TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

Bill O'Reilly apparently believes the best defense is a strong offense. As you've heard, Bill O'Reilly is under fire for inflating his own wartime heroics, or lack thereof when it comes to having been a reporter more than 30 years ago. First it was Brian Williams for getting caught inflating his own experiences and and now it's Bill O'Reilly. Now, the case isn't quite as clear cut against Bill O'Reilly, although there does seem to be a substantial case suggesting that O'Reilly claimed that he saw shots fired at a crowd that he rescued and injured, shot at photographer, and in both cases, those situations didn't happen. So that is the main factual dispute. However, here's what's going on that's so interesting to people. O'Reilly was interviewed by the New York Times yesterday about this story or now a day and a half ago. Here's what he told the reporter for the New York Times. I am basically saying if you don't do this story the way I like it, he said, quote, I'm coming after you with everything I have. You can take it as a threat. Folks, all I can say is don't try this at home. Believe me, there are a lot of CEOs, politicians who would love to say that exact thing to reporters when they feel they are the subject of unfair questioning and unfair story. Here's why that's different for Bill O'Reilly, why it works for him and why it doesn't work for most people. For starters, he can back it up. O'Reilly has done this. I don't mean physically taking someone out or putting out a hit contract, nothing that nefarious. But what O'Reilly has done, and it's helped him tremendously, is he sends out a reporter, henchman, whatever you want to call it, Jesse Waters, and they stake out the person who has rubbed O'Reilly the wrong way. And they'll dig and dig and dig until they find something negative on that reporter. And then they will sort of do an ambush interview, making that other person look foolish. It's happened before and it's happened again. Here's the thing. It works for O'Reilly. He's good at it. Jesse Waters is good at it. But if you're a politician, there's no way you could get away with that. If you're the CEO of a big company, you couldn't get away with it. So that's one big factor in O'Reilly's favor. Now the next big factor in his favor is this is making it look Like a war between O'Reilly and the mainstream media just out to get him. That plays to O'Reilly's base. The base of his supporters don't like the New York Times. So if they this becomes a battle between O'Reilly versus the New York Times, that just makes O'Reilly more popular with his base. The other thing about doing an issue like this, attacking someone, is it instantly makes that the story. The fact that a threat was proffered turns that into a story. Now, along with that, you run the risk of people thinking you're a bully, that you're dangerous, that you're a fugitive. Again, if you're a politician, you have to worry about that. As a politician, you have to appeal to 50% of the voters plus one, or at least a strong plurality. If you are the CEO of a publicly traded company that sells products to the masses, you have to worry about a backlash. But when you are a political pundit, you don't have those same considerations. O'Reilly only has to appeal to 1% of Americans. Each night. There's 315 million Americans. If he can get 1% of it, actually less than 1%, if he can get 3 million people to watch his show, he is far and away the biggest hit on all of cable news. He will remain rich and famous and untouchable. Certainly his patrons, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch are standing firmly behind him. So that's why I don't predict that this issue is really going to hurt Bill O'Reilly. In fact, it may help him, even if the facts show that he did in fact misrepresent himself in a way that is not dissimilar to Brian Williams. So that's my prediction. Post your thoughts right here. I'd love to hear from you. And again, you reach me anytime, tjwalker@mediatrainingworldwide.com.