The other day I sent off a note to one of Glenn Beck's last advertisers, John Scherer of Video Professor fame. I felt at this point any company still with that show is either locked in and FOX is not honoring their wishes to not appear on the show or they are basically with Beck. So my email was pretty blunt and to the point.
My email:
Come on, you don't have to help keep the man of hate on air.
The guy is trying to rile up a nut to the point of assassinating the President.
Get off there, NOW!
I received what I thought was a pretty snarky reply from John himself.
John Scherer:
Actually FOX keeps Mr. Beck on the air, not me. Secondly, if you have proof that Mr. Beck has called for the assassination of the President, please contact the United States Secret Service immediately because as you know, this is a Federal Crime.
Here is a link to the Secret Service.
www.treas.gov/usss.
I then responded and informed him his cute response would get him a diary at KOS.
For a big time businessman not to know how this works is surprising. Advertisers do keep him on air. He can have all the eyeballs in the world, if nobody will buy his spots, he goes away.
It's unfortunate you won't admit abortion doctors get killed
due to these television hosts inflaming the situation with "blood on their hands" and "murderer" rhetoric.
Now it's suggested that this president hates white people,
he is turning the country into something unrecognizable, a socialist, or fascist country.
You don't think that makes some crack pot in a red state think maybe he should "save" the country?
If not, you are an idiot.
Your snark of an answer here got yourself a nice diary on kos. I'll forward it to you when it's posted.
That seemed to get his attention and he was more forthcoming with his feelings on the issue in a subsequent message. Or do you think he thought better about saying dumb things and wrote something for mass consumption on the Internet? Could be.
Second email from John Scherer
Sorry you mis-understood "snark" for satire. It was meant to emphasize your very point. The debate indeed has gotten out of hand. My weekly blog next week talk about just that.
It's time for all sides to stop yelling and focus on the job at hand.
No one wants this President to succeed more than me. If he doesn't we're all in a world of hurt regardless of our political views or opinions. I read somewhere that the huge majority of us live "between the 40 yard lines."
You obviously deeply care about the country. So do I.
When it comes to advertising, we simply buy the network, not the show. That is not meant to sound dis-respectful but we don't take sides. Everyone is watching the news, on lots of networks. It's where the eyeballs are.
I think you're starting to see cooler, calmer voices of reason start to get their share of air time. Senator Dole's advice to the President, I thought, was very non-partisan and helpful. Based on what I'm seeing on various networks, the President may indeed take some of it.
The passing of Senator Kennedy also reminded us of his legislative successes because he worked with the proverbial both sides of the aisle. Bob Dole was one of them. So was Orin Hatch. Together they passed some pretty good legislation.
American as I think you'll agree, tends to swing from one side to the other but that pendulum usually ends up in the middle where it should be.
Voices of moderation and reason are slowly, and thankfully starting to be heard. We're all Americans, I believe you love this nation as I do.
I applaud your passion, and your willingness to express it and not sit things out on the sidelines. You can draw your own conclusion from there.
John
That's great to hear John, but Beck continues to go way past the line of acceptability. As for voices of moderation, the town hall kooks are shouting down disabled people and punching pro reformers in the face (at least he lost part of his hand for that). The nuts are multiplying because guys like Beck cheer them on.
I followed up and asked John to make the request of FOX to drop his ads on Beck. He came back and asked what I thought about Obama's upcoming speech and ignored my request. So I spent the time and told him what my "Dream" speech from Obama would be, what I hope he will say and what I think he will say. And I asked again to go to FOX and ask to get off Beck. I have not heard back after 10 hours.
All we want John, is for you to make the same request of FOX that Binder and Binder has. To run their adds on anything but Beck and we hope in future you demand a "No Beck" clause when it's up for renewal. Of course, FOX could ignore the request and that will show you what they think of it's advertisers, but this will show us how much John Scherer stands for proper discourse.
So please, everyone contact John at ceo@videoprofessor.com and encourage him to take a stand and make the request of No Beck.
Update
John got back and said the emails they have recieved have promted serious discusion but they have decided to appear on the "full spectrum of news networks available to us." That is a disappointment but it's hard to win them all.