Former CBS Colleagues Refute Bill O’Reilly’s “Combat” Reporting Claims

On Sunday, a former CBS correspondent spoke to CNN’s Reliable Sources to refute Bill O’Reilly’s claims he reported in a “war zone” during the Falklands war–the subject of a Mother Jones investigation published last Thursday. CNN’s Brian Stelter also reported that he has talked to several other former CBS News journalists who disputed O’Reilly’s account. 

“I don’t know of any American foreign correspondent who had a weapon pointed at him,” Engberg told Stelter. “I didn’t hear any gunfire. And not only did I not hear any gunfire, as I say, I didn’t hear any sirens.” 

On the show, Stelter played a video of O’Reilly claiming he witnessed Argentine soldiers gunning down civilians at a protest he covered–a video that echoes footage that the Mother Jones article included. Yet Engberg and other correspondents who were in Buenos Aires and who covered the same protest say no such thing happened.

In a Facebook post on Friday, Engberg said the Fox New host largely fabricated his account of his stint in Argentina. “It was not a war zone or even close,” Engberg wrote. “It was an ‘expense account zone.'” O’Reilly has since slammed his ex-colleague, saying Engberg “never left the hotel.”