|
Volume CXXXIII, Number 7 |
 |
O'Reilly tells it like he thinks it
ALEX REED
STAFF WRITER
Bill O'Reilly, the wildly popular and bluntly confrontational host of Fox News's flagship show The O'Reilly Factor, has rounded off his literary career with his new "self-help" book called Who's Looking Out for You?, which hit shelves last month. Much like O'Reilly's previous two books, The O'Reilly Factor and The No Spin Zone, Who's Looking Out for You? can be paraphrased by the following three sentences: "I, Bill O'Reilly, am successful. In fact, I am so successful, that if you read my book, you too will learn how to be successful. By the way, down with Hillary Clinton and the liberal media!"
Despite O'Reilly's tendency to both personalize and politicize such an endeavor more than aim at helping others rise to their full potential, Who's Looking Out for You? is not a bad read at all and, in an entertaining way, provides insight into both the television industry and the life of one of the business's most powerful entities.
Throughout the book's double-spaced 212 pages, O'Reilly attempts to mete out advice to "independent type[s]....who live honestly and make his or her own way" based on his own struggles with everything from family life to the frontlines of the "media wars." Bill primarily advises readers to "build some sort of coalition" of people who are "looking out for you," as well as "not run around with despicable people." This is about as far as O'Reilly's self-help advice goes. On the other hand, he explains his mostly conservative political arguments near the end of every chapter.
The Democratic Party, according to O'Reilly, is not looking out for you. Why? Because if "President Hillary becomes a reality, the United States will be a polarized, thief-ridden nanny state with a mean-spirited headliner living on Pennsylvania Avenue." O'Reilly, again with a political bent, advises readers morally: "Either a society has morals or it turns into the Mongol hordes. The way the U.S.A. is going, you might want to start taking riding lessons."
However, much of Who's Looking Out for You? concerns O'Reilly's own life. With no less humor, but with even more passion, O'Reilly uses his climb up the corporate media ladder to exemplify how to be professionally successful, how to identify those who can help you achieve that success and "who is getting a kick out of seeing you suffer."
O'Reilly credits Peter Jennings for looking out for him during his early years as a cocky, yet minor correspondent at ABC. Thus, readers should trust Jennings's commentary on World News Tonight, but since O'Reilly, early in his career, "got royally hosed by Dan Rather and his merry men" at CBS, that network is not looking out for you the reader, and thus you should never watch it and boost its ratings.
The author's best (and most serious) advice in the chapters concerning the media business, however, is for readers to keep trying whatever it is they set their minds to, but only with the support of a network of friends. O'Reilly eventually started in mid-career to "develop a posse: a group of people I could call for advice and perspective. I became interested in cultivating the friendship of quality people, and that has greatly enriched my life as well as enhanced my career." Readers are advised to do the same.
The book's main weakness, however, is due to the author himself and not his ideas. It is hard to take seriously or want to emulate somebody who is no doubt successful, but relishes flaunting his achievements by disparaging people who have disagreed with him on his television show, or harbor views that O'Reilly considers offensive. He rails, for example, against Geoffrey Nunberg of National Public Radio for questioning his independent, non-partisan political beliefs, calling Nunberg "nuts" and "intellectually dishonest."
Readers, caught in the crossfire of this veritable media war, are not particularly helped when O'Reilly gives advice the best way he can and in the only way he knows how. This tendency to widen the front of the network television war to a self-help book dilutes the book's primary goal, not to mention the $25 readers spent on it.
Nevertheless, Who's Looking Out for You? is an enjoyable read. Anyone can appreciate O'Reilly's passion, wittiness, and true desire to help readers understand how best to conduct their professional as well as personal lives. However, if you are a reader who is put off by occasional arrogance and not-so-occasional conservative outbursts, Who's Looking Out for You? may leave you wondering that very thing.
3 polar bears out of 4
|
FastCounter by bCentral |