Pricks With Power: Fuck Bill O’Reilly By Brendan Waldron

Tyler The Creator was right.

Fuck Bill O’Reilly. Fuck him and his infotainment bullshit.

The Weinstein effect has been in full force the last few weeks, and it’s showing in the world of entertainment where big names are starting to drop like flies.

However, the trend isn't limited to names everyone knows, and is spreading like wildfire.

I say let the metaphorical gasoline get thrown on the metaphorical wildfire.

The trend is exposing everyone — celebrities to news hosts, musicians to political identities.

I want people to fry for what they’ve done, to be left with nothing after the public is done with them.

This conversation is about news hosts, journalists, and others within the news media that have been accused in recent times of sexual misconduct.

I'm going to start with a quick synopsis of each man and what they were accused of and then we’ll dig into just why this is as bad as what’s happening to those getting swept into the flames of the Weinstein effect in Hollywood.

Mark Halperin was a reporter at ABC for years, and has accumulated a long list of accusers.

He is accused of forced kissing, having erections at inappropriate times, and much like Louis C.K., he seems to like masturbating in front of unwilling women.

Charlie Rose had a show on PBS and Bloomberg for years and years, at which he allegedly has done a fair amount bad stuff; from touching women’s thighs as a way to gauge their reactions, walking around naked after showers, and in one woman’s case, an ass grab.

Eric Bolling was a rising star at Fox News and was exposed recently.

He was let go from his position because he was sending unsolicited photos of (his?) genitalia to current and former female staff members at Fox.

Bill O’Reilly has been accused of sexual harassment and verbal abuse of women that worked on or with his show The O’Reilly Factor, dating back all the way to 2004.

He has been under heavy scrutiny for a long time, and there has been a sweeping trend of huge companies pulling their ads from his program.

And finally, Matt Lauer, whose story has been breaking today.

He's done some very horrible things in the last few years, including giving a sex toy to a coworker as a gift with a mention of wanting to use it on her, exposing himself, making people play 'fuck, marry, kill' with him in his office about co-workers, so on, and so forth.

These are people that we as a nation look to for guidance in troubling times.

TV news hosts and journalists provide the stories that we need to hear as a nation, even if our opinions on the story are different.

By making workspaces unsafe, the profession is looking less and less professional every day.

I know for a fact that if I was planning on pursuing a career in journalism, these stories would turn me off from it in a major way,

even more so if I were a female.

Providing news shouldn’t be a boys club, and treating women as equals should be something you do because it’s right to do, not because you had to be told to do so.

Some media outlets are learning the hard way that if you choose to ignore the kind of toxicity that exists that you will lose out on not only being better people, but also loads of cash from ad revenue. 

Companies that won’t support shitty people, won’t support you.

This was the case with Bill O’Reilly’s program, and the results were great.

Events like this and Reddit backlash have inspired groups like Sleeping Giants to form and become prominent, encouraging people to stop racist and sexist media by stopping their ad revenue.

Reports from everyday readers have drawn attention to ad placement, forcing companies to take a stand. 

This is good. We all need to take a stand.