A lot of the incorrect statements by Fox News talking heads are simply their brands "rants". Their talking points are built on prejudicial opinions. These are evolved in a cultural exclusionary bubble separating them from the real world facts. They're so infused with their causes that some just trust their colleagues more than Reuters, Le Monde or the BBC. They just "know"! If what their sources report resonates with their anti=liberal bias, the stories, naturally seem credible! So, out of naive ignorance they can sometimes spread inflammatory concepts and the develop consequential policy imperatives that are gravely flawed.
The basic defect at Fox is that, at their root thinking, they have a religious dogma and this is their validation tool, rather than research into verifiable facts.
However, I don't think that O'Reilly actual lies on purpose with any intent to deceive. He merely is sloppy and accepts what his sources feed him about the topics he's rabidly wild about. That is not lying, it's just delusional ranting.
It reminds me of a conversation with a relative of mine infused with the teaching of the Kabbala movement. They were selling water blessed by the rabbi, no less. People thought it had special healing properties due to a change in the molecular structure, a quantum physics effect, according to their understanding. Immune to reason, and I did try, a pious relative staying with us had cases of the water delivered for her food! There were even claims that Orange production increased with this water!
Now the folks who believe this nonsense and report the water's benefits, or those who go to spread their religion to villages they "discover" are not "lying"! They, themselves really believe their "voices" and feel they are offering some great truth to the world.
This is an important point and if a Fox News analyst, Kabbala preacher or a telephone-evangelist yelled at me to get the kids off the railway tracks as a train was coming, I'd not ignore them.
Delusions are segmented bubbles or fixed thinking inaccessible to critical reason. However those effected can still be reliable witnesses in many circumstances. Human societies are subject to "infection" with packages of ideas that compete for our very soul, worth and being. Once folk are "converted", recruited or otherwise "join that movement, they're pretty well lost for that segment of thought that the meme governs. The process works with such divers subjects as dying for the Emperor in Japan, forcing South American natives to become Christians by slaughter and intimidation, keeping African Slaves in the American South, thinking George Bush was fit for the Presidency of the United States or that 70 virgins await each martyr that blows himself up to kill folk shopping in a supermarket. In all these examples, the perpetrators sincerely believe they carry the banner of truth and enlightenment to the world, at whatever necessary cost.
Part of education in great schools is the acquisition of the analytical tools to help us sort out fact from fiction. Look at the debates between O'Reilly and
John Stewart,
Dawkins and
Bill Maher. O'Reilly was convinced he is "Fair and Balanced" in his reporting and regularly allows his guests to challenge him! They did far more than that. They trounced him, exposing his nativity where he should have been able to substantially prove his various conservative talking points. Yes the fellow is still delusional, but he does repeatedly allow debate and gives really capable critics the opportunity to challenge and dissect the very ideas and "facts apon which his very career as a broadcaster and author depends. A liar would not do that!
In the end, we, ourselves, must provide voices of reason to educate our communities about the facts that can be substantiated. One of the sad facts of life is that socially, the more cultured we are, we tend to avoid confrontation and follow the advice not to get into topics like politics, sex or social rights issues.
Asher