Media

O’Reilly and Dobbs Get Together and Grumble About Fox News

STATBILL & WALDOBBS

The two disgraced Fox News stars whined about “corporate media,” at times making direct and indirect references to their former employer.

Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs, previously two of the biggest stars at Fox News, are now reduced to griping about their former employer from the sidelines.

Dobbs, a former Fox Business host known for his never-ending praise of Donald Trump, appeared Tuesday night on disgraced former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly’s web show, at times grumbling about “corporate media” and making both direct and indirect references to their time at Fox News.

“I can’t depend on any information coming out of cable or network news, it’s all ideological driven now,” O’Reilly, ever the curmudgeon, complained to Dobbs, cleverly eliding the fact that Fox News, where he hosted a program for 21 years, is the most-watched cable news network on the planet and the pioneer of such ideologically charged television.

ADVERTISEMENT

“You’re right about the media,” Dobbs agreed. “Of the six primary sources of information in this country, they’re owned by corporations, vast corporations.” He rattled off examples like Comcast’s ownership of NBC and AT&T’s ownership of CNN—conveniently omitting the massive media empire that owns Fox News.

“It is a huge corporate oligopoly, and that means very simply that the news that is coming out is exactly what’s decided upon in those boardrooms,” Dobbs continued. “No one should kid around about it.”

O’Reilly then jumped in to offer his take, boasting how back in his day he rarely took orders from higher-ups at Fox News.

“But that didn’t use to happen. When you and I were at Fox, nobody ever told me what to do or what to say or to spin something this way. I didn’t go to any of their dopey meetings,” claimed the former Fox host, who resigned amid multiple sexual-misconduct settlements. “They had the meeting every morning. I didn’t go. I didn’t care what they were doing or saying.”

“I didn’t even know about the meetings!” Dobbs joked in response, prompting some light banter from the pair over his ungraceful exit from Fox’s airwaves.

“Well, they don’t like you, or they didn’t like you,” O’Reilly quipped.

“I think they’ve made that clear,” Dobbs fired back while laughing.

Dobbs’ Fox show was canceled last year after he was named by Smartmatic, in no uncertain terms, as a key purveyor of election lies, spurring the voting technology company’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News. It has never been clear when Dobbs’ contract with Fox actually ended. A network spokesperson did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon.

Ultimately, O’Reilly ended the riffing with a somewhat sad observation about his and Dobbs’ shared fate as online podcasters.

“So they’re basically telling their commentators and reporters what to do. And if you don’t do it, then you’re doing a podcast,” he concluded. “I mean, that’s pretty much it, right?”