If there is a venereal disease that could infect television news it would have to be called the “Glenn Beck Disease” for no other reason than Glenn Beck being the most irritating brain frying “pretend” newsperson there is on television today. Limbaugh on his best day can’t even cause one to dribble and drool as much as Beck does in the first five minutes he is on the air.
News organizations are having a hard enough time trying to remain relevant without having to constantly battle against the illusion that Beck put forward that what he does is news. Not only does Beck do everything he can to inflame situations to his own benefit but he doesn’t care if what comes out of his mouth is true or not.
A good example of this is his recent pumping of the ACORN story and how one woman was caught on tape saying that she had murdered her abusive husband. Regardless of the ethics of how the ACORN videotapes were obtained Beck used the story to raise the ire against the other news networks and the government by asking why nobody was asking any questions about this.
Well it turns out that about a few minutes work by some real reporters in San Bernardino found out the story was totally false – which Glenn Beck could have done just as well but that wouldn’t have provided the gasoline he was looking for.
The thing that is really disgusting about this is that his employer Fox News doesn’t care whether what he says on television is true or not because in their words “ does not host a ‘news’ show “. So while they wrap the presentation of the Glenn Beck with the appearance of being a news show it is in fact not even close. What they have done is provide Beck with a platform through which he can spew his own brand of “news” and commentary without having to behave as a proper journalistic news service.
In effect they are saying that who cares if what we say (as a news service) is true or not as long as we can keep riling up the masses through vitriolic commentary. Beck, Fox News, and everyone in the news business that tries to mimic them are driving any trust we might have into the ground.
