Advertisers Dumping Glenn Beck After Racist Comments

Last month Glenn Beck appeared on Fox & Friends and accused President Obama of being a racist. He said

“This President has, I think, exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is […] I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a…This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Fox News released a timid statement intended to put some distance between the network and Beck, but it simultaneously gave Beck more leeway to spew his repulsive views.

Well, Media Matters is now reporting that members of the advertising community are beginning to regard Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue to be an unacceptable platform for their ads:

Media Matters: Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck — NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance — today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

It’s about time.

A couple of days ago I wrote about Beck’s plea for peace. I found it thoroughly disingenuous and was suspicious of the timing. This may explain it. Certainly his superiors would have put some pressure on him if they were getting cancellations on ads. Especially after releasing quarterly earnings that reported a $3.4 billion loss. Rupert Murdoch must be a very unhappy mogul.

It should be noted that Procter and Gamble is the biggest advertiser in the world. Now, we don’t know where these ad dollars are going. They may just be shifted to other programs on Fox. But over time the network will not be able to remove itself from the taint that people like Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Cavuto, and the phalanx of obnoxious contributors bring to the airwaves.

Color of Change had taken the lead in protesting Beck’s remarks with a petition that delivered 45,000 173,000 signatures. They are still seeking to apply more pressure to more advertisers. So go there and help out.

Update: Advertisers continue to bail on Beck:

LexisNexis Proctor & Gamble Progressive Insurance
S.C. Johnson Geico Clorox
Men’s Warehouse Sargento Lowe’s
State Farm Roche Sprint
Sanofi-Aventis RadioShack Airware Inc
Con-Agra Travelocity Ancestry.com
Wal-Mart Best Buy AT&T
CVS Allergan Blain Labs
Ally Bank Broadview Security Campbell Soup
Re-Bath Farmer’s Insurance DiTech
The Elations Co. Experion Johnson & Johnson
NutriSystem UPS Stores Verizon Wireless
Applebee’s Bank of America Bell & Howell
DirecTv General Mills Kraft
Regions Financial SAM (Store and Move) Travelers Insurance
Vonage Binder & Binder Capital One
Dannon Company Discover HSBC
ICAN Benefit Group Ins Infiniti Jelmar
J. McKenna Debt Counseling Mercedes-Benz Simplex Healthcare
AmMed Direct Citrix Online Concord Music Group
Diageo Eggland’s Best Equifax
Eulactol USA GetARoom.com Hoffman La Roche
Metropolitan Talent Management ooVoo Overture Films
Scarguard Schiff Nutrition Seoul Metropolitan Government
Subaru Toyota-Lexus Waitrose
Woodland Power Products

Click here to see the advertisers remaining with Beck. It’s pretty pathetic.

Fox News: Racism Is Their Marketing Plan

A press conference will be held today at 2:30 outside of the offices of Fox News in New York. The purpose of the gathering is to deliver a petition with over 600,000 names to network executives calling for an end to the racist attacks against black Americans including Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The petition is the work of Color of Change and MoveOn and asks Fox News CEO Roger Ailes to respond to the allegation that…

“Fox has developed a pattern of airing racially offensive attacks, then apologizing only after controversy erupts. Forced, half-hearted apologies do not demonstrate good faith when the larger pattern of offensive rhetoric continues.”

Examples of Fox’s intolerance abound, but for a brief recap of a few that occurred just this year:

  • Obama’s Baby Mama
  • Terrorist Fist Jab
  • Knock Off Osama …uh… Obama … Well, Both If We could
  • Lynching Party Against Michelle Obama
O'Reilly Lynching Party

The coalition delivering the petition will include rapper, Nas, who has had his own problems with Fox News. Last August, Nas was scheduled to appear at a memorial concert for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. Bill O’Reilly condemned the booking as an atrocity. Nas responded by saying that…

“Everybody has a marketing plan; his marketing plan is racism […] I wouldn’t honor anything Bill O’Reilly has to say. It just shows you what bloodsuckers do: They abuse something like the Virginia Tech [tragedy] for show ratings.”

Well said. But he’s not done. His new album “Untitled” (which just hit #1) features a track dedicated to Fox News called “Sly Fox,” that begins, “The Sly Fox, Cyclops, We locked in the idiot box,” and continues, “Watch what you watchin’, Fox keeps feeding us toxins, Stop sleeping, Start thinking, Outside of the box.” Here’s the whole thing on video:

~~~

Update: Fox News did not accept the petitions but made a statement in response that trivializes the 600,000 signers while taking a slap at Nas:

Fox News Racist“Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech including Nas who has an album to promote.”

Nas had his own statement:

“Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news. This should outrage every American that Fox uses hateful language to talk about the person that may be the first black president.”

After Fox refused to take the petitions, Nas took them to Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. Once again, Comedy Central proves to be a better practitioner of Journalism than Fox News.

Link to Colbert Report’s Color of Change Segment
Link to Colbert’s interview of Nas
Link to Nas performance on the Colbert Report