FanHouse BillOreilly

Obviously folks have noticed that the "mainstream media" (as always, an outdated term, but necessary for this purpose) is showing the Erin Andrews peephole video. CBS did it a few days ago -- which we discussed with Newsday's Neil Best today -- in poor fashion. And then last night, Bill O'Reilly, conservative independent gentleman of leisure, decided to air the tape on his show so he could talk about people using the video to spread a computer virus. Of course he did.

A long, long time ago when I was a teenager ESPN was actually a network that was dedicated to showing sports. The showcase of the network was SportsCenter, which every day showed highlights from every single game played in the country, without any interruptions from Coors Light or their cold, hard previously scripted opinions. It was during these halycon days of ESPN that the world was introduced to the duo of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.

Eventually Olbermann would leave the network, instead choosing to spend his time talking about politics on MSNBC, but you knew that much like the mafia, just when he thought he was out, the sports would pull Olbermann back in. It all started with his work on NBC's Sunday Night Football, and now Olbermann has taken the next logical step in his return to the welcoming arms of the sporting world. He's become a baseball blogger.

On his Fox News show,Bill O'Reilly hosted a discussion of Saturday night's EliteXC mixed martial arts show, and he suggested that professional mixed martial artists who suffered no serious injuries are somehow comparable to gladiators being forced to fight to the death:

"What are we, the Roman Empire now?" O'Reilly asked. "I guess we are, right?"

Guest Bernard Goldberg replied, "Well the Roman Empire did eventually fall, and that's what I want to lead up to." He later suggested that CBS executives would be happy if an MMA fighter died during a fight.

Said the other guest, Jane Hall, "You can get a rating with live executions. Why not do that?"

I like both Goldberg and Hall (I can't honestly say that I like O'Reilly), but they're just so ridiculously out of touch on this issue that it's hard to know where to start. I will address one specific quote from Hall, though.

In February, a series of videos started appearing on YouTube, showing Chris Berman in the Monday Night Football halftime show studio, talking off-air to ESPN employees and sometimes getting angry and profane. Some people said that was evidence that Berman is a jerk; others said everyone has a few moments in the workplace that would make them look like jerks.

I don't know if everyone has such moments, but I know of someone who had a worse moment than anything Berman was caught doing: Bill O'Reilly, who gets even angrier and even more profane than Berman did in this video:

That was back in the day when O'Reilly was the anchor of Inside Edition. And despite those outbursts of anger, he still managed to win a Peabody Award Polk Award*.

*Not really.

Previously on FanHouse:
Chris Berman References His YouTube Fame During NFL Draft Coverage
ESPN Says Chris Berman Videos 'Do Not Reflect His Typical Workplace Demeanor'
ESPN Has Chris Berman YouTube Videos Pulled for Violating Copyright
Chris Berman Complains About the Prompter
Chris Berman Calls Al Michaels a 'F---head'
ESPN's Chris Berman Explains How to Smuggle Codeine From Canada
ESPN's Chris Berman is Sorry to Explode
More Profanity From ESPN's Chris Berman
Yet Another Chris Berman Video: Who at ESPN Has a Vendetta Against Him?

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly decided to have a couple of guests on The O'Reilly Factor last night to bash CBS for its decision to broadcast EliteXC mixed martial arts shows, and it was full of every bit as much ignorance about the sport of MMA as you'd expect:

Both of O'Reilly's guests, Jane Hall and Bernard Goldberg, are intelligent, articulate people. But neither of them knows anything about MMA.

O'Reilly referred to it as "barbarity," which is fine -- that's about what I'd expect out of O'Reilly. But then Hall was asked her opinion, and she said, "I think it's a terrible idea. I think it's a terrible idea. And there's no redeeming social value."

Actually, there is exactly as much redeeming social value to MMA as there is to football or basketball or baseball.

Goldberg then praised the good old days of broadcast television, back when CBS had standards, conveniently forgetting that those standards allowed them to broadcast Amos 'n' Andy. I'll take MMA over a minstrel show any day. Apparently Goldberg wouldn't.

At no point during the discussion did O'Reilly, Hall or Goldberg give any indication that they've ever seen a single MMA contest. If people actually want to sit down and watch MMA and then offer a criticism, fine. But it's amazing how often the mainstream media bashes the sport from a perspective of ignorance.