On their April 13 broadcasts, 630 KHOW-AM's Peter Boyles and Newsradio 850 KOA's Mike Rosen defended a producer for Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, falsely asserting that the producer confronted Denver Post columnist Joanne Ostrow in a Post parking lot to conduct an ambush interview about her criticism of O'Reilly in her April 7 column. Boyles also claimed of O'Reilly's producer and camera crew, “They're not stalking her.”
In fact, as O'Reilly clearly stated during the April 11 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, producer Porter Berry approached Ostrow in a grocery store parking lot, not a Denver Post parking lot. Ostrow has confirmed to Colorado Media Matters that Berry accosted her in the parking lot of a Wild Oats supermarket, after she had driven there from her home and shopped inside; Berry apparently followed Ostrow from her home, where she often works.
Setting up an audio clip of the exchange between Ostrow and Berry, Boyles stated that “they confront her in the parking lot at The Denver Post.”
Similarly, Mike Rosen baselessly asserted, “An O'Reilly producer confronted Joanne Ostrow -- I imagine in the Denver Post parking lot -- with a cameraman and a microphone in hand.”
As Colorado Media Matters noted, O'Reilly had Berry trail Ostrow to conduct an ambush interview, videotaping the encounter and airing it on both his Fox News program The O'Reilly Factor and his syndicated Westwood One radio program. On the latter, O'Reilly stated that Ostrow “had to go to the grocery store, and our producer Porter Berry was waiting in the store for [her].”
From the April 13 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Mike Rosen Show:
ROSEN: “O'Reilly spewed racist bile.” Ah -- and therein we have the smoking gun. Joanne Ostrow asserts that O'Reilly “spewed racist bile.” I saw that exchange between O'Reilly and Geraldo. I have listened to it now several times. At no point did Bill O'Reilly do anything remotely like spewing “racist bile.” This is simply a charge -- an assertion by Joanne Ostrow -- and I should note, an assertion that she cannot support. O'Reilly invited her to be on his show to defend her assertion. She refused. An O'Reilly producer confronted Joanne Ostrow -- I imagine in the Denver Post parking lot -- with a cameraman and a microphone in hand, and pressed Joanne Ostrow on this.
From the April 13 broadcast of KHOW 630-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:
BOYLES: I want to play you this. If you haven't heard it, Joanne Ostrow from The Denver Post wrote a column, and it -- I think it appeared the same day that Cindy Rodriguez called me a hate-radio host -- and she talked about O'Reilly. And, listen to her response when they confront her in the parking lot at The Denver Post. She calls them stalkers. They're not stalking her; they walk up with a camera crew. And listen to -- listen to her try and get her way out of what she wrote. That's one of those things; you say it, you better be able to face it down.
From the April 11 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Now, the writer for The Denver Post -- which is a pretty big newspaper -- the TV writer, Joanne Ostrow, did this after my debate with Geraldo Rivera. She said, quote, in her column, “When a girl was killed by a drunk driver in Virginia, a driver who happened to be an undocumented immigrant, O'Reilly seized the moment to turn the issue into a tirade against illegal aliens. O'Reilly spewed racist bile.” Unquote. OK. Now, this is what these people do all the time. That's why people are afraid to take the stands that I take. So, we invited Ms. Ostrow to come on the program; of course, she hid under her desk. But she had to go to the grocery store, and our producer, Porter Berry, was waiting in the store for Ms. Ostrow. Roll the tape.
