Check it out: a producer for FOX’s Bill O’Reilly attempts to beard the dragon in his den, and ambushes Bill Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform. He tried the “repeat the question, repeat the question” badgering tactic, asking Moyers about his political affiliation, with the obvious implication that the conference is a nest of disloyal, pinko leftists. But Bill turns the tables on him, attempting to engage him, upbraiding him for acting as a shill for a man he calls “not a journalist, but a pugilist,” and challenges him to go back to his boss with an offer to appear for an hour, live and unedited, on Moyers’ show. A crowd of journalists laughs good-naturedly and urges Bill to “stay on message, stay on message.”

At the end, the hapless producer is dismissed in by the master, and hustles away, but not before running a gauntlet of journalists, who subject him to a FOXNews style ambush-interview, remind him that he did the same thing to Moyers, and cheerfully inform him that the unedited footage will be uploaded to the Internet “in about an hour.”

Moyers cites facts and interesting nuggets of news: I didn’t know that Rupert Murdoch is supposed to have said that a war with Iraq would guarantee that oil would be 20 dollars a barrel. But Bill Moyers would like to ask him about it, and get his reaction on the current price of oil (which changes so quickly it’s not worth quoting). He’d also like to ask Bill O’Reilly about his assertion that anyone that opposed the war in Iraq back in the beginning was a bad American. Now that’s an interview I’d like to see, because of course is it so bad to oppose a war that was based on bad information, manipulated data, and out-and-out lies?

The Uptake: FOX Ambushes Bill Moyers; Journalists Ambush FOX – Off The Bus on The Huffington Post

I ran across a few other items from the same conference. Yep, some pretty left-wing folks in attendance. But I don’t think it was the nest of vipers that the O’Reilly will villify as “the liberal media” in the inevitable favorably edited, carefully scripted hit piece.

Democracy Now: Bill Moyers’ Keynote Speech (advance transcript)

Oh, wait, O’Reilly already called the media reformers fascists, loonies, and a danger to the country. That’s funny, I thought the right-wing guys were the fascists, and everybody else were the pinko Commies. I’m so confused.

Center for Media and Democracy had a pretty amused take on O’Reilly’s hysterical response, too.

Meanwhile, a commenter here calmly notes:

I attended the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis last week. Sure, the conference was attended by some leftist activists who want to impeach our president and are fixed on the misleading coverage leading up to the start of the Iraq war, but this was not the majority opinion. They were not anti-conservative, but rather opposed to a few large companies owning the majority of media outlets we depend on to get our news. The ideas they discussed would help conservatives and liberals protect our rights to have access to the media, regardless of which party is in the majority. They quoted the constitution, bill of rights, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Regan with the belief that a well informed public is a requirement to our country’s continued success.
God bless America.