CN8 host Barry Nolan, who publicly complained a few weeks ago about Bill O'Reilly receiving an award from the Boston chapter of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, has been fired by the Comcast network. ... The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of honoring someone who does their job with constant factual errors, name-calling, and mangling of the truth ... It's ridiculous," said Nolan, [who] was warned by his bosses at CN8 to pipe down, but at the May 10 dinner honoring O'Reilly he handed out a six-page document listing some of O'Reilly's wackier errors, utterances, and information about the talk-show host's sexual harassment settlement. ... He was immediately suspended without pay for two weeks and then fired over the phone Tuesday.Love that Nolan handed out pamphlets detailing O'Reilly's idiocy; can't believe he got shitcanned for it; really can't believe they did it over the damn phone.
Nolan blogged about the experience at Think Progress:
O'Reilly was an appalling choice, not because of his political views, but because he simply gets the facts wrong, abuses his guests and the powerless in general, is delusional, and, well, you might want to Google: Narcissistic Personality Disorder.I don't have anything particularly brilliant to add to that, although perhaps CN8 would benefit from hearing from some polite, teaspoon-wielding folks who don't appreciate their decision to fire someone for reporting facts. Email or call toll free: 1-877-862-9374.
Plus there was that whole sexual harassment thing – the lawsuit he settled for an estimated $10 million. Not the kind of guy you normally think of when it comes time to pass out honors.
I found that most of my colleagues felt the same way. So, on May 10th at the Emmy Awards dinner, I quietly passed out a document that contained – not my opinion – but O'Reilly's own words and quotes from his sexual harassment lawsuit. And that is what got me fired. I got fired from my job on a news and information network for reporting demonstrably true things in a room full of news people.
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