The Bill O’Reilly ‘Social Media Fail’ Factor

As I’ve stated a few times in the past, this blog is not a platform for politics, and I’ll neither endorse nor decry the political views of Bill O’Reilly here today.  I will however take the opportunity to point out his show’s repeated failure at understanding and reporting on anything concerning the social media space.

My awareness of this began in 2006, when Bill and guest piled up on the parents of a young girl featured in a popular viral video campaign.  O’Reilly was pointed and adamant about the irresponsible and potentially harmful influence of the parents for putting their daughter in front of a camera “on their website” so she could preach propaganda about religion and politics. He failed to mention that it was part of a tongue-in-cheek viral campaign for an up and coming indie band.  I remember being so blown away by what was either an inept or misleading report that I sent all the info over to NewsHounds, resulting in this post.

Circle back 3 years later and the Factor fails again.  Two days ago, O’Reilly was reporting on the blogosphere’s response to Barack Obama’s nomination for the Supreme Court.  He and his guest “expert” go through a handful of quotes from political bloggers to illustrate just how vile and tasteless  the blogs can be these days.  All the while failing to note that the quotes came from the comments section of those sites, and in no way reflect the editorial vision of the blogs themselves.  The entire story and video can be found on Hot Air.

This is really nothing new, as different versions of this example actually happen frequently on the show.  Many times over I’ve seen clips of Bill lambasting the DailyKos authors as hate-mongers,using one out of the thousand-plus quotes in comment threads as reference.

This time it’s especially interesting since he’s using this to shine a negative light on Hot Air, one of the top conservative blogs.  Typically I’ve just brushed off the show’s misinterpretation of the difference between blogs and comments on Kos as a way to mislead viewers for political advantage. But no.  He’s now making it clear that this is all part of one giant Social Media Fail -  a severe misunderstanding of the medium itself, whether it be the essential functions of a blog or the basics of a YouTube viral campaign.

To this social media geek that’s way more offensive than any political statement I’ve heard on the show.  If anything it’s because Bill and guests speak of the medium as if it’s something they understand and continue to miseducate viewers about the pure and unfiltered answer to mainstream media.

Note to network news folks - we know social media is the buzz topic up there in television land, and an important way to stay relevant enough to retain your audience.  Important enough, perhaps, to hire a social media consultant to walk you through the basics and hold up some digital cue cards for ya!

Update

O’Reilly tries to set the story straight, but falls deeper into the trap with another fundamental misunderstanding  on the number of comments high traffic sites can get. Trust us Bill, monitoring blogs and comments takes a LOT of time. Hot Air, we feel you. Details here.