death threats here and there,” he says. “I save my hate mail. I love my hate mail.”
Another piece of advice for potential Factor foes and foils: make sure you’re aware not only of the host’s methods, but his motives as well. To the casual observer, O’Reilly’s incessant ideological assault on John Carroll, a straight shooter if ever there was one, might have been a head scratcher.
Except that in the spring of 2004, Carroll gave a well-reported lecture titled “The Wolf in Reporter’s Clothing: The Rise of Pseudo-Journalism in America” in which he was critical of both O’Reilly and his employer, Fox News.
In the pseudo-journalism world of The O’Reilly Factor, where the host makes up the rules and defines reality, you can get both mad and even.
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Email the author:
Mark Jurkowitz: mjurkowitz@phx.com
