Recently Bill O’Reilly has had Fox News anchor, Laurie Dhue join his show as the “Ombudsgal”, a name they coined because they didn’t want to call her an ‘ombudsMAN‘. Anyone that has ever seen Laurie Dhue will agree she could not be mistaken for a man.
According to the website for the Organization of News Ombudsmen an ombudsman is “someone who handles complaints and attempts to find mutually satisfactory solutions”.
The ONO says a news ombudsman receives and investigates complaints from newspaper readers or listeners or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness, balance and good taste in news coverage. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses to correct or clarify news reports.
They also say that a broadcaster should have an ombudsman to improve the quality of news reporting by monitoring accuracy, fairness and balance. The ombudsman is also there to help his or her news provider to become more accessible and accountable to readers or audience members and, thus, to become more credible.
But we should remember that Laurie Dhue is not the ombudsman for ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ but instead she is the ‘ombudsgal’. The job description for ‘ombudsgal’ on ‘The Factor’ seems to be a bit more limited to picking a few viewer emails that complain about the show, reading them on the show, and then agreeing with Bill O’Reilly every time when he explains why the viewers were wrong and he was right.
Laurie’s Thursday segments have been little more than her sitting on the set with Bill, her looking pretty (a very easy job for Laurie) and being Bill’s ‘yes woman’. This blogger has to yet see Laurie once not agree with Bill that he handled a situation correctly and that the viewer was wrong for complaining. Laurie shows the same enthusiasm for O’Reilly as she does when discussing Geraldo, another of her bosses.
Laurie Dhue seems to found the secret to her success at Fox News to be based upon her looking glamorous and being an extreme sycophant to any man with a TV show that will put her on the air. This success is at the cost of her integrity as a journalist and credibility with the viewers.
Hopefully for Laurie she is able to continue to shovel it high and fast enough to keep O’Reilly and Geraldo happy, because TV is filled with glamorous looking ladies. I am sure some of them are studying Laurie’s playbook and are willing to sell their credability too for some more airtime.
One Eyed Man
5 responses so far ↓
1 Ken Rich // Oct 27, 2007 at 4:00 am
Laurie. I have a gripe with Bill. I agree with him 99% of the time, disagree with Jane Hall almost 100% of the time. However, I feel that he’s rude to her, she is well meaning, even if a liberal, and deserves to be treated with alot more respect then she is on the Factor. You can even see when he rips her or cuts her short a sort of fake smile on her face. Misguided people like her need an audience and don’t deserve nasty treatment and remarks. Otherwise I think the shoe is spectacular.
2 Jerry Stachowitz // Dec 6, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Laurie,
Do Bill’s core viewer’s a favor, skip Al Sharpton on the show. I understand if Bill doesn’t soft ball him he won’t come on the show, to patronize him the way he does, makes me puke! Al Sharpton is a thug, gutter trash. NO MORE SOFTBALL QUESTIONS…
3 wayne johnson // Dec 21, 2007 at 10:50 am
Bill O’Reilly;
My question is; why are you deliberately destroying the O’Reilly factor with your tabloid like segments? The culture Quiz, Body Language, Mystery Guest, my how boring and simple minded and has no place on The O’Reilly factor. How much more space on your program do you have to fill so that you no longer have to appear on the program at all. Are you running out of worthwhile topics? I have been a listener to The O’Reilly Factor for many years but you are heading into just another “E” show. I now find myself thru frustration, drifting to other channels because of all the new boring and meaningless segments and quit often do not return to your program. Let’s do away with the trash and get back to the fundamentals, you know, the things that made you and your program so great for so long.
You speak of pithy? Well, the program is getting very pithy. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO the unabridged “LOOKING OUT FOR THE PEOPLE” THEME?
4 meaningless website // Jan 20, 2008 at 11:02 am
this is absolutely a go no where website
5 kathy r // Jan 22, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I was very upset with o’rielly and his nasty smack-mouth talk about Dr. Phil and the Spears family, did he actually see the entire statment he made or what, Dr. Phil did nothing wrong and what he said was something anyone of us could have said, the bottom line this women needs help now and you o’rielly are casting stones where you should not if my memory is correct you had a problem with a co-worker that was of a sexual nature and it got swept under the rug so smack -mouth don’t you think you should keep your mouth shut and pray this girl get help before she winds up like so many other young people.You need to get back on track with your show, just tell me the facts.
Kathy R union nj
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