This Dissent article makes the case that a boycott shut down Glen Beck.
I find it dubious, but if it’s true – is that something for the left to take pride in? I don’t like boycotts aimed at free speech, but that’s the civil libertarian in me. The First Amendment to me isn’t just Constitutional Law. Yes, I know it only applies to government. But it also represents an ethos – that you fight bad words and ideas with words and ideas of your own and that broad discourse is inherently progressive.
Just my thinking. For what it’s worth.
24 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 1, 2011 at 12:00 am
moviedad
I’ve been boycotting Fox and all things “Rupert,” forever. I don’t think they care.
They are not nearly as successful as other media corps that pass for being centrist politically. It’s there that propagandists do their best work; lulling the mass majority into a stupor of false information.
I hear one ideology throughout the whole spectrum of commercial media.(NPR/PBS included) There’s the rub. They’re all business people. They only have one idea.
Ok, I know they have more than ‘one’ idea. Let’s say they ‘share’ the same motivation: Profit.
Great blog Erik. Thanks for keeping it going.
July 1, 2011 at 5:07 am
Plain Jane
From the Dissent article, “In other words, the boycott forced the issue. It made executives question whether keeping Beck around was worth it. It made Murdoch choose. And he chose to let Beck go.”
I agree with this statement. The boycott cost them millions every week and Beck just wasn’t worth it with the embarrassment he caused other Fox personalities and the sane sector of conservatives.
July 1, 2011 at 7:09 am
Anonymous
Dream on guys. Dream on.
July 1, 2011 at 7:23 am
Bruce Ross
Companies make decisions every day about where to place their advertising. And one prime consideration is not just the audience being reached but the respectability of the material with which the ads are juxtaposed. Hey, if that didn’t count, pornographic websites would be great ad vehicles, but WalMart, Geico and P&G rightly don’t care to associate their wares with smut. (And, incidentally, would be swiftly boycotted from the right if they did.)
Beck’s not porn. However, he does traffic in highly charged political opinions. It’s a fair argument that advertising on his show amounts to supporting and sponsoring his opinions.
Personally, I don’t think Beck’s opinions were so offensive. Generally, I find him more strange than anything else, on the few occasions I’ve watched the show. (I catch him more on the radio, where he’s endearing and funny, actually.) But whether it’s right-wing, left-wing, fundamentalist Christian or “The Atheist Hour,” I don’t see the harm in critics pointing out to advertisers just what they’re supporting and letting them know that, far from winning friends, their sponsorship is driving customers away.
July 1, 2011 at 7:59 am
Bolithio
I dont understand why they pay these people so much. You can get an articulate nut to rattle off ridiculous ideas for much much cheaper. In that way, you dont loose out so much if a certain show attracts a smaller demographic. Right? Or in the case of fox, do you need to pay them that much so they are more ensconced in the cult of money and thus more zealous in their views?
July 1, 2011 at 8:27 am
Eric Kirk
It’s a fair argument that advertising on his show amounts to supporting and sponsoring his opinions.
But there are companies who advertise on both right and left wing programing, so what should we conclude about what they support? I tend to think it’s more about the size of the audiences, demographics, the products you offer in relationship to the consumption patterns of the target audience, etc.
For my part, I will listen to anything thoughtful. Beck is entertaining the first one or two times around, but it’s the same thing every time.
There are left wing programs I’ll listen to, but if they’re just preaching to the choir with no challenging or original thought it doesn’t do much for me. Thom Hartman and Mike Malloy have roughly the same politics. Maybe Hartman is a little more conservative. But Hartman is thoughtful and expresses original thoughts. Malloy is mostly angry, and predictable. I would much sooner advertise on Hartman if it was based upon my personal preferences, but maybe Malloy’s listeners are more susceptible to advertising.
July 1, 2011 at 8:35 am
Thorstein Veblen
I doubt the repeatability of the method, Beck may have been the one unique case where it all came together.
July 1, 2011 at 8:47 am
Ernie's Place
Being of a suspicious nature, I occurs to me that the “left wing” and the “right wing” are being separated by the folks that are really running the country. That would be the ultra-wealthy. The ones that own the media and consequently tell us who to vote for.
I look for the day when the left wing and the right wing can join together and soar like the eagle that we are supposed to be.
July 1, 2011 at 8:52 am
Anonymous
“that you fight bad words and ideas with words and ideas of your own and that broad discourse is inherently progressive.”
these are your words e. if you really hold these beliefs, why do you censor your threads?
July 1, 2011 at 9:08 am
Eric Kirk
It’s a fair question anonymous. But I don’t censor bad ideas. I censor personal attacks against private individuals, and discussions which I do not believe are productive on the blog format due to the ability of certain obsessive-compulsive posters who then dominate the forum and cause other people to leave. For instance, anytime I have started up a thread about the community park, about two or three individuals will work up a thousand or more posts in the course of a week or two, and all of the other discussions come to a halt because the rest of the people just don’t want to be a part of it. So basically I stopped posts about the community park and the reggae wars on this basis and because certain people cannot control themselves when it comes to personal attacks.
And case in point, if I were to allow it, this thread would now be appropriated, and a very interesting discussion would be lost due to the obsession-based agenda of a few who refuse to start their own blog on the topic because they know that nobody would frequent it.
July 1, 2011 at 9:39 am
Bruce Ross
Eric,
If a company spreads its ads broadly and ecumenically in search of an audience, and an activist groused about the ads on a particular show, it’d be fine and fair to point out the facts. I use a version of the argument every time a reader complains about my publishing a cartoon/letter/column that irks them politically. (“Why do you publish that left-wing crap?” “Hey, I publish right-wing crap too — including your rebuttal of the left-wing crap!”)
And I’m sure they do. It’s actually interesting that the Beck backlash got traction.
July 1, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Anonymous
Beck was fired because he’s nuts.
July 2, 2011 at 8:40 am
Anonymous
Glen Beck is a white prick with ears.
On another subject, did you read marijuana residue was found in shards of broken clay pipe in the house Shakespeare lived in, in England, carbon dated to his time of occupancy. Cocaine residue as well. Maybe that will help with some of the controversy of whether he wrote his own stuff. In one of his sonnets he talks about the enjoyable weed. After this excavation, when I read Shakespeare, I will think of him smoking and writing.
July 2, 2011 at 9:24 am
Mitch
Bolithio suggests:
Or in the case of fox, do you need to pay them that much so they are more ensconced in the cult of money and thus more zealous in their views?
That’s a really interesting point and question, Bolithio? With the exception of Walter Cronkite and a few others, I don’t think there was such a thing as a celebrity journalist. Now, “financial reporters” are often welcomed into the millionaire club. How can that not change financial reporting?
The same thing has happened with those who cover politics. They used to feel a natural affiliation with people making normal amounts of money. Now, they’re part of the culture of Washington big money, big power, and big celebrity. How can that not change their affiliation?
Once more than a tiny percentage of people recognize the name or face of an individual “reporter,” that reporter’s viewpoint has very likely been skewed. Again, how can it not?
Over and over again, the systemic culprit turns out to be TV, advertising, and the cult of bigness and celebrity. Once upon a time, the press acted like the nation’s immune system. Everyone knows how tragic it can be when a person’s immune system “switches sides.” That’s what has happened in the United States.
July 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Plain Jane
Don’t you wonder what the founders, with their distrust of corporations, would think about the corporate owned news media?
July 2, 2011 at 3:34 pm
anon
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” – Thomas Jefferson
July 2, 2011 at 4:28 pm
grackle
“I don’t like boycotts aimed at free speech…” I don’t understand this- isn’t my right to not listen to something a form of my free speech right? It is not in any way a form of censorship. I would assume that everyone exercises their rights by patronizing or not patronizing those who support the ideas one either supports or opposes. This is of the essence of free speech rights. What do you actually mean by your statement? I’m not able to parse it well.
July 2, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Bunny
I think the beginning of the end started with Heraldo Rivera. Followed closely by Barbara Walters. Tabloid reporting. An exec at CNN described Anderson Cooper as ” all feeling and no facts”. I’m not sure its calculated but the dumbing down of the populace continues.
July 2, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Bunny
Actually, Kirby said that.
July 2, 2011 at 9:43 pm
moviedad
I’m beginning to wonder where Jeffery Little is. Kinda weird not wading through his posts. Especially over at Heraldo’s.
July 2, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Eric Kirk
“I don’t like boycotts aimed at free speech…” I don’t understand this- isn’t my right to not listen to something a form of my free speech right? It is not in any way a form of censorship. I would assume that everyone exercises their rights by patronizing or not patronizing those who support the ideas one either supports or opposes. This is of the essence of free speech rights. What do you actually mean by your statement? I’m not able to parse it well.
It’s one thing to not listen. I not listen all the time. But to pressure advertisers to starve a show – I’m not sure about that.
July 3, 2011 at 4:49 am
Mitch
“But to pressure advertisers to starve a show – I’m not sure about that.”
There it is again, truly bizarre when you stop to think about it.
If you want free speech, you’re welcome to say anything you want. If you want the right to be heard, you need to keep advertisers happy. Because the media is not about a free market of opinions, it’s about making money for the media corporations that are dependent upon the corporations that are spending advertising budgets.
Some magazines view ads as a necessary evil and relegate them to the back. The only ad vehicle I know of that somehow seems to have continued to produce legitimate journalism is The New Yorker. For the rest, the “content” is there to draw people to the ads, instead of the way it was meant to be — for the ads to sponsor the content. Anyone who is in media because they actually care about the content should be embarrassed.
Frankly, Eric, if the advertisers can starve a show, it’s not obvious what value the show had other than to sell ad time. If it were the show that mattered, it wouldn’t be possible to pressure advertisers to starve it: if one sponsor pulled out, the producer would just find another sponsor, because the sponsors would be SPONSORS, not advertisers trying to find the right setting in which to display their wares. I’m not saying that shows today can’t be starved — I’m just pointing out how bizarre that is, and how contradictory that is to the notion that “free speech that matters” still exists.
July 3, 2011 at 9:52 am
Thorstein Veblen
Good points mitch, and thats probably why news in almost all forms has become dumbed down and superficial. Even the news has to keep advertisers happy and make money for thier corporate owners. News is now a profit center, just like entertainment programming.
July 3, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Unk John
I agree entirely with Mitch and Thor. I either read somewhere or perhaps heard it on Thom Hartmann that in the case of the networks, the news departments used to be separate and somewhat insulated from the money aspect of the business. Please note that I said “somewhat insulated”, not totally.
But, I think that that made a huge difference. Apparently, the news departments now fall under the same jurisdiction as entertainment and are put under the same scrutiny as other programs to determine whether or not they are financially worthy of existence.
I further believe that these changes have come about in a perfect storm of events which include, but are not necessarily limited to, changes in the way the FCC “regulates” the broadcast industry and in the way corporations in general are “regulated.”