Jesse Watters, lowest of the low: 7 times Fox News’ biggest creep crossed the line
His latest Bernie Sanders ambush is only the latest in a series of political attacks masquerading as "interviews" VIDEO
Topics: AlterNet, Bernie Sanders, Bill Moyers, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News, jesse watters, Politics News
You may not know the name Jesse Watters, but you probably know his smug face. He has been a producer of Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” and the host of his own segment, “Watters World,” for over 10 years. His shtick is effectively that of O’Reilly’s henchman. O’Reilly is too lazy, old, or well-known to carry out his own tabloid shenanigans, so he has a sycophantic frat boy sidekick, Jesse Watters, carry his putrid water on a weekly basis. Watters’ “journalistic” traits consist of ambush interviews, airing white man grievances, baiting vagrants, and laughing at Bill O’Reilly’s half-assed jokes. Of all the terrible personalities at Fox News, Jesse Watters may be the worst.
Here are seven of Watters’ worst moments.
1. Bill Moyers ambush interview, 2007.
In 2009, Bill Moyers temporarily retired from weekly television, telling his audience that at 75 years old, he felt his “time was up.” Now, Moyers would shortly return to PBS, but at the time Bill O’Reilly was convinced it was Jesse Watters’ 2007 ambush interview that did him in. Moyers’ alleged transgression was calling for George W. Bush to be impeached; a position O’Reilly and his other lackey, Bernie Goldberg, thought wasn’t “journalistic.”
2. Amanda Terkel, managing editor of Think Progress.
In her first-person account of her own experience with Dirty Watters, Amanda Terkel, then the managing editor of Think Progress, detailed actions that would be borderline illegal in most states. Her piece describes a series of episodes of stalking and harassment. Watters and his cameraman staked out her D.C. apartment for a few hours and then followed her to rural Virgina for two hours when she went on vacation. Watters and his flunkie proceeded to ask her a series of hostile questions. When she attempted to answer, he followed her down the street while accusing her of “causing pain and suffering” to rape victims. Classy stuff.
3. Attacking New York’s homeless, 2015.
As part of the Murdoch empire’s entirely made-up “homeless epidemic” caused by “de Blasio’s New York,” Watters bravely went to Grand Central station to find a handful of homeless people and cherry-picked their quotes to make it seem like Manhattan was being overrun by “synthetic-drug”-fueled vagrants. Peppered with some vox pop from the bridge-and-tunnel crowd, Watters’ piece gave the viewer the impression that since Mayor Bill de Blasio took over, homelessness had skyrocketed and was covering the city in the foul stench of hopeless despair. Watch the clip below:
4. Trolling Muslims to get them to say dumb things about terrorism, 2013.
Sometimes Watters’ addled brain can’t quite come up with a coherent troll so he just shows up at a place with a vulnerable population and wings it. In this case, it’s an American-Muslim conference where he asked some vague questions about terrorism. Here’s poor Cenk Uygur trying to make sense of it a couple years ago:
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