No one could have imagined that CNN's in-house bigot, racist, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Semite is now starting to bite the hand that feeds him. You see, the reason the public thinks things are going badly in Iraq is because, apparently, CNN's news team has joined the rest of the media in refusing to report the truth about how great the Iraq war is really going. All CNN cares about, apparently, is painting our troops as baby killers. CNN's own host, Glenn Beck, said as much. And they pay him for this.
Okay, Jonathan Klein and CNN, make up your mind about New Orleans.
You sent Anderson Cooper to New Orleans to report live about the struggle to rebuild the city:
Good evening.
We don't care much for anniversaries on this program, solemn remembrances of stories long since past. But, tonight, we come to you from New Orleans to report on a story which is still very much unfolding.
Two years ago tonight, these streets were filling with water. Levees poorly built over decade on shifting sands failed. And, two years ago tonight, what was a natural disaster became very quickly a manmade one.
Now, two years later, the recovery of this city, this region, is under way. And it, too, is manmade. Two years ago tonight, governments failed. The people here have not. New Orleans is rising again.
You also had Soledad O'Brien (who never should have left the morning show, p.s.) do an hour long special on called "Children of the Storm."
But then, Mr. Klein, you have one of the stars of your network, Glenn Beck, completely trash New Orleans -- and say that the city should not be rebuilt.
Chris Achorn, who does yeoman's work bird-dogging Beck, reports that last night, while O'Brien and Cooper were doing their Katrina reports on one CNN network, the controversial host Glenn Beck was on CNN's Headline News saying don't rebuild New Orleans:
On the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Glenn Beck takes his distain and outright hatred for the city and people of New Orleans to another level. He just comes right out and says it, that we should not spend a single dime to rebuild New Orleans.
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, two years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and everybody`s still talking about rebuilding. I say don`t spend one thin dime. I`ll explain why.
BECK: Hello, America. Do not adjust your set, the truth coming your way. Possibly for the first time on Katrina.
It was two years ago that Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, and the gulf region. Thousands were left homeless, causing well over $150 billion in damages. And without question, Katrina is the worst national disaster in national history.
President Bush, Congress responded over $100 billion in aid to rebuild New Orleans. A lot of people, including me, think the president has blown it. Here`s the point tonight.
How much do I think should be spent rebuilding New Orleans? Zero. Nothing. Not a dime. And here`s how I got there.
So what is it, CNN? Do we believe Anderson and Soledad that your network cares about the people of New Orleans? Or is Glenn Beck the voice of CNN? More and more, it seems that the Beck's warped world-view is what Jonathan Klein wants his network to be.
CNN has finally decided to become FOX News. What other explanation for why, after everything far-right extremist Glenn Beck has said on the air, CNN would let him host Paula Zahn's prime-time show for a week? The man has suggested that Muslim-Americans, all of them, are working with the terrorists. He's riffed about "faggots" and fat chicks. He "hates" the families of the victims of September 11, and think Katrina victims are "scumbags." He compared Hillary Clinton to Adolf Hitler. He said, on the air, that Dennis Kucinich may have given his wife a date rape drug.
Even by FOX News standards, this guy is an idiot. But for CNN? This is truly embarrassing. If ratings are all that matter (and actually, Beck's ratings are terrible, and falling), and CNN's top brass doesn't care any more about being the most trusted name in news, then why not just air porn and snuff films and quit pretending that the network has any credibility left?
PS Joe had an idea. Since Paula Zahn has done all those shows about how horrible "Hate in America" is, maybe Glenn Beck could redo them, you know, presenting the other side's position?
[W]hereas CNN last year traded away its good name in exchange for debuting Beck's factually challenged and hateful brand of broadcasting, at least CNN execs were getting a ratings boost out of the Faustian bargain. Today, Beck's still making a mockery out of CNN's reputation on a daily basis, as he disparages liberals, gays, Democrats, blacks, immigrants, and Muslims at will. But in return, CNN's now stuck with a Beck program that's trapped in neutral and shows signs of sliding into reverse.
Well played, CNN....
It truly has become amateur hour at CNN.
James Zogby got it right late last year. After watching Beck's nearly year-long McCarthy-like crusade against Arabs and Muslims, the president of the Arab American Institute wrote, "While [the CNN] network may have hoped that Beck's flamboyant style would increase ratings, the cost to their integrity has been staggering."...
Indeed, the dirty little media secret is that Beck's show has hit a ratings brick wall. Despite the glowing press from The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others, which showered Beck with profiles because his show was being touted as the fastest-growing program on prime-time cable news, Beck in recent months has been flat-lining. In fact, he's actually losing viewers.
And Beck's ratings are plummeting. Advertisers should have been already skittish aligning their products with a show that worries that every single Muslim-American is working with the terrorists, but add poor ratings to hate and you've got a recipe for an advertiser exodus. Not to mention, it's hard for the senior brass to defend Beck against the very real inside-CNN insurgency taking place against the hate jock when Beck isn't even bringing in viewers, but rather is simply tarnishing CNN's good name.
The Nielsen rating numbers from April were particularly telling and highlighted how Beck's show appears to have completely maxed out less than 12 months after its debut. April was a news-heavy month, which produced a huge spike in cable news viewership following the campus massacre at Virginia Tech. Except, that is, for Glenn Beck. (On the night of the VT shooting, Glenn Beck finished last among prime-time cable news programs, excluding those on CNBC.)
Overall, for the month of April, ratings for CNN Headline News' prime-time lineup, which is anchored by Beck, were up a microscopic 4 percent, compared to healthy, double-digit gains posted by CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
A hot show? Please, Glenn Beck has become as cool as the other side of the pillow. For the month of April, Glenn Beck's original airing in the 7 p.m. time slot averaged 304,000 viewers, down from last September, when the program drew 321,000 viewers each night. In viewers aged 25-54, the key demographic group sought by advertisers, Glenn Beck averaged 122,000 last month. Again, that's down from September, when the program drew 149,000. So much for the being "the fastest-growing show on cable news," which was how Beck himself described the program earlier this year.
Last September was also when Glenn Beck surpassed MSNBC's Hardball in viewers 25-54, outpacing Chris Matthews' show by 17,000 viewers. No more. In April, Hardball beat Glenn Beck by 40,000 viewers in the 25-54 demographic each night. And often the tally these days is far larger. For instance, on Tuesday, May 1, Hardball bested Glenn Beck by nearly 200,000 total viewers. And with the presidential election season heating up, it's unlikely that trend toward the Beltway-centric Hardball and away from Glenn Beck is going to change in the coming weeks and months.
Why? Because some moron at CNN hired this jerk and apparently is afraid to admit that he really screwed up. Sounds like some presidents we know (and some Americans who hired him). More via DKos.
Appearing last night on CNN’s Larry King Live, Al Franken said that firing Don Imus was the “right decision,” but pointed out that CNN has its own anchor who regularly spews hateful and bigoted remarks.
“CNN has Glenn Beck on,” Franken told King. “Glenn Beck asked my congressman, Keith Ellison, who is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, you know, I just want to ask you, how do I know that you’re not working with the enemy? … I don’t know why that wasn’t grounds for CNN thinking, well, maybe Glenn Beck shouldn’t be on. I mean, how dare he say that to a congressman who has just been elected?”
King asked Franken, “With a lot of [controversial remarks] going on, are you calling for other dismissals?” Franken said, “No, I’m not. Just Glenn Beck on your network.”
On April 11, NBC News announced that it was dropping MSNBC's simulcast of Imus in the Morning in the wake of the controversy that erupted over host Don Imus' reference to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." The following day, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves announced that CBS -- which owns both the radio station that broadcast Imus' program and Westwood One, which syndicated the program -- has fired Imus and would cease broadcasting his radio show. But as Media Matters for America has extensively documented, bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity continue to permeate the airwaves through personalities such as Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson.
Okay, at what point is CNN going to tell this asshole to knock it off? CNN, you have a bigot as a host. Glenn Beck has attacked Muslims, women, gays, blacks, and now he's yet again going after gays. He just, moments ago, on the air, questioned whether Rosie O'Donnell is really a woman. Actually, he didn't question it at all - he pretty much suggested that she isn't a woman. Rosie is a lesbian and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what he meant - you know, lesbians aren't real women, they're actually men - at least according to CNN.
CNN has hired a bigot as one of their hosts, and they have been informed time and again about the hateful crap this guy is spewing on CNN's dime. It's time the network stopped acting like FOX News. Best Buy, among others, have supported this bigot for too long. Please visit Chris Achorn's blog and help put an end this to ridiculous exercise in hate.
UPDATE: ThinkProgress has the video. It's subtle, but notice how Beck gives the wavy hand sign when he mentions that Rosie is "a woman" - it's the sign you give to mean "more or less" or "not really." Watch it.
Of course, this is the same CNN host who called Mrs. Clinton a "bitch" two weeks ago, so why stop there? This is the same CNN host who suggested that all Muslim-Americans are working with the terrorists, that the word "faggot" isn't really much of a slur, that women should be referred to by their weight, that he "hates" the families of the victims of September 11, that Hurricane Katrina victims are "scumbags," and that Senator Obama is so "colorless... he might as well be white."
But hey, CNN wants ratings. And they've apparently learned that racism, sexism and homophobia work for FOX, so why not CNN? Very sad.
I wrote late last night about CNN host Glenn Beck's latest flirtation with intolerance. Now I'd like you to contact his sponsors.
After having suggested that Muslim-Americans are working with the terrorists, that the word "faggot" isn't really much of a slur, that women should be referred to by their weight, that he "hates" the families of the victims of September 11, that Hurricane Katrina victims are "scumbags," and oh so much more, Beck is now opining on the "whiteness" of Barack Obama.
You see, according to CNN's host, Senator Obama is so "colorless... he might as well be white."
Now, it's one thing to suggest that Obama is an African-American candidate who white Americans find comfortable, and I think that's true. But considering the source - a guy who has shown his intolerance to Muslim-Americans, gays, and women - these new comments about black people being white are troubling. Glenn Beck is not a guy who has devoted his life, or TV show, to trying to understand the nuances in multi-cultural America in a non-threatening, tolerant way.
Please go to Chris Achorn's blog, read Beck's comments for yourself, then use the information he provides to contact Beck's advertisers. And don't settle for the BS that Best Buy is claiming (and I'm sure others will as well), that they never "chose" to have their ads run on his show. Fine, then direct your ad buyer to tell CNN to never run your ads on his show again. It's quite simple, really.
This is the same CNN host who said that Muslim-Americans need to prove they're not working with the terrorists, who used the word "faggot" on the air and suggested it wasn't much of a slur, and who earlier today referred to one of the female singers of the Dixie Chicks as "the fat one." What a surprise that in addition to his problems with Muslims, gays, and women, he's also insensitive to African-Americans. And CNN and ABC (where he also is a commenter) have no problem with that.
And to top it off, Best Buy sponsors this pig. As do Ford, Office Depot and Welchs. We are so posting phone numbers come Tuesday morning. More from Media Matters. Hat tip to Chris Achorn.
