The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly [Hardcover]

Marvin Kitman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2007

In the wake of the loss of TV's top anchormen, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Ted Koppel, a seismic shift has occurred in broadcast news. A revolution had already been taking place on the Fox News Channel about the way news was being presented on TV. Bill O'Reilly has been the spearhead in that radical movement, masterminded by Roger Ailes, founding father of Fox News.
To some, O'Reilly is a semi-demented cable TV talk show host, who can be an obnoxious, insufferable, opinionated, rude loudmouth whose views, the kinder ones say, are typical right wing drivel.  But there is much more to O'Reilly than what meets eye.  O'Reilly is the paradigm of idosyncrasy in television journalism.

On the rough road to the top, O'Reilly learned how to give the public what it wants and thinks it needs. From his early education at the hands of nuns to an advanced degree in Public Policy from Harvard, from working at local televisions stations and rising through the ranks to network news, O'Reilly spent nearly twenty-five years learning his craft before he became an overnight star at Fox News.

In this very intimate look at the man and what matters to him, veteran media critic Marvin Kitman explores all the experiences that led to the making of Bill O'Reilly--a non-conformist in a business that demands conformity as the price of success and a man who has risen to the top by not playing by the rules of broadcast news. Kitman claims that O'Reilly is not a kneejerk conservative, but an "independent" freethinker with a mind of his own, and he believes what journalism needs is more Bill O'Reillys.  Not screamers, the blowhards like the current O'Reilly clones rushed on the air since his success, but trained journalists, reporting the news and telling us why, in their opinion, the world is a crazy place.   

Supported by twenty-nine interviews with Bill O'Reilly, Marvin Kitman pulls no punches in this powerful and hard-hitting biography that will provoke both "Spinheads" and "Anti-Spinheads."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Most readers probably have an opinion on Bill O'Reilly, the anchor of Fox News' successful TV talk show The O'Reilly Factor. Kitman, a self-professed "liberal TV critic"--who admits, "I don't agree with much of what [O'Reilly] says, but I like the way he says it"--probably won't change a lot of minds with this book. But it's difficult to imagine a better-researched or less-biased work about such a divisive figure as O'Reilly, a man who once told the son of a 9/11 victim to "shut up" on the air. The unauthorized biography draws on 29 interviews with O'Reilly and five years of research, tracking O'Reilly from his beginnings in Long Island through years of aggressive reporting and management faceoffs (10 news jobs in 15 years) to his perch atop the New Media pyramid and the scandals that have dogged him since. Fans of his bestselling autobiographies may find Kitman's anecdotes familiar, but O'Reilly revilers may be surprised to learn that O'Reilly at first aspired to found a magazine like the Village Voice, and the man sued for sexual harassment in 2004 is a teetotaler. Kitman's reportage on this paradoxical, maddening yet inspiring man does a fine job in letting the reader decide. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Taking a different approach than the spate of recent books about television commentator O'Reilly, Newsday media critic Kitman neither excoriates nor glorifies the broadcaster. Instead, Kitman presents O'Reilly as an independent thinker who is unafraid to forcefully air his views. Drawing on interviews with O'Reilly, his friends, colleagues, and critics, Kitman evokes O'Reilly's early rebellious spirit and pugnacious character. Though not from the working-class background he likes to portray, O'Reilly's Irish Levittown boyhood was hard-knuckled in its own way. Kitman details O'Reilly's move into journalism and rise in television, against the grain of conformity that dominated among broadcasters before Fox News president Roger Ailes chanced a new formula. Kitman also details the myriad run-ins O'Reilly has had with other journalists and commentators, from Molly Ivins to Al Franken, who have denounced O'Reilly's credibility and attacked his politics. Kitman's book is unlikely to change many opinions about O'Reilly, but at least it may lower the volume of the discussion. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312314353
• ISBN-13: 978-0312314354
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair and Balanced--Seriously., March 10, 2007

By 

Bernard Chapin "Ora Et Labora!" (CHICAGO! USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (Hardcover)

Well, Marvin Kitman tells us in advance that he's a liberal but that's not going to prevent his writing an objective account of Bill O'Reilly, and that's exactly what he proceeds to do. I have no complaints about the fairness of his perspective. In fact, I am somewhat amazed that the mighty, megamouthed star did not sanction it as official biography. This is a book he should be proud of. Kitman even, at certain points, is unquestionably kindly disposed towards his subject. We are given a brief summary of his life; a life in which his standing was, for the most part, more marginal than supreme. To non-fans like myself, his immense appeal is not easy to comprehend. What does seem clear is that he is a sincere person who cares about his family and country. Behind his dramatic atmopsherics lies an iron anvil of belief. One also gets the sense that there is not anything else he'd rather be doing that getting before that microphone. In actuality, it's not hard to understand how an old-school liberal like Kitman would appreciate a guy like O'Reilly. The icon's views are not generic, and no party I know of is mercurial enough to encompass all of his positions ...and ego. As far as specifics go, I have to say that before opening The Man who Would Not Shut Up I never knew what exactly happened with the sexual harassment suit brought against him, yet I am now ashamed and angered that he allowed himself to be taken advantage of by such a sinister person. Regardless of cost, he should have taken that scammer to trial. This is a riveting and concise read.

31 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will the Real Bill O'Reilly Please Stand Up?, February 19, 2007

By 

Harriet Lesser (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (Hardcover)

I have a couple of alternate titles for Marvin Kitman's latest book, "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly." He could have called it "What Makes Bill Run" or "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Bill O'Reilly but were Too Freakin' Terrified to Ask." Kudos to Kitman on writing a book that is not only an in depth study of a modern media phenom, but an incisive no holds barred commentary on the state of TV journalism today - and how it got that way. Who better to present that analysis than the man who was Newsday's former top television/media critic for 35 years?

Kitman takes O'Reilly apart and puts him back together again. The result is a fair and balanced portrait that might make you change your mind about The Zone Czar. You may not come away loving him but you certainly will understand him and perhaps even respect him.

Did you know that O'Reilly holds two master's degrees; one in broadcast journalism from Boston University, the other from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard? Would it surprise you to learn that Bobby Kennedy is the politician most admired by O'Reilly during his lifetime or that he's a proponent of gun control, sex education in the schools and federal negotiation to lower pharmaceutical costs? Before I start sounding like Anne Coulter, Kitman also points out that O'Reilly can be arrogant, abrasive, egotistical and cheap.



Kitman conducted 29 interviews with O'Reilly in his office, at his home and other non-spin venues. He spoke to his childhood friends, relatives, former bosses, co-workers and checked out old videotapes of O'Reilly's early career. There are also a number of great personal photos, including an adorable little O'Reilly at his first communion and others showing a startlingly handsome teenager and young man.

Kitman provides front row seats to O'Reilly's verbal wrestling matches with Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Barney Frank, David Letterman, Barbara Walters, former New York Governor Hugh Carey and the country of Canada, to name a few. (The coverage of O'Reilly's famous feud with Al Franken is a gem.) On the balance side, Kitman also notes that the greatly admired ABC anchor Peter Jennings had high regard for O'Reilly's ability and considered him a friend.

And in what can be considered a major journalistic coup, Kitman answers a question that has plagued O'Reilly supporters and detractors for years. Was Fox's man of the people (a native Long Islander) raised in blue collar Levittown or upscale Westbury? For that answer and a seriously entertaining look at Bill O'Reilly and the world of television news, read Kitman's book. And that's no spin.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Researched Biography--Guaranteed To Provoke "Spinheads" & "Anti-Spinheads" Alike!, July 24, 2009

By 

Keith Heapes "Heapester" (Racine, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly (Paperback)

I already knew that Marvin Kitman had written an "unauthorized" biography of Bill O'Reilly a couple of years ago titled "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up," and I honestly never really thought it would be a serious or worthwhile read. But after reading the one or two sane reviews on Amazon.com, I decided to give it a try. I was not only surprised, I was for the most part pleasantly surprised.

I think it was initially the book title that probably caused me to give the book a pass. But after seeing the tremendous amount of time and research Kitman put into this book, which included almost thirty interviews with O'Reilly himself, I was ready to give it a serious look. Kitman beautifully lays out the book in five very informative and chronological parts. He spends more than half of the book (Part I) taking a detailed look at O'Reilly's pre-The Factor life. He appropriately titles this section "The Making of an O'Reilly." If you have already read O'Reilly's latest biography, "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity," a lot of the information in Kitman's book is familiar ground, yet is presented from a different and a very interesting point of view. In this part, Kitman mostly just lays out the biographical facts, while inserting only a limited amount of opinions, observations and analysis from the biographer.

Kitman makes no attempt to hide the fact that his is a liberal and has little in common with Bill O'Reilly. But I believe most readers will at least be satisfied that he certainly did his homework in compiling the research and interviews for this book. Kitman spent five years of researching background material, conducting interviews and locating classic black and white pictures and legal documents in preparation for writing this book!

The book is filled with revealing quotes from O'Reilly himself (Of course), and a virtual "who's-who" of O'Reilly's childhood friends, teachers, schoolmates, coworkers, employees, bosses, rivals, friends and foes alike. Kitman really went all out with interviewing those in O'Reilly's past. This is what I found to be the strongest and most impressive aspect of the book.

Though Kitman admits most of those in broadcast news write O'Reilly off as little more than a demented, obnoxious, insufferable loudmouth (and Kitman admittedly agrees with them), but during the writing of this book he also admits that there is much more to O'Reilly than meets the eye; a much deeper person and journalist than the blustery and physically imposing man (6'4", 200+ pounds) he first encountered. This book is no simple caricature of Bill O'Reilly, but an intimate and sometimes moving look at the man and what really matters to him. He follows O'Reilly through his rough years at home, in school, his experiences as a high school teacher in Florida, and as a nonconformist in the world of written journalism and broadcast news.

In Part II, Kitman covers O'Reilly's rise to the position of senior anchor and "boss" of The O'Reilly Factor on the FOX News Channel. Most people in broadcast news try to simply pigeonhole O'Reilly as just another rigid conservative and not worth listening to. But Kitman believes journalism needs more unconventional, independent freethinkers like O'Reilly; trained journalists, reporting the news others won't touch and providing balanced analysis, coupled with their own viewpoint in addressing as many of the public's tough questions as possible.

I enjoyed getting to know more about O'Reilly's family, sister, wife, and two children, something O'Reilly has stayed far away from talking about. I least enjoyed the latter chapters of the book (especially Part III) where Kitman seems to lose focus as a biographer and begins to join the other "anti-Spinheads" by launching his own personal insults at O'Reilly. I felt this departure from standard biographical form detracted from an otherwise excellent book.

By the time you near the end of this book, you will probably realize that Kitman genuinely likes O'Reilly. Not his arrogant persona, mind you. He really likes O'Reilly, the journalist. Note the following quotes:

** "Every night he brings passion to the tube....Those are the things that won me over. I liked O'Reilly's anger. He goes after the dragon, what Fred Friendly, Ed Murrow's producer at CBS News used to say was the true function of news. O'Reilly has the fire of a reformer, a man who got angry at social injustice, as he saw it. He wasn't afraid to get involved."

** "I think it's probably a better world having people like him (O'Reilly) on the TV news.

** "O'Reilly is a serious journalist who doesn't play by the rules of objectivity. He is not alone in considering news and analysis valid journalism. Actually, he is a throwback to the way it was in the old days when CBS News was the paragon, the model for all TV news."

I believe the quotes above speak for themselves.

I do have one minor administrative note for your reading entertainment. This is the second book I have read this year where the writer, or maybe the publisher, chose to use, in my opinion, a near useless format for their End Notes. There are no notations in the text to even indicate there are any End Notes. Then, when you find there are pages and more pages of notes (22 pages in this book!), the only indicator what each note is referencing to is a page number. No indication on what line or what specific information on the page the note is referencing to. This was very aggravating for me since I see real value in footnoting. I realize the traditional form of Footnotes or End Notes (The kind most of us learned in high school and college) take more time and effort, but in this book anyway, the author would have garnered the undying gratitude of readers like me if the traditional method was used. Enough grumbling about that. The book also contains and excellent Bibliography and an Index.

In closing, whether you are a "Spinhead", an "Anti-Spinhead" or you are just too busy watching reruns of American Idol to care either way, there is definitely something in this book for every reader to either really love, or really despise in "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up (The Rise of Bill O'Reilly)." Go ahead and take a chance; You simply can't go wrong here.