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Published May 20, 2015
Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thank you for watching us tonight.
Well, another sponsor has bailed out of VH-1, because that network is glorifying killers. But a major newspaper is on board with that. And that is the subject of this evening Talking Points Memo.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says that convicted killers deserve to be creative expression inside prison. This is not a joke, this is deadly serious, pardon the pun. The Post Gazette is applauding VH-1 for putting on rock concerts featuring murderers. The man who edited this incredible editorial came on The Radio Factor, and here is what happened.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, THE RADIO FACTOR, November 13, 2002)
Mike, this isn't fair, it' s not justice. If you kill someone, you should be forced to undergo a painful life, in the sense that you should do hard labor the rest of your life. Not be in a rock band, Mike. And you say it' s not ennobling, you're not going to get groupies. They do get groupies, and you know it.
MIKE MCGOUGH, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: Look...
O'REILLY: These guys get plenty of mail, plenty of naked pictures and all of that...
MCGOUGH: Right, let me just read something that I just...
O'REILLY: ... from freaks all over the country.
MCGOUGH: ...let me get from your Web site, because I thought you did a real disservice to this woman. You had Misty Hart, a murder victim's sister on. Now, first of all, to me, this is as sensational as what VH-1 does.
O'REILLY: No, this is giving them a voice.
MCGOUGH: You parade a poor woman on, you take advantage of her emotional state.
O'REILLY: Oh, what a bunch of crap.
MCGOUGH: And here's what she says.
O'REILLY: That's garbage.
MCGOUGH: Now, listen to this quote. And she says, "In my opinion, watching this makes you want to be this person, because you're able to go ahead and, you know, be a rock star in prison if you do these kinds of crimes."
Now I can't believe that you really believe that kids are going to watch this show, which, by the way, I don't think glamorizes these guys...
O'REILLY: Of course you don't.
MCGOUGH: ... it emphasizes the fact that they're in prison. They're never going to play on the road, they're not going to have any gigs. Some kid's going to watch this and say, Oh, gee, I'm going to be a mass murderer, I'm going to go out now and commit a crime so that I can be sentenced to life imprisonment in Pennsylvania, where there's no parole, and then maybe some documentary film crew is going to come in, maybe, and pick that prison and pick my band, and this is going to make it worthwhile to be a murderer.
O'REILLY: No, but it doesn't evoke fear, does it? Does it evoke fear of prison, Mike? No, it doesn't.
MCGOUGH: ...
O'REILLY: And, you know, I resent the fact...
MCGOUGH: ...
O'REILLY: ... I resent the fact that you...
MCGOUGH: ...
O'REILLY: ... that you said...
MCGOUGH: ... I want to be -- come on, you can't watch that...
O'REILLY: ... I resent the fact that you said...
MCGOUGH: ... I want to be ...
O'REILLY: Hey, Mike, shut up. I resent the fact that you said that we exploited this woman. We gave this woman a voice. That's something that you and your stupid newspaper would never do, you pinhead. You would never do that.
You would never allow this woman who lost her brother and her mother who lost a son to be in your editorial page and to get their suffering across to Americans, because you're too busy making high faluting moral pronouncements about how prisoners should be treated inside of prison, that they should have creative expression after they've taken a human life.
You see, you and your ilk and all of this pinhead editorial nonsense never get down to the suffering and pain of the crime victims, because you don't want those voices to be heard.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
That's right.
Now some of you believe that I'm getting too passionate about the issue. And maybe you're right. But if I have to make a mistake, I'll make it in this area. VH-1 and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in my opinion, are harming the families of the murder victims. And if I can't get angry about that, then I can't get angry about anything.
So far, tens of thousands of you have deleted VH-1 from your TV sets, and almost every sponsor has bailed. We're right on this one. VH-1 will never recovery from this atrocity, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette should be ashamed of itself.
And that's The Memo .
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
Time now for the "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day."
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is offering India a hundred million dollars to fight AIDS. So, when Mr. Gates visited Hyderabad, India, he was greeted by an eight-foot-tall condom. Since Paul Bunyon was nowhere in sight, we're guessing the display was symbolic. Otherwise, it could be ridiculous.
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