Also this issue:

The Fire This Time
A man was arrested for torching Congressman Fattah's office.
-Daryl Gale

Pole-Vaulting
Another group of Eastern-European gunsels makes its mark.
-Brendan McGarvey

Final Talley
-Mary F. Patel

I'll Gladly Pay You on Tuesday For a Hamburger Today
-Daniel Brook

Soundbites
New Stinky at the Inky
-Deborah Bolling

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

December 12-18, 2002

city beat

O'Riled

Not black and white: OâReilly presses Crawley for

simple answers to complex questions.

Not black and white: O'Reilly presses Crawley for simple answers to complex questions. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A. Bruce Crawley shouts with Fox's Bill O'Reilly about the Daily News.

by Deborah Bolling

Within moments of taking his seat on the Dec. 3 edition of Fox News Channel’s highly rated O’Reilly Factor, Philadelphia’s own A. Bruce Crawley was promptly pounded to a pulp by the man media analysts are now calling “America’s No. 1-rated cable news talk show host.” Crawley was attempting to school the confrontational Bill O’Reilly on the ills of the now-infamous Philadelphia Daily News Aug. 22 “Fugitives Among Us” cover story. He was also attempting to explain the basis for the Coalition for Fair News Coverage’s ongoing boycott against the “People Paper.”

Last August, the Daily News ran a controversial cover story depicting 15 men of color, all wanted in Philadelphia on outstanding murder warrants. Crawley and a group of civic, business and religious leaders mounted a protest and implored city residents -- particularly blacks -- to boycott the tabloid. Last month, City Paper exposed a number of errors in the story, including the fact that some of the "fugitives" were already in jail when the story ran.

"Look," O'Reilly said to Crawley about five minutes into the testy exchange, "the Philadelphia Daily News said that 41 murder warrants were out and all of them were minorities. That was true. Correct?"

"It was sensationalism. It was sensationalism of the worst kind," Crawley responded, shaking his head.

"But was it true or not?" O'Reilly demanded of Crawley.

"Do you want me to explain?" Crawley asked, exasperated.

"No," O'Reilly snorted. "I want you to answer the question."

As the doomed interview was coming to a close, Crawley started using information gleaned from the Nov. 28 City Paper article, "The Fugitive Fumble," without crediting the source. But by then, O'Reilly had already started the countdown.

Through a Fox News Channel spokesperson, O'Reilly says he's no longer interested in the DN boycott story, which O'Reilly Factor producers originally picked up from wire service reprint reports about a month ago.

"From what I heard, O'Reilly wasn't too impressed with Crawley as a guest," says Robert Zimmerman, FNC director of media relations. "He thought he was just filibustering and that there really wasn't any story there. My understanding is that he won't be invited back."

Reached at his Old City public relations firm offices, Crawley seemed unruffled by the public debacle.

"I'd heard about the show, but I'd never watched it" prior to appearing, Crawley says. "[O'Reilly] clearly didn't want to hear what I wanted to say. But I thought he was just being himself. He was anxious to suppress the truth about the Daily News. He didn't want to know the context of our boycott and he certainly didn't want to address the fact that a community could mount this sort of thing. In my opinion, he just wanted to prove that the Daily News was right and the rest of us were totally wrong."

Coalition members have recently taken a new tack in their attempts to affect the quality of the tabloid's news coverage. Earlier this week, 15 members pooled funds to purchase 31 shares, priced at $61.62 per, of Knight Ridder stock. KR, the parent company of the Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer, currently has 84.4 million shares of common stock. With their acquisition, coalition members now represent an infinitesimally minute percentage of the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States. But Crawley says that doesn't daunt him; even a single share makes him and his partners legitimate owners.

"I feel very good about this purchase," he says. "I believe it will ensure that we get timely and accurate responses from Tony Ridder. We hope that shareholders get treated with a different level of respect. We also hope that this means we will now have better communication with Knight Ridder."

Crawley says that if the situation at the DN is not resolved by April, when KR has scheduled its next annual shareholder's meeting in California, he plans to include his grievances on the agenda.