Editor's Note: The following message is from Carol Jenkins, President of the Women's Media Center, concerning their ongoing campaign to get Fox's Bill O'Reilly to apologize on-air for insulting legendary reporter Helen Thomas (video below):
Thank you all so much for your support! The messages -- thousands of them -- are getting through and generating discussion. The topic will be covered on "The O'Reilly Factor" tonight, and our own Courtney Martin will lend her perspective as a young, woman journalist and member of our Progressive Women's Voices program.
Please help us keep on the heat, by joining The Women's Media Center and continuing to send feedback to Fox News about Bill O'Reilly. His sexist and ageist comments about legendary reporter Helen Thomas require an apology.
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To recap: On O'Reilly's February 9 show, he compared Thomas to "the Wicked Witch of the East" along with disparaging remarks about her appearance and age. Journalist Bernard Goldberg was a guest, who added his own insults, and even Alan Colmes, while ostensibly defending Thomas, laughed along and didn't seriously object. This kind of verbal degradation in the guise of humor is unacceptable, and as Media Matters has documented, it's part of an on-going pattern where O'Reilly has targeted Thomas.