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Bernie Goldberg And O’Reilly Would Not Have Aired ABC Marianne Gingrich Interview: ‘It’s Old News’

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Since ABC News followed up Thursday night’s explosive CNN debate with an interview of Newt Gingrich‘s second wife, Marianne, the ethics of having brought the claim that Gingrich was interested in an open marriage into public debate has been in contention, and last night on The O’Reilly Factor, Bernie Goldberg fell squarely in the camp against putting the interview out there. Bill O’Reilly agreed: “reasonable people may disagree,” Goldberg noted, but neither felt comfortable with the information.

RELATED: Bombshell?! ABC News Airs Marianne Gingrich Interview We’ve All Been Waiting For

“I wouldn’t have,” Goldberg told O’Reilly, and explained that “it has nothing to do with whether I like or dislike Newt Gingrich,” but had more to do with the fact that, despite being “a ratings bonanza,” “it’s old news.” He added that he believed “everything the electorate needs to know about Newt Gingrich’s character” is already in the public eye.

That said, Goldberg added that ABC’s Brian Ross, who ran the interview, was a “top-notch reporter,” so much so that he begins his report warning the audience to take the interview with a grain of salt. “Why are you running the interview in the first place?” he asked of the reporter. O’Reilly added that “in my conscience, I can’t do that kind of reporting,” because he believed that “any gutter snipe in the world… can attack somebody personally and get somebody to back it up.”

The two clarified that their objection was not directed at ABC or Ross, but mostly at Marianne Gingrich. “When you reveal a conversation from the privacy of a marriage and you share it– not with your sister or your best friend– but a couple of million strangers, that’s not a classy move,” Goldberg said, and “if it’s payback, that ought to be factored into whether or not to run the interview.”

O’Reilly moved on to some interesting media facts about the way the campaign is being covered, noting that a new study shows that Mitt Romney gets much of the negative press, more than other candidates. Goldberg had a quick explanation for that: “it’s because hes the frontrunner, and journalists love to tear down frontrunners, especially Republican frontrunners.” Goldberg went on to highlight another part of the study, though, that lauded Fox News’ as the “most balanced overall coverage,” while deeming NBC to have the most negative coverage. O’Reilly, laughing, went on to simply note that MSNBC would have election coverage tonight.

The segment via Fox News below:

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  • Anonymous

    No, it is not “old news”. Admittedly, both of Newton’s divorces happened years ago. However, at the time he was not running for president. When a person runs for president, his entire life’s story is recent news. The reason FAUX News considers it “old news” is Newton looks like the hypocritical slime he really is.

  • Anonymous

    Somehow I don’t think that’s the real reason…

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Neither one of you give a tinker’s toot about the news anyway.

  • Duke Chesnut

    Once again, O’Riley’s reruns attract twice the audience that Ed Schultz has in his ‘Primetime” slot.

  • Tucsonense

    these 2 are a real brain trust………………NOT!

  • Anonymous

    loved how they laughed at nbc.  abc hurt themselves and their fellow so-called newsers by airing this story.  there is no longer any doubt among the public as to the liberal bias and dirt diggers in the lamestream media.

  • L.L. Cool Gloves Donahue

    Everything should be on the table this year if Obama is running for president, even though he’s made a hash of it so far.
     His seamy, hidden past needs to come out. His scandals, corruption, failures and lawlessness must be examined if he is to stand for reelection.

    Obama has proven that he doesn’t level with the folks, and he must answer for all that he has perpetrated on the USA.

    Surely the media will dig in and finally tell the truth.  I’ll wait.

  • Anonymous

    Duhh… It’s because O’Riley has more viewers from retirement homes and mental hospitals.

  • 12voltman1

    Ya think?

  • Anonymous

    Like I have said before, the idea of a First lady who was a mistress for 8 years is as repulsive as it gets.

  • 12voltman1

    Don’t hold yor breath. If there was anything to find It would have happened 4 years ago,

  • Anonymous

    Hell if Republicants can suspend habeas corpus why not suspend moral values?  IOKIYAR.

  • 12voltman1

    That must make him your hero, Congrats.

  • Anonymous

    old news kinda like the loofah

  • Anonymous

    I’ve said it before, Fox would have found it.  Gloves do hold your breath while you wait.

  • Anonymous

    Hun, if you haven’t noticed the GOP primary is still going on. Your point may have some validity if we were in the general election season but that is not the case.

    Unless you are saying that there is some conspiracy to elect Romney as the Republican nominee?

    Is that it?

  • Anonymous

    Yes, of all the complaints we have against the media, our main beef with them is that reporters are making it hard to attract decent adulterers to become candidates.

  • Anonymous

    Funny, the people who refuse to vote for a Mormon vote for the guy who’s into polygamy.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Politics-culture-Reasoned-America/100001284363960 Politics-culture Reasoned Amer

    Just ask yourself the question:

    Would they have aired it if it were Barack Obama?

    WE ALL KNOW THE ANSWER!

    “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media” – There’s a reason these placards are popping up across the country!

  • Anonymous

    Neat….Can you show me the metrics to support it our are you just a big believer in propogating conjecture?

  • Anonymous

    Romney is the media prefered candidate, like McCain was in 08. 

  • Anonymous

    And since we’re digging up Santorum’s wife’s past boyfriends now…I think its high time we looked at michelles as well.

    By the way, has anyone read her thesis out of princton?  Its a hoot!

  • Anonymous

    Of course they would have. They made him put his birth certificate, not once, but TWICE on the internet!

  • Anonymous

    Yes they would have aired it……..and you republicans would have been screaming “Impeachment” but lets face the facts, Barack Obama is the real “Family Values” candidate you republicans have been looking for.

  • Anonymous

    Check out michelle obama’s princton thesis if you want to see repulsive…unless your a black panther….then it would be your manifesto!

  • Anonymous

    Lol!  As if liberals have given a horse’s a** about moral values for pretty much the last 20 years..

  • Anonymous

    No kidden?  How many women was Newt married to at the same time?  Thats the definition of polygamy..right?

  • Anonymous

    That’s all you got? really? Its “Princeton” by the way.

  • Anonymous

    A Princeton thesis from 1985 … is that all your republicans have? …LMAO!!! wow.

    The thesis itself sounds like a typical one written by a 22-year old minority student back in 1985 dealing with issues of identity and how she fits into the larger majority culture.

    After all at Princeton her major was sociolgy and African American studies. Seems like an excellent thesis based on both majors.

  • Anonymous

    I guess I could point you towards a neat new website called “google”.

    This will allow you to find many repulsive things that apparently you dont know about

  • Anonymous

    Exactly… and that’s all you got?

  • Anonymous

    Wow its true about what they say, republicans really don’t understand sarcasm or satire

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jj-Wisniewski/100002654075475 Jj Wisniewski

    This is not old news, but, the timing is definately suspect. They’ve been divorced for 10 years and she comes on and ABC airs this 2 days before the primary?. I’m not a Newt fan, but there appears to be an agenda here, either vengance on the part of his Ex, ratings for ABC, or both. After Newt having denied the open marriage allegation, this is nothing more than a he said, she said. Are these allegations reflected in the divorce decree?. Does she have a tape recording of their conversation?.
    While Newt’s past immoral behavior points to her story being true, I don’t think South Carolina primary voters will buy it. CNN handed Newt South Carolina and prolonged the primary through Super Tuesday. I guess this great for cable and radio. Otherwise, we would be left with Romney fumbling and stumbling over why he won’t release his income tax returns until April. All information returns from payers of wages, the receipients share of profits from equity firms, providers of Interest and Dividend information must be provided to taxpayers by the end of January. If Santorum can use TurboTax to do his return, so can Romney. Trust me he can use TurboTax to get his return done. He doesn’t run some publicly held corporation. It’s obvious that there is something on his returns that he doesn’t want the voters to see. He’ll wait until April? When he may have the nomination locked up.

  • Anonymous

    Of course they would never have aired such a thing; there is video of Obama praising Khalidi and the networks haven’t pursued that.  They will continue to protect Obama at all costs, throwing their own integrity (what little is left of it) to the wind.

    MSM is nothing more than DNC propagandists, as proven by Ross and ABC.

  • Anonymous

    After the debate the other night, I decided to stay up and watch Marianne Gingrich on Nightline.  The interview had been promoted all day.  The Drudge Report had indicated that Brian Ross had interviewd her for two hours.  As the show began, I was shocked that they were only devoting one segment to the interview (they also did a segment on the Costa-Concordia and one on celebrity babies).  Out of the two hours that she was supposedly interviewed, Maianne Gingrich appeared on screen for less than three minutes.  They had a response from Newt’s daughters and clips from Newt blasting John King at the debate that night, together with the standing ovation he received.  Marianne Gingrich said nothing that she had not already said in the Esquire interview.  She even had to defend herself from charges that she had tried to peddle influence when Newt was Speaker and they were still married.  The interview was a total rip-off and ABC should be condemned for selling us a false bill of goods!

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Neither Bill-o nor Mr. Schultz have anything to do with news. I should wonder why you made that analogy.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    We all understand that the Republicans have fully and eagerly endorsed and embraced adulterous degenerates and divorce. Who is the first and so far only divorced president, after all? So, its is understandable that you would object to anyone calling us to our moral core. In criticizing ABC, you give it too much credit. The loathsome degenerate you should be patting on the back is Drudge.

  • Anonymous

    It is “old news”!  Marianne Gingrich gave an interview to Esquire Magazine in August of 2010. Everything that she said on TV (all 3 minutes from a two hour interview) was in the interview with Esquire.  The news media could have referred everybody to the article, but I guess ABC is desperate for ratings.  They promoted the inteview all day and then gave us nothing.  Is this journalism?  Marianne Gingrich was given approximately 3 minutes of airtime for what she had to say!  Nightline gave Jesse James an entire 1/2 hour of airtime when he came on TV to confess his “infidelity” to Sandra Bullock and to assure us that he did not love Nazis after having been pictured in a Nazi uniform!

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Indeed, why was the most effective at searching for skeletons and picking though trash? Hillary! If there had been anything, she would have found it. Go back to the most recent presidents, and what do you find?

    Raygun: A divorcee estranged from his children and grandchildren.
    Poppy: A distant but decent man.
    President Clinton: A flawed man, an adulterer, but seemingly a good parent.
    W: A deeply troubled past, a criminal past, a tormented soul.
    President Obama: A quiet, unassuming man with a wife and children who love him and who he loves. And, a great singer, we now know.

    None of these men werebad people. All were flawed. President Obama is simply the least flawed of the lot.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    American Conservatives seem to have turned the world upside down. Ideology now trumps faith, family, friends and nation. I suppose I am the true conservative. Faith, family, friends, nation. In the order. Ideology falls well behind for me. In fact, ideology falls behind the Brandenburg Concertos, green chili chicken enchiladas and golf. If ideology is at your core, your personhood, your humanity is in question.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    You have to be kidding. Surely. When did a home-wrecking adultress become a preferable role model for our daughters and granddaughters over a graduate student? Modern Republicans.

  • Anonymous

    First, I do not believe Newton has ever paraded around in a Nazi uniform. Second, there is a difference between Esquire and a national television audience. The problem with wingnuts is they play victim when it comes to unfavorable news and Newton is clearly playing the victim card.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    It’s amazing how few substantive whines you have about our President and our media. Basically, you just keep repeating the same ones.

  • 12voltman1

    Obama did a great Al Green. I was surprised how well he sang!!

  • Anonymous

    You miss the whole point of my comment!  A tabloid trash celebrity like Jesse James received 1/2 hour of air time.  The entire show was devoted to him.  Marianne Gingrich received 3 minutes of air time out of what the Drudge Report said was a 2 hour interview.  They obviously did not feel that Marianne’s revelations were as important as the revelations of Jesse James.

    Also remember that Sandra Bullock was not running for President.  However, if she does in the future, I will volunteer to work for her 24/7!

  • Anonymous

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  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Unbelievable.

  • Anonymous

    Seriously, Romney is the only candidate who could win. Gingrich is much too polarizing and a loose cannon to boot.

    Personally, I’d love to see Gingrich win the Republican candidacy and have his ass handed to him, but it’s not going to happen. Of course, then he could sell more books on how he was victimized by the MSM. 

  • Anonymous

    It’s getting harder to take Republicans seriously…

    …A woman, whose been mistress to man with questionable morales and two ex wives for First Lady. Mr Gingrich Is one of their best choices…

    …Please!

  • Anonymous

    The right wing has talk radio, Fox News and a slew of right wing websites and they keep whining about media bias……How strange…

  • Anonymous

    Really?  You wouldn’t have aired it OReilly?  So why are you talking about “not airing it” on your show. 

    What a joke!.  You don’t have to “air” it because everyone else did.  And then you’ll just take a full segment talking about why you won’t air it.  Yeesh!!!

  • Anonymous

    Amazing how full of crap these guys are.  When Obama was running they couldn’t stop talking about Reverend Wright, and Obamas known associations with domestic terrorists. Now that was old news as well but they talked about it for ever. Gingrichs ex wife comes on TV and says hey my hubby wanted to screw other women, and he was screwing your potential first lady while he was with me. This is not news? If a democrat was in the primaries and had the same exact past they would never stop talking about it, these two are so hypocritical its pathetic.

  • Anonymous

    To whom???

  • Anonymous

    bernie can hold the dustpan while billy boy sweeps the disgusting behavior pattern of newt under the gop rug. . . he is a serial adulterer. . . fact. . he dumped 2 wives, fact, and the mannequin was content to be used by him for 6 years, fact. . not old news. . just facts.

  • Anonymous

    I bet if Bill Clinton was able to run for election again and Monica Lewinsky decided to come out with more detail like a safely preserved stained “red dress” two days before a primary vote, wait, no the national vote they would have the interview play for 48 hours including election day.  Such hypocrites.

  • Duke Chesnut

    They have as much to do with news as Ed Schultz and Rachael Madcow

  • http://newsbusters.org/ AliveStiIIKickin

    No they wouldn’t…..Sexual escapades in the Democratic Party will GET you votes and FOX wouldn’t want any part of that.

  • Duke Chesnut

    And MSNBC has more viewers in prison, in fact their weekend news is all about Locked up.

  • http://newsbusters.org/ AliveStiIIKickin

    This is why FOX is at the top of the ratings and all the rest are eating dust.
    FOX airs news and opinion with insight…The others air prison fare reruns…gossip…liberal opinion…and Democratic conjured-up stories from the Dark Side.

  • Anonymous

    “Bernie Goldberg And O’Reilly Would Not Have Aired ABC Marianne Gingrich Interview:”

    Because it’s true and they aren’t in that business, they work for Fox.

  • http://newsbusters.org/ AliveStiIIKickin

    Newt….Tried and found guilty in the liberal court of “scatterbrn”.
    There’s a scoop for MSNBC!!

  • Anonymous

    It’s old news….like O’Reilly and Bernie Goldberg?  LOL

  • Anonymous

    Oh, you mean like John Ensign, David Vitter, Mark Sanford, and Jim Gibbons who all still have their jobs?  Don’t forget, the Democrats aren’t the ones putting themselves on a hypocritical superior pedestal regarding family and moral values.

  • Anonymous

    Fox is viewed by a specific audience looking  for opinions that are the same as theirs thus avoiding  the horror of having to differentiate and make informed decisions based on various other opinions and viewpoints. But then everyone knows that ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC,Reuters, MSNBC, CNN AP, and  UPI are all liberal Dark Side conspirators and Fox is the paragon of unbiased truth.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Schultz has as much to do with news as Schultz. I can’t argue with you on that.

  • http://twitter.com/runforfun54 American

    Huh?  There’s no “tried and found guilty about it.” The guy pretty much admitted to it. But Newt, just like the rest of these hypocrites, tries to be all holier than thou about being so “Christian,” or in Newtie’s case “Catholic,” and all preachy about how everyone should live their lives.  Typical GOP:  ”Do as I say, not as I do.”

    Oh, and btw, when Sarah et al try to bring up our President’s past relationships with his “pals,” will you say the same thing?

    Bottom line – Newt is a hypocrite, and the country needs to be reminded of such.  Sucks that he takes no responsibility but tries to shoot the messenger.

  • http://twitter.com/runforfun54 American

    Hahaha, laughing my freaking ass off at this ridiculous comment! Yes, “news and opinion with insight” — all the while bashing our President with racial innuendos.

  • http://twitter.com/runforfun54 American

    I have a feeling it’s worthless trying to argue with Mr. ABO — since, like most Repugs, hate it when facts stand in the way of their good stories.

  • corri anderson

    Earth to conservatives: Fox does not pursue journalism, they comment on the work of other media outlets, and shape their broadcasts to be consistent with the GOP line.  If ABC reports something that is found to be untrue, people get fired.  Limbaugh (not Fox I know) , Hannity and O’Reilly butcher facts every broadcast in order to incite hatred towards centrists and liberals.  Check the facts.  If you believe what you hear on Fox, you are the target audience- people who should support a more liberal and equitable agenda, but continue to vote for deregulation and tax cuts to the rich.  You are sheep.

  • corri anderson

    Don’t forget McCain dumped his first wife and mother of three of his children in order to climb the social ladder and fatten his bank account.  This is after she spent five years waiting for him while he was a POW. 

  • Michael Schapiro

    Check out  respectpolitics.org for posts on he said, she said and the Newt-King dustup. I agree with them. What do u think?

  • Anonymous

    Your inane comment contained neither sarcasm nor satire.

    It was – as just about all your posts – saturated and oozing with hate, envy and plentiful lack of wit and humor.

  • Anonymous

    When i read the comments of conservatives I am reminded of old 50s films in which humans infected with alien viruses mindlessly attack and attack and attack ..and no amount of reasoning can reach them..

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