Marvin Kitman: The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly

In 2007, The New York Times said this, of the book and author:

In "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up," Marvin Kitman, a veteran television critic for Newsday, seeks to explain O'Reilly's astonishing ascent. Kitman, who conducted numerous interviews with O'Reilly and his relatives, friends and co-workers, has performed Boswellian prodigies of research. If you've been wondering when exactly O'Reilly yelled at his wife, Maureen, for profligately ordering a bottle of sparkling water at a restaurant, Kitman is your guy. But he aims for more than that. Kitman states in his preface that as a liberal, he relishes the chance to set the record straight about O'Reilly. He adds that via his own Newsday columns "a kind of mentoring has been going on over the years, as he has assimilated my ideas with his own and put them into practice." Kitman does a remarkably good job of telling the story of O'Reilly's turbulent life in clear, crisp prose. Still, if this book isn't a valentine, it's something of a mash note. Kitman maintains that O'Reilly is a potent (and welcome) antidote to the pap served up for decades by the television industry. What Kitman really ends up revealing, however, is that O'Reilly's struggle isn't about conservative ideas. It's about parading his seething personal resentments in order to become the very thing he purports to despise: a celebrity.

Read that full New York Times piece here.




Olbermann talks about O Reilly's new book

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"Juan Williams Signs Two-Book Deal With Crown" from The New York Times by DAVE ITZKOFF

Since his contract as a senior news analyst at NPR was terminated in October, Juan Williams has found no shortage of platforms from which he can express himself. In addition to the new contract he signed with the Fox News Channel, amid a dispute over remarks he made on “The O’Reilly Factor,” he has now entered into a two-book deal with the Crown Publishers imprint of the Crown Publishing Group at Random House, the imprint said on Tuesday. Crown said in a statement that the first book from Mr. Williams, planned for a summer publication and not yet titled, will “focus on free speech and the growing difficulty in America of speaking out on sensitive topics.” In the book Mr. Williams “will argue that the American public benefits from a vigorous and full-throated debate on hot button issues of political and cultural import” and “chronicle his own first-hand experience of the consequences of crossing the line in public expression,” the statement said.

Read that NYT article here. See also: Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 (African American History (Penguin)), My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience (AARP)

When Depression Kills from Fox News by Dr. Keith Ablow

Hegel’s tragic story may, as much as anyone’s, demonstrate the fine line between psychiatric disorders and violent behavior. We don’t know whether Hegel suffered with major depression or psychotic thinking, but some of the students he held hostage noted that he seemed depressed and that he didn’t seem to have any clear goal in mind when he brandished two handguns, shot up a film projector, then refused to let them leave their classroom. [...] When depression takes hold, mood falls, sometimes dramatically, and anxiety levels often rise precipitously. More trouble for one’s state of mind comes as sleep becomes scarce (or excessive) and appetite falls off, triggering physiological changes that accelerate the disease process, making it impossible to concentrate and not infrequently convincing the depressed person that nothing will ever get better—only worse. He will never be able to work, never be able to learn, never have another friend, never have a romance, embarrass himself and his family and be a burden to everyone he once loved. Some depressed people have told me that they look at photos of their children and feel as though they are strangers. They feel utterly, completely alone, as though God has Himself forsaken them. [...] I am one psychiatrist and—even without my work in forensics—I have treated a billionaire with depression who believed he was utterly penniless and wanted to die, a depressed woman who was convinced her son had been kidnapped and replaced by a masquerading double (who she thought she might need to kill), a college student who came to believe that his arms were not his own arms and needed to be severed (which was prevented), a depressed mother who wanted to kill her new baby, and a depressed business professional who was convinced the CIA was pursuing him and would ultimately kill him—if he didn’t kill them first. They all recovered. It took the right medicines and a deep and empathetic exploration of past psychological [...]

Read the article, "When Depression Kills," at Fox News. See also: Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty, Inside the Mind of John Mark Karr, Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson