Glenn Beck and FOX – it’s over!
After two and a half years of scarring Americans with phobias, absurdity and faux American fundamentalism, Glenn Beck’s parts ways with FOX news. RT takes a look at what this means for FOX, for Beck and the Americans watching.
A self-proclaimed patriotic messenger of enlightenment. A daily dose of tears, paranoia and absurdity – gone too rotten to swallow. After two and a half years on Fox News, the end of once one of the most top rated shows on cable has come as the stations draws the curtain on Beck.“Oh my gosh! Glenn Beck, what an amazing broadcaster! I am going to miss the tears, all the lies, I am going to miss the propaganda, the insane ideology,” says political comedian and blogger Sara Benincasa. The split from FOX is presented as mutual.In reality, ratings – once at over 3 million viewers – had been plummeting, and advertisers had fled from Beck’s time slot, with the content reportedly scaring them away. Beck largely abused religion, but his true beliefs seemed far from heartfelt.“My wife is like hot, and she wouldn’t have sex with me until we got married, and she wouldn’t marry me unless we had a religion,” Beck once told ABC News. Groundless phobias stuck with the shock jock through the years. “This President has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture,” said another time. On all this, he built his own niche – a fundamentalist America-centric culture with most of the outside world ridiculed.“He did serve a big function, a positive function for America’s right wing, he helped build it,” says Journalism Professor Jeff Cohen. A megaphone of shameless rhetoric, he claimed to be on a mission to inspire Americans to save themselves. “He is able to exploit the fears and paranoia of a nation with the real unemployment approaching twenty percent, where people are out of work for years at a time, and the Government doesn’t even seem to care, much less try to do something about it,” says editorial columnist Ted Rall. Glenn Beck’s annual income has been estimated at 32 million dollars. It is unlikely that the cut-off from the reported 2 million dollar FOX news paycheck will significantly affect Beck’s empire. “He makes the vast, vast, vast majority of his money not from TV. It’s from his radio show, his stand-up gigs, his books. He is a multi-media conglomerate. His Fox gig was one tiny piece of that puzzle,” says media analyst TJ Walker. Beck’s new plan is to take a gamble and build his fortune online with his own Web network.“You’re watching GBTV. We’re about to get started. The truth lives her,” says the promo on Beck’s site. This “truth” is accessible for more money – subscribers will have to pay to tune in – almost 5 bucks a month.“It’s difficult to get people to pay for something they have been getting for free the whole time,” says media analyst TJ McCormack. Even with his face off the mainstream Fox network screen, Beck is set on continuing to haunt the world – not just on the wide web, but in places like Jerusalem, where he reportedly plans to hold a rally come fall – in a step to expand his influence.“I’m very happy to see him go,” says Dr. Malik Shambazz, the chairman of the New Black Panther Party. “Another enemy down for us”“I’m not going to miss him at all. I’m not going to miss the fear mongering. I’m not going to miss the racism. I’m not going to miss him being a false prophet,” he adds.Even with Beck stepping away from the spotlight, albeit just for a bit, Shambazz encourages the host to come step up to a face-to-face debate with him. And why not on RT, of all places?
