“Bottom line: it was not a great experience… and he moved on,” said host Dennis House during a segment on WFSB‘s “Face the State” this past Sunday, profiling Bill O’Reilly’s short stint as an anchor and reporter with the Hartford CBS-affiliate.
House dug up some vintage footage of O’Reilly from his time at WFSB, from 1979 to 1980. While his tenure in Hartford was short, O’Reilly got to report on several big news stories of the time, including the visit of Pope John Paul II to New York and the 1980 presidential primary.
“At least from the archives, it appears O’Reilly never phoned it in,” House said, even when he had to cover, for instance, the hysteria surrounding then-teen idol Rex Smith. (Watch the full segment HERE).
While at WFSB, O’Reilly presented some of the same zeal and pugnaciousness that he does today on his Fox News show, although he doesn’t display nearly as much chest hair as he once did…
For more information on House’s O’Reilly excavation, check out his blog.