Which journalists and news organizations first reported the O'Reilly settlements and how did their accounts differ?
Executive summary
The New York Times was the pivotal outlet that first assembled the picture of multiple secrecy-shrouded settlements involving Bill O’Reilly, initially reporting in April 2017 on five settlements totaling about $13 million and later publishing a separate October exposé on a previously undisclosed $32 million payment that brought the reported total to roughly $45 million; those pieces were driven by NYT reporters Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt according to contemporaneous retrospectives [1] [2] [3]. Other news organizations—from Reuters and NPR to The Guardian, The Hill and trade outlets like Deadline and TVLine—quickly repeated, summarized or expanded the Times’ reporting, but differed in emphasis, sourcing disclosure and framing, and many leaned heavily on the Times’ unnamed-source reporting while adding corporate statements or legal context [4] [5] [6] [1] [7].
1. The New York Times: original reporting, rolling revelations, named reporters
The investigative work that set the agenda came from The New York Times, whose April report identified five women who had received roughly $13 million in payments tied to allegations against O’Reilly and whose October story revealed an additional $32 million settlement with former Fox analyst Lis Wiehl; university and journalism write‑ups cite Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt as key reporters responsible for uncovering the chain of settlements that totaled an estimated $45 million [1] [8] [2] [3].
2. Wire services and mainstream press: rapid amplification, neutral packaging
Agencies and mainstream outlets—Reuters chief among them—republished the Times’ revelations and highlighted the corporate fallout angle, noting that 21st Century Fox had been told about the Wiehl settlement before it renewed O’Reilly’s contract, and quoting company denials and O’Reilly spokesman rebuttals to maintain balance; Reuters’ account largely restated the NYT findings while foregrounding the corporate response and dispute [4].
3. Public radio, The Guardian and left-leaning outlets: context and corporate critique
NPR and The Guardian used the Times’ disclosures as the hinge for broader narratives about Fox’s workplace culture and advertiser flight, emphasizing why the settlements precipitated O’Reilly’s ouster and criticizing Fox for limited internal coverage and delayed action; NPR highlighted advertiser departures and internal skepticism at Fox, while The Guardian connected the reporting to wider accountability movements in media [5] [6].
4. Entertainment and trade press: granular details, legal and industry angles
Trade sites and entertainment outlets such as TVLine, Deadline and The Hill amplified specific figures and historical settlements (for example the previously reported $9 million Andrea Mackris settlement), often focusing on chronology, contract numbers and the unusual size of the Wiehl payout; Deadline later updated its piece to include statements from O’Reilly and 21st Century Fox, while TVLine spelled out which settlements were previously known versus newly reported [9] [7] [1].
5. Differences in sourcing, tone and implied agendas across outlets
The core factual differences among outlets were not over the payments themselves but over sourcing transparency and emphasis: the Times presented unnamed sources and documents to build an investigatory narrative (later reinforced by court filings), Reuters and wire services reiterated the Times and foregrounded corporate denials, NPR and The Guardian framed the stories as systemic failures at Fox, and opinion and trade outlets foregrounded legal oddities such as the size of the Wiehl payout; Fox and O’Reilly publicly disputed the portrayal, calling some reporting malicious or personal and framing settlements as personal matters—claims outlets relayed as part of standard balance [4] [7] [10] [11].
6. What the reporting cannot resolve from these sources alone
The assembled coverage shows a clear media cascade with The New York Times as the initiator of the central revelations and other outlets differing mainly in emphasis, secondary documents cited, and editorial framing, but the supplied sources here do not include the original NYT articles’ bylines or the underlying documents themselves for independent verification within this packet, so reporting limits should be acknowledged even as the broad chronology above is consistent across the cited outlets [1] [8] [2] [4].