Factor This: O’Reilly’s “Pounce”

Regular viewers know what they’re getting when they tune into Bill O’Reilly MPA 1996 any weeknight between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. This Fox News resident dishes it out as good as he gets on his self-named talk show, “The O’Reilly Factor.” One night last spring, for instance, he criticized Don Hewitt, creator of “60 Minutes,” for the way the networks present the news, and insisted that the networks don’t take any chances. That same night, he questioned U.S. Comptroller General David Walker: How much did Hillary Clinton’s North Africa trip cost? Where is the $5 billion the Department of Agriculture can’t find? What specifically happened to $1 billion the Clinton administration sent to Haiti?

Before “The O’Reilly Factor” came on the air, he questioned why there couldn’t be a news analysis show with more of an edge — similar to the Sunday morning lineup. It turns out that he had his finger on the pulse of what American viewers wanted because his ratings are up 190 percent from 2000 to 2001, and his is the highest-rated show on cable, even edging out CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

“I realized that the news business was changing rapidly and traditional news shows were losing their audiences for two reasons: people were working so much that they missed the nightly news, and the three network news programs were very similar and conservative in their presentations,” O’Reilly said, explaining why he hammers away at his guests, insisting on answers.

O’Reilly has what the Washington Post calls “the Pounce,” his “signature move, as powerful as an uppercut and about as subtle.” The Wall Street Journal calls O’Reilly’s style “one part headmaster, one part bull terrier with his teeth sunk into the postman’s trousers.” Highly praised by some, severely criticized by others, O’Reilly cares little about his legacy or how he will be remembered when he’s gone. “It doesn’t concern me what people think,” says O’Reilly. “Most TV performers are inhibited because they want approval from the people who see them. I don’t care.”
As he thinks about his audience, O’Reilly conjures up memories of his father who was “very cautious,” who “didn’t take any chances” because he thought the system would reward him for that loyalty. “The system didn’t reward him,” says O’Reilly, who doesn’t “play the game,” and doesn’t take the predictable road. Instead, he seeks what he sees to be the truth and relates that to his audience. And he seems to have had the same audience in mind when he wrote The O’Reilly Factor: The Good, Bad, and Completely Ridiculous in American Life. In this, his second book, he reveals that the federal government has spent $230,000 for a study of housefly sex habits, $27,000 for an analysis of why prisoners want to escape, and $100,000 to determine why Americans don’t like beets.

O’Reilly, who started at Fox News as an anchor/host in 1996, had been working in television for 23 years before landing at the Kennedy School, where he discovered that there was a more diverse way to look at things. What he liked most about the Kennedy School was “the atmosphere of ‘let’s take a different road to fix a traditional problem.’” According to O’Reilly, one weak point is that the Kennedy School can’t get the word out. TV studios and satellite hookups, he believes, would help the public learn more about the “tremendous amount of brilliance” at the Kennedy School.

Persistence and discipline are O’Reilly’s mantra. He has become, in his own words, “one of the most powerful broadcasters” in the country. “I was very persistent,” says O’Reilly, looking over his long career. “Very honest. I didn’t compromise. I didn’t change my style. And I’m proud I hung in there for 27 years.”

—Aine Cryts