O’Reilly Ignores Holocaust Museum Shooting, Wonders Whether It’s Even ‘Newsworthy’

THINK PROGRESS

Last week, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly went on a tirade against CNN for supposedly failing to cover the shooting of Pvt. William Long, an Army recruiter in Arkansas. Of course, O’Reilly’s claims were blatantly false — but that didn’t stop him from claiming to be “shocked” that he “can’t find any information about” the shooting in the mainstream media.

Exactly one week later, after a white supremacist shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, O’Reilly never covered the shooting on his show. In fact, the only mention of the act of domestic terrorism came in a segment that, ironically, decried the media’s inadequate coverage of Long’s death:

O’REILLY: But the central question remains according to a new Pew study, the American media spent far more time on the murder of Tiller than on the murder of Private Long. … 10 to 1 the Pew study which was released yesterday, 10 to 1 more coverage. I mean, come on, come on.

[...]

O’REILLY: All right. Now, we had a murder today at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

HENICAN: That was an awful case. Awful.

O’REILLY: Now, this is an 89-year-old anti-Semite bigot kills an innocent guy in the Holocaust Museum. OK? Now, what about the newsworthiness of this? … Is it as newsworthy as Private Long?

Watch it:

Sean Hannity, whose show follows O’Reilly’s, never once mentioned the Holocaust Museum shooting — though he did discuss Miss California’s firing and played host to Newt Gingrich, Ann Coulter, and a star of “Miami Ink.”

O’Reilly slammed Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson for having “ignored” Long’s murder, which he said was an ideological decision:

O’REILLY: Look, Katie Couric didn’t cover Private Long. Charles Gibson ignored Private Long. Ignored it. Didn’t — didn’t say a word about it. … It’s a news decision, and our news decision is based on what is important. Their news decision is based on ideology.

If O’Reilly bases his coverage “on what is important” and not ideology, why did he fail to “say a word about” the single largest news story of the day?

• Update - Media Matters has more on how Fox News is downplaying the Holocaust Museum shooting.

• Update - TVNewswer does the math: "As for FNC's decision about how to report the Holocaust Museum shooting in prime time, it was mentioned for 55 seconds by O'Reilly, not at all by Sean Hannity and for 45 seconds by Greta Van Susteren. "