Remember Christopher Ruddy’s enthusiastic defense of Bill O’Reilly in the face of his exaggerations and falsehoods? Well, it paid off in the publicity department.
Jim Meyers happily writes in a March 4 Newsmax article:
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly offered up praise for Newsmax on his show Tuesday night, calling our website’s fact-based reporting “refreshing.”
“Last night we had a segment on how nasty the upcoming presidential campaign is likely to be because of the defamatory websites,” O’Reilly told viewers.
“Well, there are some exceptions to the sewer. Check out Newsmax.com. It had some very interesting political analysis. Chris Ruddy and the guys actually try to gather facts, which is refreshing.
“That’s the tip of the day.”
Meyers does admit that “O’Reilly was no doubt subtly responding” to Ruddy’s defense of him. But if O’Reilly didn’t mention he was endorsing Newsmax because it defended him, doesn’t that actually further the idea that O’Reilly is dishonest?
O’Reilly’s endorsement would also seem to contradict Fox News’ stance against Newsmax, which operates that TV news channel that directly competes with Fox. Last week, Fox attacked Ruddy for being friends with Bill Clinton and donating to his foundation.
But O’Reilly effectively negated that attack with his endorsement, which is all that matters to Newsmax.