‘The O’Reilly Factor’ succeeds because it entertains and engages viewers while other news programs bore viewers, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said Friday at Boston University about his news commentary show.
‘If you give [viewers] a product that is entertaining and informative, you win,’ O’Reilly, a 1975 BU alumnus, said. ‘If you don’t, you get murdered.’
Former NBC News Executive Vice President Bill Wheatley, a 1970 alumnus, interviewed O’Reilly, the host of the top-rated ‘O’Reilly Factor’ on Fox News, as part of a conversation titled ‘A Bold Fresh Look at the Future of News’ at a College of Communication alumni lecture at Metcalf Hall. More than 450 students, faculty members and alumni attended the talk.
The discussion took on the elements of a ‘Factor’ episode with O’Reilly sharing his opinions with the crowd on a variety of topics.
Media outlets must be stimulating and interesting in order to thrive, O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly cited Campbell Brown’s primetime news show on CNN as an example of a more traditional show that is not succeeding. O’Reilly said he received a letter from Brown’s mother saying that she watches ‘The Factor,’ not her daughter’s program.
‘ ‘Nobody watches Campbell Brown,’ O’Reilly said. ‘You have to evolve if you want to survive in the commercial world. If you are going to do a straight newscast in primetime, you are going to lose.’
Wheatley said most successful cable news programs such as O’Reilly’s are ‘dramatically produced.’
‘These types of programs are designed to be entertaining and keep your interest throughout,’ Wheatley said in an interview following the talk. ‘The Factor is a reflection of [O’Reilly’s] personality, and it is never boring.’
O’Reilly also commented on the struggles of The Boston Globe, which he said has suffered from a traditional news presentation mindset.
‘The reason The Boston Globe is losing millions of dollars is that it is boring,’ O’Reilly said. ‘When you are snooty and boring, you are not going to get a lot of dates.’
Some of the best innovations in the news industry have been online, and he expects the online news industry to continue to grow, O’Reilly told the audience. O’Reilly, who received a graduate degree in broadcast journalism from BU, named the online source of international news, GlobalPost, as an example.
O’Reilly advised students to take time to truly find out who they are and what they are passionate about. Once students find their passion, they should pursue it and not let anyone tell them otherwise, O’Reilly said.
O’Reilly said he found his passion for journalism during graduate school at BU, which included time as a Daily Free Press columnist.
‘Every big story that came into town, I covered,’ O’Reilly said of his time at BU. ‘There could not have been a better time to have been a journalism student.’
In the last few weeks, President Barack Obama’s administration has criticized Fox News for its news programs that the administration said are often full of more opinion than news. O’Reilly said the ill will towards Fox has only helped the channel’s ratings.
‘[Obama] is fighting harder against Fox than he is fighting against the Taliban,’ O’Reilly said.
Alumni and students expressed mixed opinions about O’Reilly’s talk.
2009 College of Arts and Sciences alumna Magen Lorenzi said she was surprised that she resonated with O’Reilly’s comments about the media and current events.
‘It made me sick because I was agreeing with him so much,’ Lorenzi said.
CAS sophomore Tiegan Hatch said she attended the talk with the BU College Republicans and thought the audience seemed to be mostly on O’Reilly’s side.
‘It [the audience] seemed very upbeat and positive,’ Hatch said. ‘I think, cause a lot of people came knowing that it was him and he veers away from the liberal views.’
But Hatch said O’Reilly did not delve too far into political arguments.
‘I’m sure there were some liberals there who didn’t agree with him, but he didn’t exactly get too much into the political stuff in depth because I’m sure he didn’t want to strike up too much controversy or anything like that,’ she said.
Hatch said she appreciated O’Reilly’s willingness to take a position.
‘It was really interesting to hear his views,’ she said. ‘He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t care what people think. He has his views and he sticks to them.’
She said O’Reilly offered good advice for students.
‘That stuck with me as a college student because he mentioned how we need to figure out who we are first and then stick with it no matter what people say,’ she said.
College of General Studies sophomore Kati Mckinney said she admires O’Reilly’s aggressiveness, and was glad she got to see it on display.
‘The one thing I like about him is that he does not really care what anyone says about him,’ Mckinney said. ‘His talk was insightful no matter where on the political spectrum you are.’
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