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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Is Glenn Beck hurting FOX News?

It seems there are many at FOX News who aren't very happy about the super-star status of Glenn Beck on that network:
A column in the Washington Post on Monday revealed that some Fox staffers are concerned the celebrity pundit is "becoming the face of the network."

Ailes pointed out that the information in The Post's column was leaked by Fox’s Washington bureau.

"For the first time in our 14 years, we’ve had people apparently shooting in the tent, from within the tent," he told them.

But the Fox chairman clarified that Beck’s opinions were not that of the network and were firmly within his rights as a commentator.

"We prefer people in the tent not dumping on other people in the tent," he added.
I watch Glenn Beck when I'm able at 4PM in the afternoons Chicago-time. I used to watch his program on Headline News before he really became famous. That program and the program develop on FOX News is a fundamentally different show now. Not as many interviews but more interactions with everyday people as had happened on Friday when Beck was in Florida.

These days Beck is railing against today's "progressives". His programs read as a very entertaining discussion of political philosophy. He talks of progressivism and it's roots and the philosophical bearings of America's founding fathers! Perhaps now he has a better platform to discuss these things than he would have if he became a college professor.

In a previous post I said that discussing issues such as health care in terms of dollars & cents is going to be a very dry proposition. In that Beck is even more entertaining as he would cut up eau claires to demonstrate progressive taxation on one show.

When you think about it it's hard to really assign a role to Glenn Beck. He's gone in a more activist direction and may well have reinvented the role of a commentator. It's hard for me to say he's distant from say the "Tea Party Movement" when he talks them up or is even going to their rallies. Perhaps in an odd way he's bringing talk radio to TV.

In that regards, he may improve upon what Rush Limbaugh attempted to do in the 1990s.

Found this article via Crooks & Liars!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Beck,
Many people I believe are worried that if hire the Republicans back into power, What's to stop them from saying it was the Democrats, we can't change the HC bill ??
I have heard Republicans stating they would like to keep some parts of the bill.
Scrap the every part of the HC bill and start over!!
Thank you
An Honest man

pathickey said...

Levois, my friend. I am no friend of the Progressive,secularist and frankly Marxist closed society types in my Democratic Party, but Beck ?

I just fail to see the attraction to this guy.

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