O'Reilly: I Was Right About the Malaysian Plane

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly told viewers Monday that he was right all along about missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.

"One week ago, I told you exactly what happened to that plane," O'Reilly said in the opening segment of his program. He played a recording of his March 17 program, in which he said, "Based upon all the information we have now, I can say that I believe the jet is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean."

O'Reilly, who has been critical of CNN and even his own network's coverage of the crash, said that he isn't a genius but that it was obvious from the facts that the pilot or pilots took the plane off course intentionally and it eventually crashed.

CNN went unapologetically 24/7 on the missing plane, which disappeared on March 8 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Theories broadcast on the network included that a black hole may have swallowed the plane. On Fox News, a military analyst said he thinks the plane is in Pakistan waiting to be used for terrorism.

The media misled viewers, O'Reilly said.

"It exploited the airliner story to manipulate viewership," he said. "It allowed charlatans to put forth preposterous theories, and that denigrated the journalism industry."

The Washington Post's Eric Wemple on Sunday told CNN's "Reliable Sources" that O'Reilly's accusations of media over-coverage were "nonsense." But O'Reilly shot back that the coverage was "cruel" to people who had family members on the missing plane, giving them false hope that they were still alive.

"I gave you the truth last week, seven full days before the announcement today. For doing that, I got hammered by some dishonest, contemptible media people," O'Reilly said. "They embarrassed themselves."

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