Month: October 2009

The Glenn Beck/Fox News Boycott Goes International

Posted by on October 4, 2009 at 1:56 pm. 12 Comments :

In the few weeks that have transpired since Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, the campaign to persuade advertisers from patronizing his program has grown phenomenally. Today there are over 60 companies that have withdrawn from his show because they do not want their brands associated with the hatred and hostility for which Beck is known. And these are significant national advertisers like Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble. Color of Change, the group spearheading the action, is continuing to apply pressure.

But now the campaign has expanded into the international arena. The Guardian UK is reporting that Waitrose, Britain’s most upmarket supermarket chain, has pulled all of their advertising, not just from Beck, but from all of the Fox News Channel.

“We take the placement of our ads in individual programmes very seriously, ensuring the content of these programmes is deemed appropriate for a brand with our values,” said a customer services spokesman. “Since being notified of our presence within the Glenn Beck programme, we have withdrawn all Waitrose advertising from the Fox News channel with immediate effect and for all future TV advertising campaigns.”

Fox News airs in Europe on Sky satellite television. Sky itself is part of the international media empire owned by Rupert Murdoch who, of course, also owns Fox News. Sky’s chairman is Murdoch’s son James, who is the likely heir to the News Corp. throne.

Notable in this announcement is that Waitrose explicitly states that their ads will be withheld from all of Fox News. Previously, Fox has claimed that they were not suffering any revenue loss because ads removed from Beck were simply shifting to other programs. They can no longer make that claim.

I have maintained that Fox’s claim regarding their revenue never held water because advertisers shifting to other programs would only displace the ads those programs already had. There is only so much inventory (i.e. air time) in TV. Therefore, at best it would neutral, assuming that Beck brought in replacement ads, which he didn’t. He was left with low-paying direct marketers and locals that can’t possibly raise the same revenue as Geico and Best Buy. What’s more, a recent study revealed that Beck’s show is losing about $500,000 a week. So even with his ratings increasing, Fox is incapable of converting them into dollars.

At some point Fox will have to decide whether covering for Beck is worth it. Eventually the taint will rub off on the network (more so than presently). There will be more Waitrose’s. Does Fox want to be regarded as so committed to promoting Beck’s beastly behavior that they will do so no matter how much money or reputation they lose?

Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Success Story

Posted by on October 3, 2009 at 3:13 pm. 6 Comments :

Michael Moore’s new documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story,” opened nationally yesterday in 900 plus theaters after a limited engagement in just four theaters in New York and Los Angeles. The bi-coastal exclusive set the record for the year so far in per theater box office. The wide launch is now adding handsomely to the film’s success.

For Friday alone Capitalism earned $1.5 million, putting it in seventh place. The six movies ahead of it were all in two to three times as many theaters. Capitalism was the third highest earner on a per screen basis.

[Update 10/5/09: The full weekend take for Capitalism was $4.85 million. It took eighth place for the weekend. It was fourth on a per screen basis]

Three months ago I made a prediction that Capitalism would draw a larger audience than the Fox-sponsored Tea Baggings. So how did I do?

With ticket sales of $4.85 million, and an average ticket price of $7.18, it comes to about 675,000 tickets sold. That number is higher than any estimate of the Tax Day Tea Parties last April. In addition, the attendees of the 9/12 Tea Bagging in Washington were estimated to have been about 60,000 to 70,000. That estimate was provided unofficially by the DC Fire Department. There were other debunked estimates that went as high as 2 million, and they came with photo documentation. The only problem was that the photo was proven to be from a rally that took place over ten years prior. So if we throw out the ludicrous seven-figure fabrications, it would still take ten times the Fire Department’s numbers to approach (yet still fall short of) the audience for just one weekend of Capitalism’s attendance.

Conclusion? I was right! So what’s the significance of this foresight? It isn’t that I’m an uncommonly gifted observer of politics and media (well, not just that, anyway). As I wrote last June, the media made quite a spectacle of both the Tax Day Tea Baggings and the 9/12 event. The implication was that any public gathering that attracted such a crowd should be regarded as statement of the public’s mood. If that’s the case, and if Moore’s movie performs the same or better as an attraction, then wouldn’t that make this event at least as representative of the public mood as the Tea Parties were said to be? Wouldn’t that suggest that it deserves at least as much attention from Fox News and the rest of the media?

So far, Sean Hannity has not hosted a live, on location event with thousands of cheering Moore supporters. Glenn Beck has not assembled throngs of patriotic Americans who agree with Moore that our economic system is dangerously flawed. We haven’t even seen Griff Jenkins cheerleading for the film and riding along on bus tours promoting it. What’s more, the rest of the press is not treating this cinema sensation, that is outperforming the Fox-sponsored rallies by every measure, with equivalent resources and exposure.

The fact that Capitalism produced a bigger turnout than the Tea Parties should guide coverage of, not just the movie, but the issues underlying. It ought to inform the press corps that Americans are expressing their views through the free market by actually paying to align themselves with a political position that is woefully underrepresented in the media. It ought to put the lie to the claim that Tea Baggers were non-partisan opponents of reckless government spending. Were that true, they would be flocking to Moore’s movie which addresses the very issues they claimed to be so riled up about. Instead they are bashing the movie, without having even seen it.

Capitalism, the economic system, is demonstrating that Capitalism, the movie, is a far better gauge of where America is today than the lame tea socials that were so heavily promoted by Fox News and the rightist media. Despite not having anywhere near the promotional boost, or the free publicity from Fox, the movie is proving that Americans are far more interested in honesty and fairness in government than in pandering to the giant multinational corporations who got us into this mess in the first place. The Beck’s and O’Reilly’s and Hannity’s of the world pretend to be guardians of the people’s welfare, but in reality they are defenders of greed and deregulation and all of the worst faults of unbridled capitalism. When will the press recognize this and balance their coverage with reports on what the film’s success really means?

It’s is rather ironic that the success of the movie, in which Moore describes capitalism as “evil,” is also a demonstration of the free market voting for Moore’s perspective on free markets. God bless America.

Glenn Beck / Sarah Palin Book Publishing SNAFU

Posted by on October 3, 2009 at 11:57 am. 13 Comments :

In examining the artwork on the covers of the new books by Glenn Beck (Arguing With Idiots) and Sarah Palin (Going Rogue), I discovered what may be a monumental error on the part of the publishers:

It is obvious that Glenn Beck is the reigning “rogue” in contemporary media. He his so far out of the mainstream of rational thought that even other conservatives are distancing themselves from him. Even worse, they are coming right out and labeling him as extreme, crazy, and harmful to their agenda.

Likewise, who is a bigger “idiot” than Sarah Palin? She crumbled under the withering inquisition of notorious bulldog, Katie Couric. She flunked out as governor of Alaska, leaving the post 18 months before her term expired. Her lack of comprehension of everything from taxes to health care to the Constitution, puts her squarely in the remedial class of American politicians.

The possibility exists that the book covers are correct as they are. After all, Palin is just as aberrant as Beck, and Beck is no smarter than Palin. So in truth, the covers work either way. Maybe, therefore, I’m jumping the gun on this blunder. But the appearance of an inadvertent switch is just too great to ignore.

So let’s leave it at this: I report – you decide.

NYT: David Brooks vs. The Wizard of Beck

Posted by on October 2, 2009 at 2:25 pm. 1 Comments :

It took long enough. The evidence has been there for years. Somehow it has been inadvertently missed or deliberately ignored by most of the Conventional Media. But the truth has a persistent habit of elbowing its way into the public consciousness.

Today’s New York Times published an editorial by conservative pundit David Brooks that breaks news that most observant analysts have known for months or years: The uber-rightist blowhards on Fox News and talk radio are phony commanders of a tiny, but rabid assortment of fringe-dwelling followers. And the more they are appeased, the farther they venture from reality.

Brooks: “It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche – even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain.”

Better late than never. The revelation that Brooks is boasting is simply the notion that it’s better to win at the ballot box than on the idiot box. Two months ago I wrote an article that illustrated just how contrary were the concepts of media and political success: As Fox News Goes Up, The GOP Goes Down. A month before that I published an article on how Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party. It explored in detail how the embrace of lunatics and their demented ravings, along with a misunderstanding of the television marketplace, was literally dragging the Republican Party down to some of its lowest historical depths:

Me: “The more the population at large associates Republican ideology with the agenda of Fox News, and the fringe operators residing there, the more the party will be perceived as out of touch, or even out of their minds.”

~~~

“Republicans are riding the coattails of Fox News as if it were representative of a booming conservative mandate in the electorate. They are embracing Fox’s most delusional eccentrics. This is leading to the promotion of similar eccentrics within the party. Which brings us the absurd spectacle of the network’s nuts interviewing the party’s pinheads.”

I could even go back to May of 2007 when I wrote The Cult Of Foxonality™ Part I, that argued that Fox viewers had become more attached to the network than to the Republican Party or conservatism.

So Brooks is joining a rather recent parade of pundits who are stepping back from the wacko contingent. Last month the American Enterprise Institute’s David Frum took a swipe at the “reckless defamation” practiced by Glenn Beck. Frum advised that it is beyond time that conservatives begin…

“…emancipating ourselves from leadership by the most stupid, the most cynical, and the most truthless.”

And Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs warned of…

“…further marginalization of the GOP unless people start behaving like adults instead of angry kids throwing tantrums and ranting about conspiracies and revolution.”

However, as Brooks appears to have attained enlightenment, he sadly slips back into pundit-speak that betrays his lack of insight. In lamenting the egotistical self-promotion of the ranting class, Brooks blames Democrats for their endurance:

“They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P.”

What Brooks fails to grasp is that Democrats aren’t enabling Limbaugh, Beck, et al. They are anchoring Republicans with the dead weight of these TV and radio clowns as a means to define an otherwise personality-less party. It isn’t an accident – it’s a strategy. Just as Brooks recognizes that the association of media nutcases with the party is harmful, he should figure out that that is precisely why Democrats are encouraging the association.

The most profound observation in the column was Brooks’ assertion that the problem for Republicans is that “They mistake media for reality.” That is undeniably true for the Party as well as for most of the media. In fact, it is an even bigger problem that the media mistakes itself for reality. And the consequences are devastating for both the practice of journalism and for democracy.


[Purchase FreakShow stickers at Crass Commerce]

Addendum: Neal Gabler has an outstanding editorial in the the Los Angeles Times that addresses these same issues: Politics as religion in America. Highly recommended.

If You Still Think That Fox News Is Not Racist…

Posted by on October 1, 2009 at 9:40 am. 12 Comments :

This summer has seen an abundance of animosity directed at America’s new president. Town brawlers congregated at local Shriner’s clubs shouting to take “their” country back. Tea Baggers descended on Washington with posters of the President as an African witch doctor. When we weren’t marching toward Socialism we were euthanizing our grandparents. And through it all there was an overbearing stench of racism. It was stench that emanated most noticeably from Fox News, who went to extraordinary lengths to deny it. They complained that they were vilified as racist just for disagreeing with a black President – who himself was a racist according to Glenn Beck.

So if Fox News was not race-baiting, what would you say these folks have in common?

Pictured above (left to right) are Barack Obama (President), Van Jones (former White House Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation), Mark Lloyd (FCC General Counsel/Chief Diversity Officer), Valerie Jarrett (Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement), and Patrick Gaspard (Director of the White House Office of Political Affairs). And their obvious commonality is that they are all patriotic public servants with records of distinction and achievement, right?. Oh yeah…they are also all targets of Fox News conspiracy mongers like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Hmm…Any other similarities?

The Obama administration has fended off attacks from inauguration day when Chris Wallace (of Fox News) suggested that Obama wasn’t really president because the Chief Justice flubbed the oath of office. It’s been downhill ever since. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that most of the fire has been aimed at low to mid level African Americans in the administration. The faces above have been relentlessly assaulted by Fox News and affiliated conservative outlets. Fox has attempted to marginalize them as “czars” and smear them as either corrupt or bent on subverting the principles of democracy. Van Jones has already been driven from his post by the forces of a resurgent McCarthyism. But this time the McCarthyites are as obsessed with race as they are with Communists.

The latest victim of this campaign of character assassination is Valerie Jarrett, a distinguished professional woman with a resume that includes public service, law, finance and academics.

Glenn Beck is now focusing his arsenal of defamation on Jarrett with all of the classic Beck smears: communism, corruption, and guilt by association, whether or not any association exists. Beck rolls out his “black” board to connect dots that only he can see. He aligns Jarrett with Che Guevara, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and even Darth Vader. He accuses her of being the lynch-pin between the Obamas and manufactured scandals at ACORN and the National Endowment for the Arts. By the end of his ravings he places her at the center of an evil cabal that he dramatically asserts is cancerous.

Much of these aspersions are cast in the shockingly despicable framework of her support for bringing the Olympics to Chicago in 2016. This is also a goal sought by the President, who is personally lobbying for the games in Copenhagen with the First Lady. Most nations consider it an honor, as well as an economic opportunity, to snag the Olympics. But Beck, and others at Fox News, seem to regard it as evidence of villainy. It makes you wonder for whom Beck is rooting. Spain? Brazil? Why does he hate America?

It cannot be mere coincidence that most of Fox’s targets have been African American. Obama has some pretty prominent associates who are not black: Vice President Joe Biden; Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel; Senior Advisor David Axelrod; Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner; Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; etc. Yet there has never been a campaign against any of these, or other white staffers, even though there are many more of them and they have far more powerful positions. Fox pointedly goes after only African Americans who are much lower down the executive ladder. This is a situation that even Bill O’Reilly expressed concerns over when interviewing Beck last Thursday:

O’Reilly: Now, you’re hammering this guy Mark Lloyd, another Obama appointee. Is he a czar guy too? He’s the head of the FCC, right?
Beck: He’s the diversity czar.
O’Reilly: The diversity officer at the FCC.
Beck: He’s not the only one. Cass Sunstein and Mark Lloyd put together. That’s a dangerous combination.
O’Reilly: Sunstein’s a white guy, because I don’t want you to, you know, all black, and it’s the black…We had a black professor on just before you, thinks you’re…you don’t like the blacks and all of that.

How thoughtful of O’Reilly to consider the appearance of Beck going after all black guys. O’Reilly and Beck were clearly relieved that Cass Sunstein was white. They needed a token Caucasian to avoid the appearance of racial motives, and Sunstein fit the bill.

Unfortunately, as the photo montage above illustrates, there is still a vast over-representation of African Americans on Fox’s hit list. The presence of one or two white guys doesn’t change that. The obvious racism by the Fox crowd extends beyond the attacks on the administration. The crusade against ACORN is a blatantly racist attack on efforts to assist people of color with housing and voting rights. Beck has even called the movement for health care reform “the beginning of reparations” for slavery.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter what this administration does, the Fox contingent will find evil in it. If Obama personally found Osama Bin Laden and wrestled him bare-handed to the death, Fox News ranters would complain that Obama only did it boost his reelection bid and to sweeten the deal for his post-presidential autobiography. And in addition to finding fault with anything Obama does, they can also put any issue in a racial context. Then, of course, they will holler if anyone calls them on it. Their response to allegations of racism is that their accuser is guilty of reverse racism. But it isn’t much more than the old schoolyard taunt of “I know you are but what am I?” That’s the level of debate that is practiced on Fox News. It is a response that is just as childish and arrogant as one would expect from a network of overtly bigoted blowhards who still can’t believe that a black man is president.