O'Reilly lawsuits hit Web first

A Fox News producer filed a lawsuit Wednesday charging political commentator Bill O'Reilly with sexual harassment, and once again, Thesmokinggun.com was the first on the Web with details of the suit.

As is its style, The Smoking Gun highlighted some of the more salacious passages in the lawsuit, to save readers some time in navigating the 22-page document. Some of the passages quoting O'Reilly appear long enough to infer that the conversations were taped. It's worth noting that the lawsuit states that "The O'Reilly Factor" "generates approximately $60 million in annual revenue," which is the same amount that the woman who filed the suit allegedly demanded from O'Reilly to stop the lawsuit.

The details of that allegation can be read on The Smoking Gun, which posted a lawsuit filed earlier in the day by O'Reilly claiming the same Fox producer attempted to "blackmail" O'Reilly and Fox. O'Reilly has also posted his own message on the extortion matter, but omits the charges of sexual harassment filed against him.

The O'Reilly docs represent the latest of several coups for the TSG, which has become a must-visit Web site for journalists and other gawkers of the seedier side of life. The mug shot archive is a personal favorite.