Editor&Publisher: Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews Among Columnist's 'P.u.-litzer' Winners

E&P Staff

NEW YORK Bill O'Reilly and The New York Times are among the "winners" of the 16th-annual "P.u.-litzer Prizes" that will be announced in this weekend's column by Norman Solomon. Solomon's column is distributed by Creators Syndicate, which also distributes a newspaper column by Fox News host O'Reilly.

O'Reilly is getting the 2007 "P.u.-litzer" for telling GOP presidential candidate John McCain in May: "(D)o you understand what The New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part of, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right." Buchanan writes a Creators column, too.

Another "P.u.-litzer" recipient is Michael Gordon of The New York Times. Gordon was "honored" because "continuing where he left off before the Iraq invasion, when he used unnamed official sources to produce wildly inaccurate page-one articles on Iraq's alleged weapons threat, Gordon in February wrote a front-page story with the stunning claim that Iran's Supreme Leader had approved sending lethal explosives into Iraq to attack U.S. soldiers. (Even President Bush soon backed away from the claim.)"

The Times itself is also given a "P.u.-litzer" for its February description of Vice President Dick Cheney (who has pushed a reckless foreign policy) as "a sober-minded policy architect."

In addition, Solomon is awarding a "P.u.-litzer" to MSNBC "Hardball" host (and former syndicated columnist) Chris Matthews for fawning over GOP candidate Fred Thompson. Matthews said in June: "Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream...? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke?"

There are also other "winners" named by Solomon -- who compiled the "P.u.-litzer" list along with Jeff Cohen (author of "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media") and the liberal media-watch group FAIR (which Cohen founded)........