Bill O’Reilly is the new king of cable television news.
The latest Nielsen ratings show the Fox News Channel’s “No Spin Zone” star with a 2.4 rating and an estimated 1,794,000 viewers. CNN’s Larry King, the deposed leader of the cable news shows, now has a 1.5 rating with some 1,269,000 viewers.
His new book, “No Spin Zone,” is also on its way to the No. 1 spot on the best-seller’s list.
There’s a good reason for this. It’s not O’Reilly’s good looks. It’s not his set. It’s not Fox News Channel’s dazzling graphics. It’s quite simple and straightforward: O’Reilly is a real independent journalist who sinks his teeth into stories and interviews, and Americans appreciate his honest, no-nonsense approach.
Now, does that mean I agree with O’Reilly’s conclusions about everything? Hardly. Many times I find myself in complete disagreement with him. But I also know O’Reilly is sincere in his search for the truth.
Does this mean there’s no showmanship to O’Reilly? Absolutely not. In fact, news must always be presented in a form that is accessible to people – and that always means there is a need to keep people’s attention, to offer a viewable format, yes, even “to entertain” the audience.
But O’Reilly’s real appeal is his sincerity, his candor, his feistiness, his tenaciousness, his willingness to cover stories no one else will cover.
That was what attracted me to O’Reilly. It was the reason I approached him more than a year ago to write for WorldNetDaily an exclusive weekly column – now the nation’s fastest-growing syndicated commentary.
It was one of the best decisions I ever made.
I felt there was a natural synergy between what O’Reilly did for Fox and what we do at WorldNetDaily. I’d like to think we played our own small part in O’Reilly’s climb – not only in the ratings, but twice to the top of the best-seller’s list in the last year.
The success of WorldNetDaily – both in achieving extraordinary viewership on the Internet and in its ability to convert readers into revenues – is directly attributable to its commitment to independence. There are no sacred cows at WorldNetDaily. There are no politicians safe from scrutiny. There are no government programs that will go unchallenged. There are no threats to liberty that will not be exposed.
People sometimes write to me asking for some encouraging news in these troubled times. I think it is very encouraging that O’Reilly has risen to the top of the cable news world – just as it is very encouraging that the simple editorial formula of WorldNetDaily is catapulting this new media enterprise to the top of the very competitive Internet news world.
What is that simple editorial formula?
It’s a formula that would not have been unique 100 years ago in America – maybe not even 30 years ago. But, today, because of WorldNetDaily’s commitment to the traditional press role of watchdog on government, the leading independent news site stands like a beacon of truth and principle among its many competitors – most of whom are like rudderless ships tossed to and fro by the choppy tides of journalistic fads and political correctness.
WorldNetDaily’s journalistic compass keeps us focused, first and foremost, on exposing government fraud, waste, abuse and corruption. Why? Because that is the proper role of a free press in a free society. The founding fathers recognized it. American journalists recognized it for the first 150 years of this country’s history. And the American people evidently still realize it.
They recognize that government, more than any other institution, represents a constant threat to their freedom. It needs to be checked. It needs to be monitored. It needs to be controlled. It needs oversight. It needs exposure. It needs an independent “fourth estate” to keep it in line.
My heartiest congratulations to Bill O’Reilly for recognizing these important principles and capitalizing on them.
Get Bill O’Reilly’s new book, “No Spin Zone,” autographed and personalized in time for the holidays.
