Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) is calling out Fox host Bill O’Reilly for his vilification of immigrants.
The national media watch group has documented a pattern of gross bias and outright falsehoods in O’Reilly’s reporting in the wake of Arizona’s draconian immigration law, SB 1070. After issuing an alert on May17th, the group is turning up the pressure with a petition demanding that O’Reilly retract his claims linking immigrants to high crime rates.
O’Reilly has persistently blamed immigrants for Arizona’s soaring crime rates and as a reason to support Arizona’s racist immigration law. There is only one problem, crimes rates aren’t soaring in Arizona. In fact, according to the city of Phoenix crime rates in 2009 were the lowest in 15 years.
That hasn’t stopped O’Reilly from saying things like,
“The Arizona authorities say we’re desperate. We don’t have the money. Our crime problem is through the roof. Phoenix one of the most dangerous cities in the country. We got to do something.”
In Fairness and Accuracy’s June 4th alert, it breaks down the sheer absurdity of Bill O’Reilly’s rotten reporting, and why it’s so dangerous.
The day after the FAIR alert, O’Reilly (5/18/10) was still at it, declaring that “crime in Arizona is up.” When his guest, Cathy Areu of Catalina magazine, pointed out that the El Paso “is one of the safest cities in the United States”- proof that the presence of immigrants does not increase crime-O’Reilly replied: “That’s a bunch of baloney.”
He was wrong. El Paso is regularly ranked as one of the safest cities in the United States (L.A. Times, 5/13/10). In fact, border towns with heavy levels of immigration are among the safest cities in the U.S. (AP, 6/3/10).
On May 21, O’Reilly claimed that Arizona is “overrun with crime and everything else and people getting slaughtered on their ranches. I mean, it’s insane.”
But since then, O’Reilly’s stopped making these false accusations. Maybe he saw the FAIR petition demanding that he stop. Or maybe he read the story in another Murdoch-owned news outlet, the Wall Street Journal (5/25/10), about how the newly released FBI crime statistics for 2009 show that the violent crime rate “plunged 16.6 percent in Phoenix, despite a perception of rising crime that has fueled an immigration backlash.”
That false perception and backlash have been perpetrated by media figures like Bill O’Reilly.
Both FOX News and Bill O’Reilly know he was spreading damaging misinformation and it’s time for them to own up to it.
Help Fairness and Accuracy make O’Reilly accountable, and join over 2,500 activists who have signed the petition to demand that O’Reilly show his evidence—or retract his slurs.