What Bill O'Reilly's Feud with the Daily Kos Means for Website Owners
August 02, 2007 by
The conflict between old and new media is heating up, and no where is that more evident than in the recent war of words between Fox News Network's Bill O'Reilly and bloggers at the Daily Kos. O'Reilly is a conservative pundit on a highly rated cable network. 
The Daily Kos is a popular Democratic partisan blog which features a handful of front-page columnists, and allows users to post their own sentiments in individual articles and comments.
So what sparked the David and Goliath confrontation between the two? It all started over some nasty comments left on Daily Kos threads about White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's ailing health.
When the world learned that Tony Snow was battling cancer, the vast majority of posts on the Daily Kos set aside partisanship to wish the man a speedy recovery. However, as most web site owners know, when viewers are allowed to comment freely, contrary opinions are bound to crop up. In the case of Tony Snow, some did not wish him well.
The response to these comments by O'Reilly and other old media pundits was vehement. O'Reilly called the Daily Kos a "hate" site, and compared the community to the Nazis. But it didn't just end in name calling. O'Reilly confronted sponsors of the site for supporting "hate speech," which has already resulted in at least one commercial pull out.
Set aside Godwin's Law for the moment, and the obviously offensive hyperbole involved in comparing people who murdered millions, to a bunch of Internet geeks who type on their laptops in pajamas. The feud between O'Reilly and the Daily Kos should be unsettling to web site owners, regardless of political cast or creed. Whether one views the political advocacy of the Daily Kos with disdain or whether one thinks that Bill O'Reilly's television persona is a case study in narcissism should not matter to web site owners as much as the potential consequences if old media is able to saddle owners with responsibility for the comments of all their users.
So what sparked the David and Goliath confrontation between the two? It all started over some nasty comments left on Daily Kos threads about White House Press Secretary Tony Snow's ailing health.
When the world learned that Tony Snow was battling cancer, the vast majority of posts on the Daily Kos set aside partisanship to wish the man a speedy recovery. However, as most web site owners know, when viewers are allowed to comment freely, contrary opinions are bound to crop up. In the case of Tony Snow, some did not wish him well.
The response to these comments by O'Reilly and other old media pundits was vehement. O'Reilly called the Daily Kos a "hate" site, and compared the community to the Nazis. But it didn't just end in name calling. O'Reilly confronted sponsors of the site for supporting "hate speech," which has already resulted in at least one commercial pull out.
Set aside Godwin's Law for the moment, and the obviously offensive hyperbole involved in comparing people who murdered millions, to a bunch of Internet geeks who type on their laptops in pajamas. The feud between O'Reilly and the Daily Kos should be unsettling to web site owners, regardless of political cast or creed. Whether one views the political advocacy of the Daily Kos with disdain or whether one thinks that Bill O'Reilly's television persona is a case study in narcissism should not matter to web site owners as much as the potential consequences if old media is able to saddle owners with responsibility for the comments of all their users.
Why is it that all these left wing nuts are determined to bring Bill O'Reilly down? Maybe its because he is onto them!
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Posted on 01/02/2008 at 12:01:37 AM