JONATHAN CHAIT MARCH 15, 2010
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The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reports today that a lot of people at Fox News don't like Glenn Beck:
there is a deep split within Fox between those -- led by Chairman Roger Ailes -- who are supportive, and many journalists who are worried about the prospect that Beck is becoming the face of the network.
By calling President Obama a racist and branding progressivism a "cancer," Beck has achieved a lightning-rod status that is unusual even for the network owned by Rupert Murdoch. And that, in turn, has complicated the channel's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Beck has become a constant topic of conversation among Fox journalists, some of whom say they believe he uses distorted or inflammatory rhetoric that undermines their credibility....
Some staffers say they have watched rehearsals, on internal monitors, in which Beck has teared up or paused at the same moments as he later did during the show.
Beck does bring a huge audience, but he creates a lot of problems, or potential problems, as well. Advertisers shun him, he fails to toe the party line as slavishly as network favorites like Sean Hannity, and Beck surrounds himself with loyalists from his previous work. Kurtz doesn't quite put it this way, but I think the unstated worry is that Beck is too erratic and uncontrollable, and could one day blow up at Fox and the GOP and bring his audience with him. The whole piece is worth a read.
5 comments
Fox is in a real bind with Beck. Given the advertising situation, there's no business case for keeping him. And in terms of the network's propaganda mission, Beck is also much more of a liability than an asset. But firing Beck would be read by most Fox viewers as either Fox bowing to PC/socialist censorship or Fox doing the dirty work of the GOP establishment. Either perception would be an existential disaster for Fox. The only way out I see is for Fox to fire Beck after casting him as a conservative apostate. The recent bit where Beck encouraged people to leave churches that teach either the New Testament or the Book of Mormon came close to such a cassus sacki. Unfortunately, the teabaggers are by and large hostile to Christianity, so it wasn't quite the CYA moment Fox needs.
- rhubarbs
March 15, 2010 at 10:32am
Fox operates like every media outlet; it's a business. Unless the lack of advertisers is really putting a dent in Fox's bottom line, I think he'll stay for a good long while. It's not like Fox was ever really known for its top-notch journalistic credentials anyway.
- rozenson
March 15, 2010 at 11:06am
Great pic. Captures the infantile querulousness and sense of injured entitlement that marks conservative America today quite well, I'd say.
- ironyroad
March 15, 2010 at 11:31am
"Beck has become a constant topic of conversation among Fox journalists, some of whom say they believe he uses distorted or inflammatory rhetoric that undermines their credibility..." Oh that scrappy 'Lil Glen Beck. I didn't know Fox journalists had any credibility left to undermine.
- bcbaird
March 15, 2010 at 12:37pm
irony... I can hear the latest GOP ads: "Are you tired of crying yourself to sleep because you fear for America? Are you tired of losing sleep because of the worrying about where the next attack on American values will come from? Do you feel like THEY are taking away the America you know, love and grew up believing in? Do THEY try to make you feel unAmerican for wanting to be American? Well...we know how you feel. If you or a loved one has been harmed by the threats of progressives please join us now and together we can take America back for the few, the proud, the GOP. The one true, God-fearin', American loving party in America!"
- singlspeed
March 15, 2010 at 1:32pm