Birth Name : William James O'Reilly Jr.
Height : 6' 4" (1.93 m)
Spouse : Maureen McPhilmy (2 November 1996 - present) 2 children
Commentator, columnist, author. Born in Levittown, New York, O'Reilly graduated from Marist College in Poughkeepsie with a degree in history. He taught high school for two years in Miami, and then returned to school to earn a master's degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University.
O'Reilly's television news career began in Scranton, Pennsylvania and included local news stops in Dallas, Denver, Portland and Boston. In 1980, he returned to New York to anchor his own program and then to join CBS as a news correspondent. In 1986, he moved to ABC News, where he received two Emmy Awards and two National Headliner Awards for excellence in reporting during his three-year tenure.
O'Reilly's career took a turn in 1989 when he joined the nationally syndicated Inside Edition. For the next five years, Inside Edition was the highest rated "infotainment" program in America. After six years as anchor, O'Reilly left Inside Edition to earn his master's degree in public policy at Harvard University.
Upon leaving Harvard, the startup Fox News Channel hired O'Reilly to do The O'Reilly Factor. With hard-driving interviews, blunt commentary and an oversized ego, O'Reilly deals with the nation's most important issues in an atmosphere referred to as the "No Spin Zone." In 2001, The Factor became the country's most watched cable news program. He has expanded his media presence to include a national radio show called The Radio Factor and a weekly syndicated newspaper column.
The historic run of The O'Reilly Factor on the FOX News Channel continues. Because of your support, the program, with Bill O'Reilly at the helm, has remained the highest rated cable news show, beating all competition for 11 straight years. Night after night, week after week, millions of viewers enter The Factor's No Spin Zone to witness Bill's analysis, commentary and probing investigative reporting.
Bill's reach doesn't stop there. More than 300 newspapers carry his weekly column, and many others (like you) come here to BillOReilly.com for unique exclusive features, and to buy stuff, thereby contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars to various charities each year. Bill calls this fact his "proudest achievement."
But wait, there's more. O'Reilly writes books, and people read them. More than five million copies of Bill's six non-fiction books are currently circulating, including his latest bestseller Pinheads and Patriots, which came hard on the heels of his deeply personal memoir, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity.
Pinheads and Patriots emerged two years after Bill interviewed Barack Obama during the presidential campaign when the two debated the future of our country. Pinheads and Patriots is subtitled "Where You Stand In The Age of Obama," and in this uncompromising book Bill examines individual actions that are maintaining or undermining the core values of America during this time of change.
O'Reilly's broadcast career started in Scranton, Pennsylvania long before the folks from The Office settled there. He has been both a local reporter and news anchor in other cities, including Dallas, Boston, and New York. Audiences across America got to meet Bill when he worked at CBS News and ABC News and when he hosted the first version of Inside Edition. But it was when he landed at Fox News in 1996 and began The O'Reilly Factor that he achieved his current national and international stature and enormous following.
Bill was born in Manhattan and raised on Long Island. He has a Bachelor's degree in History from Marist College, along with a Master's in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University and another Master's Degree in Public Administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. There have also been many awards, including 3 Emmys, and a special 2008 Governor's Award from his Boston University colleagues.