NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly is contesting allegations that he embellished his past as a war correspondent.
An article in Mother Jones magazine questions his accounts of his experiences as a CBS correspondent covering the 1982 Falklands War. The story compares O’Reilly to NBC’s Brian Williams, who was suspended for six months for misrepresenting his experiences in Iraq.
O’Reilly says the magazine is trying to “divert attention from the Williams situation.”
The article focuses on O’Reilly’s use of the word “war zone” — citing a passage from a book he wrote in which he said, “I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands.”
It also points to his Fox News show on which O’Reilly recalled rescuing his photographer “in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falkland Islands.” The rescue actually took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during a violent demonstration that followed the 10-week Falklands war between Argentina and Britain.
O’Reilly says he never claimed to have been in the Falklands during the war. He says, “Everybody knows you’re not there,” because nobody from the American news media was there.
And he says the magazine is “delusional” to claim that the violence in Buenos Aires on the day the Argentines surrendered wasn’t part of the Falklands War and wasn’t combat.
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APPHOTO CAET807: FILE – In this Oct. 28, 2013 file photo, political commentator Bill O’Reilly attends the National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Kennedy” world premiere screening reception at The Newseum, in Washington. The Fox News Channel host O’Reilly is contesting allegations that he embellished his past as a war correspondent. “It’s purely a political play to divert attention from the Williams situation,” O’Reilly said Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015, adding that Mother Jones “trumped up something from 33 years ago.” O’Reilly was a CBS News correspondent in 1981-82. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Invision/AP, File) (28 Oct 2013)
