Steve Young

Radio Wars! It's Billo vs. Stephanie Miller
New Study Evaluates Who's Got More News Cred
by Steve Young

Dec. 5, 2006 -- HOLLYWOOD (apj.us/huffingtonpost.com) -- There is a school of thought that says Bill O'Reilly's worst enemy is Keith Olbermann -- at least since Al Franken left civil court with book sales well in hand.

But Keith only spends a moment or two a week mocking Bill, most often in his "Worst Person in the World" segment.

Jones Radio's Stephanie Miller does Billo every day.

I have no idea why people listen to Bill O'Reilly's "Radio Factor," but I do know why the same people don't listen to Miller's morning drive-time (PST) show. If they did, they would find out why what Bill said the day before was wrong... or hilariously dumb. Flat out laughable. With a capitol "WHAT AN @SSH*OLE!"

Still, that's a myopic viewpoint one would expect from a Huffington Post writer.

What do the facts say? As we know, talk show news reporting is all about the facts.

A new study from the PIOMA Foundation -- the very same PIOMA O'Reilly goes to for most of his research -- did a comparable analysis of the two shows and determined the following:

• While Bill will sell his newsman credentials at the drop of an ego, Stephanie is just as quick to tout her investigative work at the Itchy Kitty.
• Bill constantly lauds his crack research staff for amassing the hard-hitting facts behind the story, many times getting them wrong; Stephanie harasses crack engineer/producer Chris Lavoie, who works for minimum wage to amass material from Bill's show, recording everything he says wrong -- which is a 24/7 job.
• Bill books Geraldo, Newt and Dick Morris every week; Steph has voiceguy extraordinaire Jim Ward who flawlessly impersonates Geraldo, Dick Morris and Newt "Human Muppet" Gingrich every day.
• Bill balances his show with sidekick E.D. Hill, who only speaks to agree with everything Bill says. Chris and Jim rarely agree with anything Stephanie says, and for the most part, are right.
• During his interview with the President, Bill proposed that Bush read his book; during her interview with Senator Russ Feingold, Steph proposed marriage.
• Bill considers himself an astute historian. Steph considers herself a daily-box-of-wine alkie.

But what the PIOMA study focused on, was which journalist-like performer gets their reporting right more often.

This past week, continuing his effort to resurrect a sure ratings grabber, Bill declared that Crate & Barrel was ordering their employees not to say "Merry Christmas."

PIOMA researchers found that Crate & Barrel had no such anti-Merry Christmas policy, which in itself might have made Bill personally liable for C&B losses.

But the ramifications went much further than that.

It's no secret that Bill's T-warrior omnipresence has the power to depress an entire country's economy, nearly causing France to shut its doors in 2003. There's no telling how much money Crate & Barrel lost, nor how many workers, most of which are Christian, had their hours cut back or were fired. And during the Christmas season, yet! How many would not be able to afford to buy presents for their kids, even at stores like Wal-Mart, which had learned the hard way, that you say "Merry Christmas" or you say goodbye to, um, a Merry Christmas. Most importantly... what would Jesus say if he couldn't afford to buy Christmas gifts?

Somewhere, the Baby Jesus is crying -- not because he lost out on Christmas swag, but in a one-in-two-thousand six-year coincidence, no birthday gifts. No gold. No frankincense. No myrrh. Just tears. Baby King tears.

On the other hand, Stephanie played the comment.

By all that's fair and balanced...that's a push.

But what really separates Bill from Steph? PIOMA says it's how Bill characterized the policy that Crate & Barrel does not have. Bill called it "the worst kind of fascism."

While some define fascism as a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-liberalism and anti-communism, Bill thinks of it as store policy. Like "No Shoes, No Service."

To think that Hitler nearly took over the world with a political system akin to "We Don't Take American Express" is not only stunning, but not very good business.

On the other hand, Bill might have meant that the Crate & Barrel's hardline, non-existent, "No Merry Christmas" policy is as devastating to humanity today as was the attempt to wipe every Jew, gay and musical theater proponent during World War II.

Either one, PIOMA points out, is essentially, overstating the truth, or what has come to be known everywhere else but talk radio, a lie.

Stephanie again, to the dismay of the PIOMA researchers, felt it necessary to make Bill's mis-comments worse by once again replaying them.

Again, not much to choose from.

But when all the numbers were tallied, PIOMA found the tie-breaker came with Bill touting his show as one that "gets to the truth," while Stephanie admits her show to be, "fart joke, Senator, fart joke, Senator." Only one of descriptions could be corroborated.

Therefore, The Stephanie Miller Show was deemed the more credible-like newscast.

When told of the results, Ms. Miller said, "Cool. I hope Bill gets really mad. That's his special charm to me; his completely fact-free pyschotic rage."

Isn't she adorable?

Of course, while we now know which is the more credbile news report, the question remains: which show is more of a joke?

Steve Young is a Senior Fellow at the Extreme Far Centrist Foundation' Political Husbandry Conservation Centre and Stereo Repair. In his spare time, he is also an author, comedy writer, columnist, LA talk show host and author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful."(What? You STILL haven't bought it? Then visit http://www.greatfailure.com/) and the new "15 Minutes". You can also check out the satirical side of Steve every Sunday in the LA Daily News.

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