The segment (embedded below) focuses on the recent controversy surrounding General Electric, who, despite having earned billions in revenue in the last year, reportedly paid zero dollars in federal taxes last year. This has raised legitimate questions about both the corporate tax code and the role that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt is playing with the Obama Administration leading a new jobs council.

Host Jon Scott introduced the segment after first airing a report filed by ABC News’ Jake Tapper that was critical of GE’s taxes, then pronounced that NBC News (which is partly owned by GE) has not yet reported on the segment. He is quickly corrected by panelist Jim Pinkerton who claims that NBC actually had aired a report on the controversy, which is quickly seconded by fellow panelist Judith Miller then jumped on by Alan Colmes. The net result? A segment designed to criticize and ridicule NBC News’ coverage of this controversy quickly unravels into something entirely different, which results in the off-camera “cut!” and a reintroduction/re-taping of the entire segment. Rarely does the audience get insight into the actual production of TV sausage that the following clip reveals.

The rhetorical battle between Fox News and NBC’s former parent company GE is legendary, complete with an ambush style interview of Immelt during a GE shareholders meeting and consistent attacks by Bill O’Reilly. NBC News is now primarily owned by Comcast, however GE still owns a minority stake in the media outlet.

Update: Johnny Dollar points out to Mediaite that the following segment never aired on Fox News, rather was released via FoxNews.com. The post has been edited to accurately reflect those changes.

(H/T Johnny Dollar, via TV Newser)

Bolling insisted he was “following the money” with his suggestion that the appointments of Immelt and Bill Daley as new Chief of Staff, are related to the fact that both have ties to companies that would benefit from cap and trade legislation (in Daley’s case, to JPMorgan). Therefore, if those companies benefit, Bolling theorizes, they will be more likely to donate to Obama’s reelection campaign for which he predicts Obama might spend nearly one billion dollars. If all this speculation left you dizzy, luckily Kelly was able to bring the conversation back to Earth, likely saying on behalf of most viewers “I don’t even understand the allegation, to be quite honest.”

Under tough questioning from Kelly, which seemingly caught Bolling by surprise, Bolling just kept repeating “follow the money” and held up his drawing. Finally, Bolling simplified his argument and said that Immelt’s main priority, as long as he is still CEO of GE, is to get the stock of GE higher and presumably not to pursue what is best for the country.

Kelly, the former attorney, expertly demonstrated here that if you’re a guest on her show, no matter if you’re a Fox employee, then you better have facts to back up what you’re saying, and without any to suggest that Immelt’s appointment was based on a desire for campaign contributions or to resurrect cap and trade legislation, Bolling’s argument was brilliantly dismissed.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

For his part, Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer seemed to treat O’Reilly’s suggestion that GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt refuse the stimulus package as not only moronic, but also inconsistent with the fiduciary responsibilities he’s pledged to uphold to the shareholders of General Electric. A transcript of the back and forth follows the video below.

O’Reilly: Impact Segment tonight, a situation that made me pause. In 2009 the General Electric corporation generated 156 billion with a b dollars in revenue. Obviously an enormous number. GE also received 25 million bucks in government stimulus money, our tax dollars. However, GE let 18,000 workers go last year after getting the money. How does that add up? We asked Fox News political commentator Charles Krauthammer to assess the situation. He joins us now from Washington. We have coming up behind you Senator Coburn about a billion dollars possibly wasted in Haiti. He is coming after you. What I can’t understand and you are much smarter than I am as everyone knows. Why would we give ge $25 million in the first place when they’re generating an enormous amount of money. They don’t need stimulus package.

Krautammer: Look, that 25 million was not an act of charity. The fact that ge is one of the largest corporations on earth in the middle of one of the worst recessions in seven years would shed jobs and try to get lean is not news. That’s what every business, large, small, and medium has been doing. And the fact that GE got $25 million is meaningless. do you know how — you are a Harvard guy. You can do the math. That is 1/3 of one one hundred of 1% of the Stimulus.

O’Reilly: Here is what I would have done if I were Jeffrey immelt the ceo of GE I wouldn’t have taken a nickel of taxpayer money if I knew I was going to lay off people. How does thatook? Even though it’s a minuscule amount compared to the trillions of dollars the government dolled out in the face of the recession, it’s still 25 million. Then they they lay off 18,000 people. The folks are going, what is this?

Krautammer: I’ll tell you what it is. If you are the head of a corporation, you have fiduciary obligation to try to maximize your profits and to make the corporation a going affair. If you have to shed jobs in a recession like everybody has to, you go ahead and do you it.

O’Reilly: don’t take the government’s money.

Krautammer: The government comes along and offers you a check thank you I will take it.

O’Reilly: a lot of companies wouldn’t do that.

Krautammer: Then I’m not sure I would want to hold their stock.

O’Reilly: what about the moral responsibility that GE has to the taxpayer?

Krautammer: Look, if the government believes that it has to spend a trillion dollars and you and I oppose the stimulus, I think it was almost complete waste of money, it will not leave a trace, unlike what happened in the great depression when we have the Hoover dam and tva and the interstate highway system and the space program in the 50s. This is not going to leave a trace. I was against it I think it’s the wrong way to stimulate an economy. Nonetheless, the democrats won the election. And they had control of the house and senate and they decided to spend the money. If it’s going to be spent and you are the head of the corporation and the government offers you in one of your divisions, let’s say a green project, I think it’s all nonsense, but if the government offers you that you take it. Why not? That’s what business is about.

O’Reilly: then you lay off 18,000.

Krautammer: That’s not connected to the money. It’s —

O’Reilly: The appearance of greedy big corporation letting the little guy go out the door when they are getting taxpayer money.

Krautammer: Look, look, look. Hold on one second. You have know the fallacy there go hawk you are the Harvard man, meaning if x happens before y it doesn’t mean x caused y. there is no connection between stimulus money thrown thrown out of an airplane sprinkled all over America where a minuscule amount lands on GE shedding jobs which is what every company has to do in a recession.

O’Reilly: GE is widely perceived to be maybe erroneously maybe to be in the pocket of president Obama. The NBC news arm obviously promoted his election and some might say cynical people well, look, it’s payback time. They are getting a bunch of green contracts. They are getting the 25 million, even though it’s not much, it’s still 25 million. It’s really pay back time. Do you see it that way?

Krautammer: If you are going to sell your soul you don’t sell it for a happy meal without the fries. Ah, it’s a trivial amount of money.

O’Reilly: contracts aren’t.

Krautammer: So ideologically inclined in that case and that’s why they built NBC, MSNBC, the web site, all of this as a way to amplify a left-wing pro-Obama message, then why did he sell it? If he already it had he sold it to Comcast.

O’Reilly: It failed. Not doing that well.

Krautammer: Is comcast which has now purchased it also left wing and ideologically inclined?

O’Reilly: I don’t think so.

Krautammer: It’s a business proposition.

O’Reilly: okay. all right, Charles. it will be interesting to see the mail on this.

But while GE and Immelt have been a favorite target of O’Reilly’s in the past, the attacks have been down over the last year. So where did this one come from?

What it could be is a response to this low blow from Keith Olbermann last week regarding O’Reilly’s past abuse at the hands of his father. It would make sense given the history of the feud – when Olbermann attacks O’Reilly particularly harshly, O’Reilly has instead set his sights far above the MSNBC host and slammed either NBCU Chairman Jeff Zucker or Immelt and GE. And considering this “Factor Follow-up” relates to a story that hasn’t been touched on during The O’Reilly Factor in more than two months (according to TV Eyes), that makes the most sense.

It was this time last year that talk of some sort of truce between GE/NBC and Fox was in the works – and also this time last year that it became clear any semblance of a truce was an impossibility (with Olbermann continuing his regular attacks). One year later, this is the sort of slam – from the most-watched cable news host – that could reignite the feud.

As for the content, Nile Gardner of the Heritage Foundation was on to talk about the Oil-for-Food scandal. “The fact that GE, a huge American company, a household name, was involved in the scandal is hugely shameful for GE, and I think a tremendous embarrassment for the corporation,” he said. (Interesting, O’Reilly played a bit of devil’s advocate, saying “it’s hard for me to basically get outraged about it” since GE was just one of thousands of companies involved.)

Tom Borelli, director of “The Free Enterprise Project” described a pattern of corruption with the company, saying it’s something “we all have to be concerned about.”

Later, O’Reilly noted GE is “very close to the Obama administration” – probably the most effective slam as far as his viewership is concerned. This segment comes on the heels of an interesting CJR profile that implies O’Reilly (and by extension, Fox News) wielded some level of control over Comcast a couple years ago. Comcast, of course, is set to take a majority stake in NBCU shortly.

Here’s the full segment:

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Bill O’Reilly

Variety, O’Reilly noted, had attacked Fox News “more than one hundred times.” Part of that he saw as ideological. Part of it was financial. And, especially in the case of NBC, he argued– which is making less money now than three years ago– it’s about money. So why was Gasparino O’Reilly’s guest tonight? Gasparino used to work at NBC, and he’s not shy about talking about his former employer. Discussing the atmosphere at NBC, Gasparino noted that “the people you work with every day do have an agenda” and that, many times, “they will not be fair.”

To illustrate how the ideological slant he blames for the attacks on Fox News function in practice, Gasparino told an anecdote that he claimed CNBC “will deny”: apparently, at the beginning of President Obama’s term, GE head Jeffrey Immelt called a meeting to make sure people on the network “were being fair to the president.” Or, as O’Reilly put it, “directly intervened with the editorial position of the network.”

Video from last night’s segment below:

Stelter writes:

Comcast denied reports Monday that it is a partner in the RightNetwork, a red state start-up that promises “content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview.”

Comcast, the country’s largest cable provider, was identified as a partner in a promotional document put together by RightNetwork and discovered online by the blog Crooks and Liars on Saturday. Apparently assuming that the document was accurate, The Huffington Post called the venture “Tea Party TV” and put up a story saying “RightNetwork Launching In 2010 With Comcast As Partner.” Other Web sites published similar stories.

Stelter did not include Mediaite in his list, but he very well could have. In the interest of candor, the original version of this post follows.

Now we understand why Bill O’Reilly may have given an unprovoked shout-out to Comcast last week. Last week, the self-professed traditionalist called Comcast an “honest corporation” that could turn NBC around.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Fox News and NBC have long been at battle over news divisions and reportage that has extended far beyond the MSNBC vs Fox News (which is looking more and more like David vs. Goliath.) No, Fox News opinion journalists effectively attacked NBC-Universal parent company GE and its CEO Jeffrey Immelt for, among other things, selling arms to Iran. But last year news broke that GE had agreed to sell its television and movie unit to Comcast (which is still awaiting government approval), and many wondered how Comcast leadership may affect the constant battle between the two news divisions.

Last December, Politico reported that Comcast would not rule out launching a right-leaning competitor to Fox News, but adding that Comcast would not “tamper with NBC or MSNBC’s operations. Well now we know what he is talking about.

It’s still early in the RightNetwork’s launching cycle, and few details have emerged. Their YouTube channel features 15 promotional clips, the leading clip is of actor Kelsey Grammer discussing all things “right.” Other clips promote a right-leaning comedy show called Right to Laugh; a reality show called Running tracking six rookie candidates running from a conservative platform; another show called Politics and Poker and a pro-Tea Party music video by a rapper named “Polatik” (which is most likely deserving of its won “this exists” post for later.)

Judging by the passionate and loyal followers of the Tea Party movement, RightNetworks looks and feels like it will be a successful venture (particularly given the high production values of their show trailers.) By no means should Fox News be worried by this development – more likely, this will be presented by many involved by claiming that “competition is a good thing” and that there are plans for cooperating with one another. But the existence of a potential competitor changes the binary construct of “us vs. them” that Fox News so effectively applies in their approach. Or in other words, FNC can no longer blame the parent company of NBC, if they also have RightNetworks in their fold.

But while its not uncommon for attacks to become ad hominem, it’s not often that any media professional gets as much ridicule as NBC chief Jeff Zucker does in the following clip. Not only do O’Reilly and Goldberg agree that it’s unlikely for Zucker to last more than year left in his spot — which is certainly a possibility given the pending sale of NBC to Comcast — the two FNC men posit that the entire network of NBC is nearing complete and total collapse. Of course this is likely a hyperbolic phrasing that raises the stakes of Zucker’s perceived failures by the two, and the schaudenfreude they (and their viewers) can experience as well.

We do a lot of these Chyron of the Day posts, and we usually try to avoid the simple spelling error. But we had to do it here, because of the context. In a report by Bertha Coombs about her boss’ boss’ boss, GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, the CNBC chyron had ‘Immelt’ spelled wrong.

The report is about what Immelt said in a conference call today: “Vivendi has been a great partner. They’ve got a window every year to review their options for NBC and this year we wanted to be ready for several scenarios.”

The chyron labels the GE CEO as “Imnmelt” – a point made especially interesting given the story. While Immelt is currently the head of NBCU, and thus, CNBC, the report is about how much longer he’ll be serving that role.

Do you have a pick for Chyron of the Day? Email me at Steve@Mediaite.com with an image or time/network (and check out all the past Chyrons of the Day here)…

Here’s the clip:

Today, The Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz reveals some behind-the-scenes insight about the “war” – and the revelations continue to hurt MSNBC host Keith Olbermann far more than his FNC foil, Bill O’Reilly.

Here’s the key passage in Kurtz’ piece:

But the war was just beginning at MSNBC, where an opinionated culture is often at odds with NBC News. The day after Olbermann’s comments about the Tiller slaying, executives convened a large meeting and talked about Fox and the importance of striking the right on-air tone. Olbermann later expressed a willingness to make minor adjustments in his style, but he and his allies, concerned about setting a precedent, dug in for a fight. Olbermann left Zucker and executives with the impression that he might quit if the dispute wasn’t resolved to his satisfaction.

Olbermann has threatened to quit, and has actually done so on several occasions. The seed is now planted in this story, and the implication fuels the fire…that may be headed toward meltdown.

The meeting Kurtz writes about happened in June, but fast forward to this week, and Monday’s attack on Fox from Olbermann.

Fox felt the agreement had been shattered. “This is more of an internal issue that NBC and GE need to work through,” a Fox spokesman said. Fox executives disputed the contention of some NBC officials that any understanding was amorphous. “There was an agreement for no personal attacks,” one said. GE and NBC declined to comment.

The personal attacks then returned Wednesday from O’Reilly, in a direct cause-and-effect moment. And if Olbermann fires back at FNC, thus bothering both his bosses and O’Reilly, expect a similar retaliation. There’s no way out – Olbermann has to change his focus away from Fox, and thus face alienating some of his hardcore fans. He did a good job with that later this week – last night was attack #3 on CNN’s Lou Dobbs. But Dobbs is not the same type of foe as O’Reilly – mainly, he’s not nearly as popular.

On another front, Olbermann gives TVNewser another new explanation for why he didn’t know about Richard Wolffe‘s consulting job.

In April, I knew vaguely that Richard Wolffe had gone to work for a non-news firm, and that’s about the last I heard of it. It was entirely concurrent with my mother’s fatal illness, and I turned it over entirely to my management team. My first awareness that this was more than just a non-news job, was this week.

If Jonathan Berr, whoever he is, does not like my prioritizing caring for my mother and dealing with her death, and then doing as many shows as I could, ahead of vetting the comments of our analysts and my management team, frankly, I feel sorry for him. Getting myself through those two months were, and are, more important than what is still being investigated about Richard.

Wow. It’s not clear how this will end – but it’s not looking like it will end well.

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Howard Kurtz reports in today’s Washington Post that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel pressured the corporate CEO’s of the parent companies of TV networks to run Obama’s press conference during prime time, instead of communicating directly with the network heads themselves. Bob Iger (CEO of ABC’s parent company Disney), Jeffrey Immlet (CEO of NBC’s parent company GE), and Les Moonves (CEO of CBS, which includes CBS Network among other media outlets) all received calls from Emanuel in a plea to broadcast President Obama’s recent health care focused press conference, despite the hit their networks might take in the ratings.

Given the tough advertising climate, network heads are loathe to keep giving free airtime to White House, which Kurtz reports cost a total of $40 Million in lost ad revenue over the year.  While Emanuel’s efforts to contact the corporate CEOs may have been successful, it didn’t make the network executives lives any easier:

Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.

The networks “absolutely” feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS’s senior vice president: “It’s an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.”

The complete article is a fascinating read that details how GE’s Immelt told Emanuel that it was NBC head Jeff Zucker’s decision, but that Emanuel’s “subsequent call to Zucker yielded an agreement that NBC would provide live coverage.”

Coming off the heels of the NY Times report of a “truce” brokered between Immelt and Rupert Murdoch (CEO of News Corp, parent of Fox) there appears to be new-found awareness of corporate interference with the editorial decisions at the networks. If what Kurtz reports to be true is true — and really, there is no reason to doubt him — we should never let corporate heads tell us they don’t have an impact on their coverage. Because there is a growing list of evidence that indicates otherwise.