Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has come under scrutiny amid reports he fabricated claims about reporting in Latin America. O’Reilly has blasted suspended NBC News anchor Brian Williams for his false reporting about his helicopter coming under fire in Iraq. But Mother Jones has uncovered problems with an oft-repeated O’Reilly story about the war between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, off Argentina’s coast.
Bill O’Reilly, in 2013 broadcast: “I was in a situation one time in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I’m looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there, because that was more important.”
At the time, O’Reilly was working for CBS, and it turns out no CBS reporter got into the Falkland Islands during the war. O’Reilly’s own book, “No Spin Zone,” which recounts his time in Argentina, makes no mention of witnessing any combat. O’Reilly denounced the Mother Jones report, saying he never claimed he was in the Falklands. O’Reilly does write in his book about a protest he covered in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, after the fighting was over, where he claimed “a major riot ensued and many people were killed.” But multiple news reports, including the CBS News report from the time, which used O’Reilly’s footage, did not report any fatalities. Meanwhile, The Nation has published footage from O’Reilly’s reporting in El Salvador in the early 1980s, just after the El Mozote massacre, when some 1,000 civilians were slaughtered by U.S.-trained Salvadoran forces. Instead of reporting on El Mozote, The Nation notes, O’Reilly went to nearby Meanguera, the site of a supposed attack by leftist rebels. In his book, O’Reilly wrote Meanguera was “leveled,” with “no one live or dead.” But his own news report from the time shows several people walking around while the town remains largely intact.