Liberal media watchdog site Media Matters is accusing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly of lying about his claim of being outside a home when an associate of Lee Harvey Oswald committed suicide inside.
In his 2012 book "Killing Kennedy," a non-fiction bestseller, O'Reilly described the scene after tracking Russian George de Mohrenschildt to Palm Beach, Fla.
De Mohrenschildt had befriended Oswald, the assassin of President John F. Kennedy who was killed by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby while he was being transferred to a county jail.
When O'Reilly knocked on the door of a home belonging to de Mohrenschildt's daughter in 1977, he said he heard a shotgun blast in the house that was later confirmed to be de Mohrenschildt killing himself.
"At the time, de Mohrenschildt had been called to testify before a congressional committee looking into the events of November 1963," O'Reilly writes in his book. "As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.
"By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly."
Media Matters, which has been critical of O'Reilly in the wake of a recent
Mother Jones report that said O'Reilly made up a story of being in danger while covering reaction to the Falklands War in Argentina 33 years ago,
says it has evidence that O'Reilly was not present when de Mohrenschildt took his own life.
Citing a police report, a congressional investigator, and interviews with O'Reilly's former colleagues at a Dallas TV station, Media Matters argues that O'Reilly made the whole thing up.
"O'Reilly has bizarrely inserted himself into de Mohrenschildt's story, claiming in books and on Fox News that he was outside the house seeking to interview de Mohrenschildt at the time of his death," Media Matters writes.
"New interviews with former O'Reilly colleagues who say he wasn't in Florida on the day of de Mohrenschildt's suicide and documents obtained by Media Matters bolster [University of California professor Jefferson] Morley's reporting."
The report claims Morley, who runs JFKFacts.org, first cried foul over O'Reilly's claim in 2013.
Media Matters has now
posted a petition for Fox News to "hold Bill O'Reilly accountable for deceiving viewers" for what the site calls "his supposed reporting from the Falkland Islands."
The left-leaning site, which is often critical of Fox News' reporting, is calling for O'Reilly to be punished just as
NBC News anchor Brian Williams was two weeks ago after he admitted to making up a story of being under attack during a 2003 trip to Iraq.
Neither Fox News nor O'Reilly have commented on Media Matters' claim regarding the story in Florida, but O'Reilly flatly denied making anything up related to his reporting on the Falklands War.
After presenting
video evidence on his show Monday night that he said backed up his reporting, O'Reilly said: "All right? So there you go. I want to stop this now. I hope we can stop it. I really do."
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