Opinion: O’Reilly? O really!

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As someone who was once called a “pinhead” by Bill O’Reilly, I might be expected to welcome a study purporting to show that O’Reilly calls “a person or a group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly nine times every minute during the editorials that open his program each night.”

But years of dealing with “quantitative” studies about public policy have made me uncomfortable with any assertion that begins with “A study says….” You can’t write editorials for 25 years and not be whipsawed by dueling studies on everything from education to the economic benefits of sports stadiums.

In judging O’Reilly there’s no need to crunch numbers or engage in contrived content analysis. Anecdotal evidence tells the tale, and there are ample anecdotes about Bill’s bullying to make the case. Slate’s Jack Shafer compiled an entertaining list four years ago in a column with the memorable title “Bill O’Reilly Wants You To Shut Up.”

Anyway, there’s something incongruous about a “scientific” study of O’Reilly. What’s next? A quantitative analysis of Rosie O’Donnell’s rants on “The View”?