I'm not sure which is more disappointing: That Bill O'Reilly featured a long conversation on the National Conference for Media Reform last night without speaking to anyone who was actually there, or that polls have revealed many Americans actually consider him to be one of the country's most admired news figures.

Given the leftist vibe of the conference, it's not surprising that O'Reilly would send a producer and camera crew to the conference, held last weekend in Minneapolis by the anti-media consolidation advocacy group Free Press. But the Fox News host's segment on the gathering made it look like a confederacy of folks foaming at the mouth, instead of a gathering of concerned -- if decidedly anti-corporate and anti-big media -- citizens afraid for the future of quality journalism.

I'm just glad he didn't use any of the footage of me gathered by his ambush interview specialist, Porter Barry; his confrontation with Bill Moyers -- in which the PBS host promised to come on O'Reilly's show if a) Rupert Murdoch explains why the Iraq War didn't produce $20 a barrel oil as he once predicted or b) O'Reilly comes on his show first -- was far more newsworthy.

I haven't watched an O'Reilly show all the way through in a while before last night. And I was amazed at the manner in which he creates an alternate news universe of sorts, filled with disturbing examples of how the liberals and godless are leading the country into peril.

To cap it off, here's a clip from Fox News last week about Barack Obama's "fist bump" with his wife, in which the anchor wonders if it was a "terrorist fist jab." (UPDATE: anchor E.D. Hill said on June 10 that she was listing the ways other media have characterized the fist bump, and didn't mean to associate Obama's name with terrorism. See it here.)