(Variety.com) – Bill O'Reilly is working the phones tonight to refute allegations in a Mother Jones story that he has a "Brian Williams Problem" of having embellished his war reporting experiences over the years.
The Mother Jones story by David Corn and Daniel Schulman, posted Thursday evening, asserts that O'Reilly has made claims about his reporting in Argentina during the Falklands Islands conflict and in El Salvador and Ireland "that don't withstand scrutiny."
The story, "Bill O'Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem," goes into detail about his work for CBS News during the early 1980s. The story includes comments from CBS News vets Bob Schieffer and Susan Zirinsky about specific incidents surrounding coverage out of Buenos Aires of the Falklands war, although neither directly addresses O'Reilly's work.
O'Reilly strongly refuted the accusation of embellishment and insisted that everything he reported and said about his experiences reporting in hot spots "is absolutely true and it is all verifiable." He called the story "a totally contrived piece of garbage" and asserted that Corn is an "ideological zealot" who has "a long history of character assassination against me."
Much of the story claims that as was the case with Williams, the NBC anchor who was suspended last week for six months without pay, O'Reilly has exaggerated his experience in the years that have passed since he was working in the field for CBS News. O'Reilly strongly denied that as well and claimed Corn was pursuing his own political agenda in crafting the "ridiculous" report.
Fox News confirmed that Corn, who is Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, was a contributor to the cabler from 2001-2008.
O'Reilly told Variety on Thursday that he was not sure if he would address the story on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" on Friday, but he was determined to personally deny the allegations to any reporters who called for comment on the Mother Jones story.
Mother Jones could not immediately be reached for comment on O'Reilly's denial, but Corn defended his reporting in an interview with Politico and accused O'Reilly of "name-calling" to distract from the substance of his story.
O'Reilly, meanwhile, called Corn "a dishonest individual" and said he and Fox News reps refused to engage with him when Mother Jones approached him for comment.
"My reports speak for themselves," O'Reilly said. "They ran on CBS. They were accurate. I have an internal memo praising me for my Falklands war coverage. ... But this is the world we live in. Guttersnipes can write whatever they want and then it hits the Internet and takes on a life of its own."
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