I’ve been critical of Glenn Beck in the past. Several commenters at my personal blog who are fans of his can attest to that. But what I have never advocated is trying to silence him. so, it’s interesting that in a New York Times article containing this quote, the item reads like just another hit in a currently on going effort to get him off the air at Fox.
He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined.
It seems his numbers have dropped a bit. Okay. But in general, political energy is certainly down since last year’s elections, including the run-up, and perhaps some of the the initial buzz from Beck’s joining Fox has faded. But he’s still winning his time slot.
The intelligentsia adds all that together and gets, he’s headed for the door! Really? Competitor CNN got its digs in this weekend, with the help of some establishment Republicans. Keep in mind, this is all coming from the same media outlets that front-paged, or featured Beck consistently right after he joined Fox.
Frankly, they may have been trying to take him out right from the start, though what they probably ended up doing was add to his early larger numbers. Imagine that.
On CNN’s Reliable Sources, conservatives Jennifer Rubin and David Frum discussed the declining television ratings of Glenn Beck and the recent conservative attacks on him. Rubin said Beck was creating a bad image for the Republican party, whereas Frum, a longtime Beck critic, suggested audiences are just tired of hearing ludicrous conspiracy theories.
And then there’s this item via the Blaze, taking on another attack from the Columbia Journalism Review. And who might be helping to prop up that outfit? Hmmm.
At first look, the February 14th story posted online for the Columbia Journalism Review titled, ‘Premiere Plants’might lead the casual reader to believe that Talk Radio stars like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are stacking their popular programs with staged segments featuring callers who are not listeners, but paid performers reading from prepared scripts. This wild and reckless conjecture is simply not true and a little basic investigation reveals that and the fact these false attacks have been funded by the billionaire and currency manipulator George Soros.
The CJR “Premiere Plants’ story from Liz Cox Barrett was really just a very selective cut & paste posting from another Columbia University grad and CJR contributor, Liel Leibovitz. On February 11th Mr. Leibovitz posted the story on Tablet Mag titled ‘Radio Daze.’
… Both Leibovitz and Barrett are connected to the Columbia Journalism Review. On the Columbia Journalism Review site, under their short list of “Major Funders” we find: The Open Society Institute – Note the website for Open Society, www.soros.org – The Sunlight Foundation – An organization that received $300,000 in funding from ‘The Foundation To Promote Open Society’
Okay, we get it. Uncle Georgie sent out another memo and the NYTs, CNN and the CJR got it. I’ve no idea what the future for Beck and Fox holds. But I suspect it will be a market, or business-based decision by one, or both parties that determines it and not hit pieces from the usual suspects, or friends of the Left.
Still it’s always good to point out when they’re caught in the act of trying to convince Americans what to watch, or listen to. I guess they may as well do that, given how few Americans are reading, or watching them. It’s something for them to talk about while straining to be relevant, if nothing else.
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