Finally, some substance to discuss. First let me say that I'm not a Glenn Beck fan and didn't mean to come across as one. I've seen his show only a few times and it seemed to me that he had backup for his for his assertions.
I'm in a similar situation. I would watch him infrequently, bits and pieces, almost in a cursory fashion, and while a little "out there", he seemed to be able to back up what he was saying. But then he talked about something that I knew, and knew intimately. And I started paying closer attention to what he was saying. What caught my attention was when he proudly showed off the TOS (Terms of Service) at the cars.com site, and as soon as I saw it I knew he was full of crap. The cars.com site (a Web site) can act as a secure VPN portal to let dealers log directly into the government's computer network system (definitely
not a Web site), and he was clearly showing the TOS from the closed system and passing it off as the TOS for cars.com. I figured, OK, it's an easy mistake for a non-computer nerd, since you got to the closed system by way of the Web, so it certainly could be confused and interpreted to mean that when you log on to the government's Web site that the TOS applies. But, the error was pointed out to him, and instead of dismissing the sensational that got people all frothy, he stuck with the erroneous, and did so willfully, making it nothing more than a lie. And he did so for like 8 days. Milked it for all it was worth, even thought he absolutely knew it wasn't true. That's when I started looking a little closer into his claims and what all he was saying.
Were his sources reliable? DamifIknow.
No, his sources (some goober producer/researcher, who he actually had on the air that first day, screwed the pooch) were unreliable and incompetent. In Beck's defense, at least initially, he took the producer/researcher at her word, as he is clearly not a computer nerd and is unfamiliar with how things work behind the scenes on the Internet. However, when the ignorance of the error was pointed out, rather than admit he and his staff were astoundingly wrong, he just went on business as usual. The initial airing of that mess was irresponsible as it was, for not confirming the facts, but then continuing to pound the lie for it's sensationalistic properties is beyond irresponsible.
However, it seems to me that he's a good example of the type of programming we see on quite a few networks in this day and age.
Sadly, this is true. The more sensational, the more something can be hyped for ratings, that's all that matters.
I wouldn't go so far to say it's "dangerous" - it's just misleading.
Well, because it's misleading, and it's purposefully misleading, and people believe it to be the truth, it's dangerous.
The same could be said for any number of programs on TV today that have an agenda and appeal to the public's emotions including Oprah, The View, Keith Olbermann, Larry King - the list goes on and on.
I agree, absolutely.
Like all the other cable news networks, Fox has news programs and they have opinion / editorial programs. Every show doesn't have to deal strictly in the five w's.
It would be nice if just a few of them would deal with the five w's, though. CNN is pretty bad, but at least HLN (the new, hip way to say Headline News) deals primarily with the five w's. But CNN's and Fox's morning and other primary news shows aren't news shows at all, it's commentary disguised as news. Whenever you hear a reporter or an anchor offer an opinion or explain some part of the story, or when they tell you what and how to think about a story, it's commentary. Whenever there's a a live interview, it's commentary, not news. Listen closely to the questions. They aren't about the five w's, they're about eliciting a particular answer.
However, their prime directive relates to ratings - that's what drives the revenue up from the advertisers. If the public decides Beck is not worth watching his ratings will crater and he'll go back to radio.
Which is exactly why he plays to the fears of his audience, in order to keep them tuned in. Doom and gloom for fun and profit, and it's the profit goals of corporate news organizations that fuel it. There are precious few places on television and radio where you can get the five w's of just the news anymore. It makes it very hard to chip through the candy coating to find out what's really going on.
Sounds similar to the marketing plan used by Al Gore and his global warming group.
Yes, exactly. Same thing. But it's not something new. It's precisely the way George Bush pieced together only the "facts" that were beneficial to his goal of getting Congress and the UN to back his plan for an invasion of Afghanistan, while conveniently dismissing or ignoring the facts that weren't in his favor. It's precisely the way Christopher Columbus presented his plans for funding to Queen Isabella for his quest to find the western route to India, where he gathered together all the maps that showed the smallest globe and the shorted route to India, even though he knew there were other, far more accurate maps out there. The map that got him his funding was the one he made up, purely fabricated, and was the least accurate of all of them. Just like Glenn Beck, except Christopher Columbus actually accomplished something other than getting his money.
Not disputing any of these (well, maybe a couple of the health care statements), but your sources for all these Beck statements are...? It would be nice for everyone to know places to go on the web to validate or dispel the outrageous claims we hear from any and all political hucksters.
Those are the ones I witnessed and were off the top of my head. But I'm sure that most of his claims that can be debunked can be found by a simple Google search (i.e., "glenn beck lies"), and almsot certain at mediamatters.org, which is an organization founded on and dedicated to monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. And please, before you do the standard ad hominem attack on Media Matters.org as an invalid source, just because they are unbelievably biased doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Just like the guy who makes a deal with the prosecution to testify in exchange for immunity, doesn't mean his testimony is a lie. Because of this post, I checked, and I ran across about of points at mediamatters.org about Glenn Beck that I previously mentioned, so I would imagine that most of all of them are in there somewhere, plus many more that I'm sure I am not even aware of.
Incidentally, the two (maybe more) of the health care points that you and others would possibly dispute, is why they stand out in my head, because I would have disputed them myself, if I had not done some research on them.
