Former Fox Host: O’Reilly Is Head of a Right-Wing ‘Cult,’ Not Held to Same Standards

Former Fox Host: O’Reilly Is Head of a Right-Wing ‘Cult,’ Not Held to Same Standards (Mediaite)

Former Fox News Watch host Eric Burns ripped his old network and his old colleague Bill O’Reillyon Reliable Sources Sunday morning, likening Fox News’ viewership to a cult and claiming O’Reilly got a pass from his audience for alleged fabrications due to his charismatic authority in right-wing media.

“The people who watch Fox News are cultish,” Burns said. “For many years conservatives were extremely upset in this country because the only newscasts they had to watch were liberal…they never had their own television station. When they got one, their audience loyalty soared.”

“O’Reilly as the head of the cult is not held to the same standards as Brian Williams, who is part of the larger media culture,” Burns said.

O’Reilly has come under scrutiny in the past few weeks for embellishing his reporting from his CBS News days, claiming to have been in the midst of war zones he was never near, to have witnessed violence he couldn’t have seen.