O'Reilly Blasts at GE Coming From Upstairs

Bill O’Reilly’s campaign against General Electric—the Fox News host has called CEO Jeffrey Immelt a “despicable human being” for doing business with Iran—is part of a feud with NBC that extends far up corporate ladders, the Washington Post reports. Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes apparently loosed O’Reilly on GE in retaliation for attacks by host Keith Olbermann on GE subsidiary MSNBC.

Fox denies such backroom jousting. “Bill doesn’t run topics by Roger, or anyone else,” said a Fox spokesman. But GE confirms that Fox is offering a trade—if Olbermann stops attacking Fox, O’Reilly will stop bashing GE. Meanwhile, O’Reilly’s attacks have grown harsher. “If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt,” he said recently.