Day: 5/3/2010

Glenn Beck Attacks Mother’s Day And Teddy Bears

Posted by on May 3, 2010 at 4:43 pm. 2 Comments :

I have long anticipated the mental implosion of Glenn Beck. He is an obviously disturbed individual who seems to be constantly on the brink of a psychological collapse. But I always thought it would come in the form of an Apocalyptic dissent into a religio-political abyss. Instead, it came as he was supposed to be speaking on behalf of a sponsor for his radio show. In this ad for the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Beck tells his listeners that he hates Mother’s Day and that it was a scam hatched by Woodrow Wilson. Check it out:

    Transcript: Our sponsor this half hour is the Vermont Teddy Bear Co. Vermont Teddy Bear is getting ready for Mother’s Day weekend. Can you believe Mother’s Day week? By the way, Sarah and I were talking on Saturday and she didn’t believe me, or it was on Friday, and she didn’t believe me. And I said, Mother’s Day, it’s a scam. It’s a big business scam. And I said, I bet it was started by Woodrow Wilson.

That was the intro to the spot for Vermont Teddy Bears. They must be pleased with how their ad dollars are being spent. In the radio business, advertisers pay extra for on air testimonials by the program host. Vermont Teddy Bear is sure getting their money’s worth.

Let’s face it…..The real reason Beck went off on this Mother’s Day sponsor is that these teddy bears come from the People’s Republic of Vermont. Beck considers Vermont a socialist mecca that should be cast out of the United States. It is, after all, the home state of the socialist Senator Bernie Sanders. And if that’s not bad enough, the teddy bear got it’s name from President Teddy Roosevelt. Beck thinks that Roosevelt and Wilson are progressives and that progressives are a cancer on America.

Glenn Beck Mothers Day Scam

These subversive plush toys have to be taught a lesson. We can no longer sit by idly while they debase our mothers and indoctrinate our children with their fluffy Marxist plots. Thank God Beck is on alert to protect us from the evil of stuffed animals and to warn us of the dastardly schemes of “big businesses” like the International Vermont Teddy Bear Syndicate that controls the world economy. As long as he’s keeping watch, we don’t have to worry that small voices like his and the tiny media shop he works for, Fox News, will fade away.

Phil Griffin Of MSNBC ♥’s Roger Ailes Of Fox News

Posted by on May 3, 2010 at 12:26 pm. 4 Comments :

Roger AilesPhil Griffin, president of MSNBC, was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune and provided an outstanding example of the sort of clueless, illogical, journalistic myopia that is rotting away the American press. When asked about his rival Roger Ailes at Fox News, he gave an almost fawning response that makes one wonder if they are really rivals at all.

“He’s changed media. Everybody does news differently because Roger’s changed the world. Roger early on figured it out and was brilliant.”

Indeed. Roger Ailes changed media – for the worse! His “brilliant” idea was to transform the news into a rancorous, talk-radio style, shoutfest that manufactured conflict and spun every story as far to the right as their ideological wheel could turn. The inspiration behind Fox’s brand loyalty is talk-radio, soap operas, and tabloid news vendors like the National Enquirer, a pseudo-news enterprise that is deliberately dishonest, but enjoys the rabid devotion of an undiscerning audience that is drawn to gossip, drama, and salaciousness. Fox is an entertainment company, not a news provider, as they have said themselves:

Roger Ailes: I’m not in politics, I’m in ratings

Rupert Murdoch: I’m not averse to high ratings.

Glenn Beck: I could give a flying crap about the political process. […] We’re an entertainment company.

If Griffin really believes that his mission is to emulate Fox from the opposite end of the political spectrum, he will only succeed in further debasing the media. In addition, he will miss the opportunity to effectively compete in the cable news marketplace. He needs to realize that, not being a news network, Fox is no more his competition than is Nickelodeon (which I’ve said before is a better source than Fox for news and plays to a smarter audience).

Griffin is not the only news professional to misread the market. Almost every executive and analyst has concluded that Fox’s ratings dominance is a function of ideology. But that is a shallow analysis that fails to address the real problem. People need to stop thinking of Fox as a network of conservatives that you counter with a network of liberals. The reality is that Fox is a network of liars that you counter with a network of truth tellers.

This approach doesn’t imply partisanship to anything other than facts. It also does not swear a blind allegiance to the thoroughly misconstrued concept of balance. A responsible journalist is under no obligation to balance a set of facts with a litany of lies just so that some other perspective is represented. Furthermore, it doesn’t mean you need to resign yourself to a bland presentation of the events of the day. Important things are going on. No one can dismiss the inherent drama that is played out in the public debates over health care or immigration or Wall Street corruption. It doesn’t need to be contrived. It just needs to be told compellingly and honestly. I am convinced that there are more people in the TV audience who want useful, factual information, than there are people who want sobbing rodeo clowns drawing their divinely inspired delusions on blackboards.

If Griffin were to apply basic fundamentals of entertainment to a more journalistically ethical approach he could attract a much larger and more loyal audience. He needs to give news consumers a little more credit for being discriminating, skeptical, curious, and capable of understanding the issues that bear directly on their lives. The last thing we need is more of the cheapening of journalism that Ailes has proffered. And we certainly should not be honoring him for the damage he has already done.