On the May 14 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly again criticized the Los Angeles Times for not publishing Factor producer Ron Mitchell's op-ed in the print edition of the newspaper. O'Reilly asserted that Times columnist Rosa Brooks “used a bogus Indiana University study to attack me” and claimed that Mitchell's op-ed refuted the study, which found that O'Reilly engages in name-calling during the “Talking Points Memo” segment of his show every 6.8 seconds. As Media Matters for America documented, however, Mitchell misrepresented the study's methodology, falsely claiming that researchers adjusted it until a desired result was produced.

In his op-ed, Mitchell claimed: "[T]he researchers admit they had to make several changes to their 'coding instrument' because the first attempts generated 'unacceptably low scores.' That's code for: they tried and tried until the results fit the preconceived notion of name-calling on the Factor." But Mitchell misrepresented the techniques of content analysis, in which an instrument is refined and/or the coders receive more training if measurements are found to yield unacceptably low levels of reliability between coders. The IU researchers explained this in their methodological note.

As Media Matters noted, O'Reilly touted Mitchell's op-ed on the May 10 edition of his program during his nightly “Most Ridiculous Item of the Day” segment, claiming that Mitchell “blew the lid off the study.” O'Reilly again plugged Mitchell's column on the May 11 edition of The Factor and stated: “Also on billoreilly.com, Factor producer Ron Mitchell's analysis of that bogus Indiana study that says I call people names every 6.8 seconds in my 'Talking Points' memos. I think you will find Ron's take funny and illuminating. And just remember all the dishonest media peddling that study.”

From the May 14 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Time now for “The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day.” I don't want to belabor this L.A. Times thing, but you should all know what's going on out there. The Times pays a columnist, Rosa Brooks, who is actually a lawyer representing George Soros' Open Society Institute.

But the L.A. Times has not told its readers that. That's amazing.

Now, Ms. Brooks, obviously a far-left person, recently used a bogus Indiana University study to attack me. Not fair, not good. So we contacted the L.A. Times with the facts, and asked them to run a column explaining the dopey study. The Times agreed. But instead of putting it in the paper, the column wind [sic] up on their Internet site. By the way, billoreilly.com, our Internet, has that column if you want to check it out.

The bottom line, all we want is fairness from the L.A. Times and every other media organization. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, in L.A., it is. And it's ridiculous. It's going on all over the country, these people, they hire people, and they don't tell you who they are. It's just dishonest.

From the May 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor:

O'REILLY: Also on billoreilly.com, Factor producer Ron Mitchell's analysis of that bogus Indiana study that says I call people names every 6.8 seconds in my “Talking Points” memos. I think you will find Ron's take funny and illuminating. And just remember all the dishonest media peddling that study. OK? That's on billoreilly.com.