O'Reilly Rips 'Ideological' Hacking Coverage

Fox News' dead silence on the phone hacking scandal threatening Rupert Murdoch's media empire has finally been broken. And no surprise, Bill O'Reilly is insisting there is absolutely "no intrusion" of the burgeoning scandal on Murdoch's US operations, and that heavy-handed coverage of the scandal is driven by a liberal media out to get his boss, notes the Guardian. He acknowledged the story is "pretty big" and likely to "go up and up and up" all the way to Brit Prime Minister David Cameron. But he groused that the US media is making way too much of the story.

"People are exploiting this situation," O'Reilly complained on his program. "Here in the US there isn't any intrusion of the story thus far on News Corp. properties, none. Yet you have the New York Times absolutely running will with the story, vicious stuff, and it's all ideological." Federal officials investigating any spread of the scandal in the US are currently preparing subpoenas for News Corp. American operations, MSNBC is reporting. One former Fox exec is contradicting O'Reilly, and claims the channel engaged in "black ops." (More Bill O'Reilly stories.)