Ex-Fox Newser tells CNN that O’Reilly has ‘lied so many times’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/03/09/ex-fox-newser-tells-cnn-that-oreilly-has-lied-so-many-times/?hpid=z2

By Erik Wemple March 9, 2015

The headline at the top of yesterday’s segment of Brian Stelter’s CNN program “Reliable Sources” is cautious: “New developments in Bill O’Reilly exaggeration controversy.”

The guest was less cautious. Eric Burns, a former Fox News host, argued that O’Reilly “lies” and has “lied so many times.”

Those remarks were, of course, references to the controversy over O’Reilly’s statements about his foreign reporting adventures — in Argentina, El Salvador, Northern Ireland and, a bit more domestically, Florida. Here’s a (previously published) breakdown of some of the points:

• O’Reilly said that “many were killed” in a June 1982 Buenos Aires protest following the Falkland Islands war that he covered as a CBS News correspondent; news accounts from the time cite injuries and mayhem, but no deaths.

• O’Reilly said that he’d been nearby for the March 1977 Florida suicide of a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald; former colleagues from that time say no way.

• O’Reilly once claimed, “I’ve seen guys gun down nuns in El Salvador” — a statement contradicted by … O’Reilly.

• O’Reilly said he’d endured a bombardment of “bricks and stones” while covering the 1992 Los Angeles riots for Inside Edition; former colleagues say that’s not true.

On yesterday’s program, Stelter showcased statements from nuns with connections to those executed in El Salvador. “Maryknoll Sisters were deeply saddened when our sisters were killed in El Salvador and shocked when we learned of Mr. O’Reilly’s statement inferring he had witnessed their murder. This is, of course, not true. And we hope Mr. O’Reilly will take greater care in the public statements he makes in the future,” read one of the statements from Stelter’s broadcast.

Said Burns, “No one expects much out of O’Reilly as a Fox News host. No one expects the truth. He’s been caught in numerous lies, and those have never been a story.”

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