Will advertising boycott soften Glenn Beck’s Obama commentary?
The Color of Change-led advertisers boycott of Glenn Beck’s show on Fox News apparently hasn’t led him to soften his views toward President Barack Obama and his administration. On Monday, Beck was on offense again.
The group launched the boycott after Beck called Obama “a racist” and said he has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” Color of Change’s web site says “Beck is on a campaign to convince the American public that President Obama’s agenda is about serving the needs of Black communities at White people’s expense. It’s repulsive, divisive and shouldn’t be on the air.”
A number of advertisers have joined the boycott. (Reportedly among them: GMAC Financial Services, ConAgra, Geico, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance.) But the boycott’s effectiveness is questionable. Matea Gold of the Los Angeles Times reports:
While the advertising boycott has generated substantial media coverage, a Fox News spokeswoman said companies that have pulled their ads have merely moved their spots to different programs, so it has not had an effect on the network’s revenues.
And Gold notes that Beck’s rating are up.
Gold’s article in the L.A. Times — Glenn Beck blasts boycott group’s co-founder — reports that Beck “used his popular show Monday to attack the background of Van Jones, a White House environmental advisor and co-founder” of Color of Change.
From Gold’s article:
…he spent a large share of his program suggesting that Jones, who co-founded Color of Change in 2005, is a radical. Jones now serves as a special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a “rowdy black nationalist.” The talk show host cast the piece as part of a weeklong examination of Obama’s “czars,” special advisors to the president who “don’t answer to anybody.”
“Why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisors?” Beck asked.
Christine Glunz, a spokeswoman for the Council on Environmental Quality, noted that Jones has been lauded as an environmental hero and said his entire focus is on “building clean energy incentives, which create 21st century jobs.”
“Glenn Beck is trying to change the subject,” said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change, who noted that Jones has not been active with the group in almost two years. “The issue is his baseless fear mongering.”
In the end, do you think the advertisers boycott of Beck will have any effect?
(5 votes, average: 2.6 out of 5)
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Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
“Many of the companies the organization lists now deny they have anything to do with the boycott. Newsmax contacted Procter & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, SC Johnson, and Radio Shack, all of which said they have not directed Fox News to pull their ads from the Glenn Beck Program, as Color of Change has stated.”
Somebody is not telling the truth…….
Nah, Beck tells it like it is, AND, fortunately he is correct most of the time! More commentators should be like him - there would be different voting results if he was paid attention to more, by more people!
Im putting those advertisers on notice… I will not buy their products. You would not think of boycotting the
other channels with their venomous talk. You are worms in my opinion. Bought and paid for by the Government.
Pigs!
Beck is right. Van Jones is a racialist and a fraud. He’s also going to make a handsome salary at taxpayer’s expense in the Obama Whitehouse doing essentially nothing. The president’s constant use of racial demogoguery as a way to intimidate legitimate criticism is wearing thin.
If there really “is” a boycott, it will have a positive effect on the show.
Let me get this straight…Glenn Beck’s program is being boycotted because he feels President Obama is a ‘racist’ and has ‘a deep-seated hatred for white people?….and someone feels THIS comment is worth being boycotted???
Have these folks at the ‘Color of Change’ ever seen the venom that comes out of the mouth of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow almost every single night? - or is the administration so enamoured with MSNBC that THEIR comments are excused??
As to the boycott, will it have an effect on Glenn Beck’s program?
No….simply because Beck’s show - like the other news programs on FOX - are drawing high ratings, unlike the news programs on MSNBC and CNN.
I plan to visit Color Change’s website to get more information on companies that are signing onto their limp-wristed little tantrum - and making certain I don’t purchase any of their products. I was getting sick of looking at the repulsive airhead Flo on the Progressive Insurance and that oh-so-squishable gecko on the Geico spots, anyway.
Baseless fear mongering? On Fox News? So Beck employs shameless, baseless fear-mongering to produce attention and ratings, just as George W. Bush employed calculated fear-mongering to get re-elected in 2004. A casual observer might assume that baseless fear mongering is listed pretty high up in the GOP playbook.
Gosh, Steve, I hardly know where to start. Funny this is the second blog post on this topic. Must have you guys really bugged. Imagine if conservatives asked Dillards to boycott the PD for Kevin Horrigan’s hateful rants against Christians.
First, Van Jones is an avowed Communist. You can google him if you don’t believe me. Funny how the PD has decided not to cover most, at least not the slimiest ones, of Obama’s czars. Did you know that the White House actually called during the show on Monday and asked Beck not to use the term czar? I wonder why. They are czars because they do not have to be approved by the Senate. Are you aware that there are some other 500 jobs that need senate confirmation that have not been filled? Gee I wonder why?
This is the most corrupt administration in history and the PD refuses to cover it just like they refused to cover Obamas Chicago history during the election. Disgraceful.
The good news is that Beck’s ratings were the highest ever on Monday thanks to MSNBC and others gloting about the ads being pulled. Won’t be long before others will be happy to take their place. I can hardly wait til tomorrow when Rush Limbaugh is going to be on discussing how these creeps in DC and the new Diversity Czar for the FCC is finding a way to silence talk radio. I love the Democrats methods, if you don’t agree with us, we will shut you down. Is this Venezuela? Hogan, you call conservatives Brown Shirts, you better check your history on that one pal.
Thank God there is someone out there asking question and answering them and America is finally waking up to what they have just elected.
Steve, why didn’t you post for the race blog that Chris Matthews of MSNBC is now calling anyone who says they want their country back “racists.”
Why haven’t you reported that the WHite House is using taxpayer funds to pay David Axelrod’s company to promote the healthcare bill and pay e-mail companies to send e-mails.
It ’s nice to see that the bias and double standard are still alive and well at the PD.
Dave C - Fear-mongering is detestable, isn’t it? Like, when a political party concocts out of thin are the number “47 million” of uninsured Americans in service to its push from power?
Fear is what put Obama in power. People were afraid of losing their jobs, their homes and retirement because of a curiously timed market crash, so they held their noses and voted for B.O. because he seemed like the furthest thing from the status quo. Well, he was - but he ISN’T what the degree of change we voted for.