(Written by an American expat living in the European Union)
On Nov. 16th, Glenn Beck basically announced that its "God's will" that the European Union will fail. Let's remember that the great social democracies of the European Union, unlike America have a strong working class social safety net. Since then the steady stream of criticism of Glenn Beck from the mainstream European media outlets, have been making European readers aware of the Beck phenomenon, such as the German magazine Der Spiegel and the British newspaper the Guardian; wherein European media asks the question, is Glenn Beck's reign at Fox News finally over calling him a person full of hatred, an agitator in a throwback to the Weimar Republic and a conspiracy theorist whose sagging ratings seem to be pushing him off Fox News. This diary offers a fresh look at criticism of the Fox News Glenn Beck propaganda regime from the perspective of the European media. As such this offers insights from a European perspective not usually available in the American plutocrat owned media.
(Guardian.co.uk) Glenn Beck's future at Fox News under threat, according to NYT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
Posted by Richard Adams Monday 7 March 2011 05.12 GMT
Fox News said to be prepared to dump its conspiracy theorist-in-chief Glenn Beck from its line-up of commentators
For America's beleaguered liberals, Monday's New York Times reports what sounds like a dream come true: Fox News is considering parting company with Glenn Beck, the rococo conspiracy theorist who inspires those on the swivel-eyed right and infuriates anyone to their left.
According to the New York Times's media correspondent David Carr, unnamed Fox News executives are said to be "contemplating life without Mr Beck" when the conservative shock jock's contract ends in December.
Some dismiss this as part of the rough and tumble of contract negotiations going on between Fox and Beck. But others point to Beck's sagging viewing figures - especially his loss of a million viewers for his daily one-hour show in the past year - from an average of 2.9 million in January 2010 to 1.8 million in January 2011 - as more to the point, with Beck's increasingly paranoid stylings said to be driving away more moderate viewers and high profile advertisers.
Democrats and others on the left would like to hope that it's Beck's outrageousness that has brought him to this impasse, and they may have a case. Beck has recently got Fox News into hot water on some sensitive subjects. One was a long rant against George Soros - in itself hardly a crime as the wealthy liberal philanthropist is a favourite target of the Fox News commentariat. Beck, though, went too far, and cast Soros, a Holocaust survivor, as: "Here's a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps."
Did you know that Glenn Beck and Fox news have virtually speaking no audience in the entirety of continental Europe?
As Americans we are too often captured by the adhoc myopia of the idea that the sun rises and sets around the American plutocrat owned media, such as Fox news, but the truth is that the Fox news brand in general and Glenn Beck in particular in continental Europe are virtually speaking unknown brands, because their message doesn't sell here. Now why is that? Well in part it's because of something else that most Americans know nothing about and that is, state owned media creating fairness and balance, and the American plutocrat owned media competing with it. Now you may think it's just about the language barrier, but that's not true because NBC for example has continental European news outlets, which is something else that most Americans don't know about. But if you still think it is all about language, consider the comments of Rupert Murdoch below, whereupon one might ask if perhaps he wants a little bit of wine with that cheese.
Murdoch attack on 'dominant' BBC "The BBC is dominant," Mr Murdoch said. "Other organisations might rise and fall but the BBC's income is guaranteed and growing."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
At this point the question should be asked how profitable would Glenn Beck and Fox news ever have been if in America there were such a thing as state owned media, just like there is all across Europe. In fact we can see that Rupert Murdoch doesn't like to compete against state owned media for audience share. He certainly doesn't want American audiences to have the same type of public option in media that European audiences have. Maybe that's why when Glenn Beck is broadcast in England he has no commercial sponsors. But American audiences don't know this little known fact either, because Fox news won't tell you that and this diary just did. Europe just isn't buying Glenn Beck, but then they don't buy hate radio either in Europe. Now that is not to say that Europe is a Utopian perfect place, but it is merely to say that the haters don't have overwhelming media control, as is the case in America with hate radio and the Fox news propaganda machine.
Below in believe it or not in a minor miracle the Wall Street Journal of all places published an interesting piece by Bollinger - President of Columbia University, wherein he calls for an investment of American state owned media in an American BBC type structure, in order to provide fair and balanced treatment of the news in the American media market. This is a salient issue because the convicted criminal James O'Keefe in yet another Fox news gotcha journalism engineered yet another media blitz to have NPR's public funding removed. Wherein they employed the goofy remarks of a now former NPR executive Ron Schiller. Now to be clear no sensible person would be out trying to defend Mr Schiller's goofy remarks, but we should all continue to defend NPR's public funding, which should not be eliminated, because of one man's thoughtless ramblings, which would allow any punk carrying a cell phone camera the ability to get another James O'Keefe 15 minutes of fame!
Just as we saw in the aforementioned quote, Rupert Murdoch doesn't want to compete with any BBC style media, and this means that the Fox news brand which gives voice to people like Glenn Beck, in order to stay profitable is willing to climb into bed with convicted criminals like James O'Keefe, because they don't want the American people to have a public funded option in media, even in a case where NPR is only partially funded by public dollars, and is basically forced to beg for donations to make up its shortfall. And this from the world's richest country is a complete disgrace!
Wall Street Journal
* JULY 14, 2010
Journalism Needs Government Help
This system needs to be revised and its resources consolidated and augmented with those of NPR and PBS to create an American World Service that can compete with the BBC and other global broadcasters. The goal would be an American broadcasting system with full journalistic independence that can provide the news we need. Let's demonstrate great journalism's essential role in a free and dynamic society......................
Ironically, we already depend to some extent on publicly funded foreign news media for much of our international news—especially through broadcasts of the BBC and BBC World Service on PBS and NPR. Such news comes to us courtesy of British citizens who pay a TV license fee to support the BBC and taxes to support the World Service. The reliable public funding structure, as well as a set of professional norms that protect editorial freedom, has yielded a highly respected and globally powerful journalistic institution.
There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research. Those of us in public and private research universities care every bit as much about academic freedom as journalists care about a free press.
Mr. Bollinger is president of Columbia University and author of "Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century" (Oxford, 2010).
http://online.wsj.com/...
Let's be clear about something where there is a firm absence of public funding in the media, as is the case in the United States where there is no state media, because the plutocrat owned media has demonized any state controlled media to the point of what some people believe has become brainwashing! Wherein any meaningful intellectual discussion of state owned media in the American marketplace is no longer even possible, because of the way that the plutocrat owned media has demonized any publicly owned media option. This may prompt some to ask has no public option in media created no public option for medical treatment of America's 59 million uninsured, and 132 million dental uninsured persons. A public option in anything in America has become a stigmatized, brainwashing exercise by the plutocrat owned media.
This prevents any serious, successful discussion to put any public option on the table for anything that would benefit the American working class, which has no voice in the plutocrat American owned media, whose purpose indeed is not to inform, but rather to sell commercial advertising space. Just like in the days of old when only the court jesters in the king's court were allowed to tell the truth without losing their jobs or their heads, so it is today that one of the main news sources in America have become comedy shows like the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Colbert Report and Bill Maher, because only comedians can be allowed to tell the truth in America without losing their jobs in the plutocrat owned media.
This has led, given the lack of state owned media in America to the ascent of hate radio Fox news and perversions like Glenn Beck and the American Tea Party's hate filled rants.
"Full of Hatred: The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn't know what he wants to be -- maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher -- and he doesn't know what he wants to do either, or least he hasn't come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred."
http://www.spiegel.de/...
European media sources like the German mainstream magazine Der Spiegel seem to agree that it’s not clear whether Glenn Beck is a wanna be politician or preacher. The British newspaper the Guardian thinks Glenn Beck is a preacher and politician who is trying to channel Father Charles Coughlin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The bottom line is if we want to put hate radio out of business in America, the market will do that for us with a robust public media option. If America continues to want to give people like Fox news, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party free reign to the American airwaves, you will continue to see the type of Tea Party led stunts that we are now witnessing through the efforts of Governor Walker in Wisconsin going national. The key is if we don't want to live with the semantic perversions of Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, hate radio and Fox news, we have to support state owned American media in a BBC type system in America, wherein a robust public option in media will allow a fair and balanced debate in American elections, and issues of a public option in health care to become part of the American body politic again. Otherwise the Tea Party union busting antics of Wisconsin Governor Walker are in danger of taking root nationally in what can only be described as a Tea Party national union busting frenzy designed to destroy the American working class and the American working class dream.
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