“Total bullshit”, “disgusting”, “defamation” and “a piece of garbage” – Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had some choice words on Thursday about a report accusing him of making up war correspondent experiences from 33 years ago.

The report, by David Corn in the magazine Mother Jones, traced language O’Reilly has used to describe his time as a CBS correspondent reporting on the 1982 war in the Falklands Islands off the coast of Argentina. Titled “Bill O’Reilly has his own Brian Williams problem”, the report compared questions about O’Reilly’s war stories with the combat zone fabrications for which the NBC anchor was suspended earlier this month.

O’Reilly has been a harsh critic of Williams, sternly lecturing him during the week of media investigations that preceded the NBC star’s suspension. Corn’s report accuses O’Reilly of analogous transgressions.

“You know that I am not easily shocked. I’ve reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands,” O’Reillly wrote in a 2001 book, in one version of an assertion he made variously elsewhere.

In fact, O’Reilly was never on the Falklands Islands, Corn pointed out, although O’Reilly did report from Buenos Aires, about 1,200 miles away, where there was no fighting between Britain and Argentina in the conflict over the islands.

In multiple responses to the Mother Jones report, O’Reilly said he had never claimed to have been physically on the islands and said that the violent street protests he covered in the Argentinian capital constituted “war zone” reporting.

“I never said I was in the Falkland islands – ever. I said I covered the Falkland Islands war,” O’Reilly told TheBlaze. “And if that moron [Corn] doesn’t think it was a war zone in Buenos Aires, then he’s even dumber than I think he is.”

In an interview with TV Newser, O’Reilly said Corn deserved to be “in the kill zone.”

“When everybody writes the truth, I’ve talked to about eight or nine reporters, and when they verify what I’m saying, because it’s easily verifiable, then I expect David Corn to be in the kill zone,” O’Reilly said. “Where he deserves to be.”



O’Reilly’s attack on Corn’s report drew a sharply worded response on Friday from Mother Jones, in which the magazine’s editors called on the Fox host to withdraw the “kill zone” remark and issue an apology.

“Mr O’Reilly has indicated that he plans to address the Mother Jones story on his show tonight,” the magazine’s co-editors, Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jefferey, said in an email to Fox executive Bill Shine and spokeswoman Dana Klinghoffer. “He should use that occasion to renounce his ‘kill zone’ remark and apologize.”



“We’d have hoped that statements with this kind of violent tone would not come from a fellow media professional.”

Fox News did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

O’Reilly is the most established and frequently top-rated star on Fox News, which has been the No 1 cable news channel for total viewers for 156 months (13 years) running.