Say what you will about Glenn Beck. The so-called "eyeball-magnet" has resurrected a number of issues with his Obama=racist-with-a-deep-seated-hatred-for-White-people statement, and advertisers are flexing their slowly atrophying muscles. Who said the dying traditional broadcast medium was playing second fiddle to new media?
"The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors." Operative word there seems to be "might." Have there been RECENT studies showing that viewer dissatisfaction leads to negative consumer behavior? Is this the same world that claims if you watch it a million times, it may annoy you, but you will remember the brand (and, conceivably, buy a product because of its familiarity)? With all these viewers now tuning in, why are advertisers shying away like ridiculously shrinking violets?
All Glenn Beck is doing is loudly and obnoxiously contributing to the marketplace of ideas. If his statement was so inflammatory and was untrue, then he and his handlers will have a lawsuit on their hands. Agreed? That's perhaps one main reason why Fox has distanced itself quickly from its Beckster. But colorofchange.org is using its own clout to pressure advertisers to dump Beck, and it seems to be working. (Most notable, and perhaps ironic, example: Clorox).
Does anyone think if colorofchange.org was not an organization concerned with advocacy for people of color, the backlash wouldn't be louder? Are we (general "we") becoming afraid to confront these organizations when they apply pressure to white conservatives? Just because these white conservatives are silly and narrow-minded? I don't think we're looking at a racial issue here, but I would like to hear from some of you who are afraid this kind of matter is emblematic of a greater issue, one that represents a slippier slope than we care to acknowledge.
And for the record, I do not think that punditry belongs in the newsroom. It's just that the "newsroom" has become increasingly hard to define and as a result more difficult to regulate or follow. As far back as 1998, Neil Hickey wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that Fox's actual "newssegments" seemed straightforward and that the main bias lay in their commentary and in the editors' choice of stories they felt the mainstream press had ignored. Whatever.
Bernard Goldberg's recent book, "Arrogance," on what he called a "liberal" media bias, is largely unreadable (in my opinion). Perhaps it makes for good john reading, if you like a good laugh or an overly long, poorly written rant. But Bernie has a point to make. It concerns what is believed by some to be an elitist culture at what has come to be known as the "prestige press." Why is it OK to disparage fundamentalist Christians, or Scientologists, but not Jews, Native Americans, or an African American president? There is a political correctness that marginalizes many Americans outside the "protected" groups, and I think it certainly is an improvement over the bigoted culture that defined much of our history until the late 1900s, but there is an overcompensating backlash to that era and I think that this is a media and free-speech problem that will only get bigger. And it will soon have little to do with advertisers.
"The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors." Operative word there seems to be "might." Have there been RECENT studies showing that viewer dissatisfaction leads to negative consumer behavior? Is this the same world that claims if you watch it a million times, it may annoy you, but you will remember the brand (and, conceivably, buy a product because of its familiarity)? With all these viewers now tuning in, why are advertisers shying away like ridiculously shrinking violets?
All Glenn Beck is doing is loudly and obnoxiously contributing to the marketplace of ideas. If his statement was so inflammatory and was untrue, then he and his handlers will have a lawsuit on their hands. Agreed? That's perhaps one main reason why Fox has distanced itself quickly from its Beckster. But colorofchange.org is using its own clout to pressure advertisers to dump Beck, and it seems to be working. (Most notable, and perhaps ironic, example: Clorox).
Does anyone think if colorofchange.org was not an organization concerned with advocacy for people of color, the backlash wouldn't be louder? Are we (general "we") becoming afraid to confront these organizations when they apply pressure to white conservatives? Just because these white conservatives are silly and narrow-minded? I don't think we're looking at a racial issue here, but I would like to hear from some of you who are afraid this kind of matter is emblematic of a greater issue, one that represents a slippier slope than we care to acknowledge.
And for the record, I do not think that punditry belongs in the newsroom. It's just that the "newsroom" has become increasingly hard to define and as a result more difficult to regulate or follow. As far back as 1998, Neil Hickey wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review that Fox's actual "newssegments" seemed straightforward and that the main bias lay in their commentary and in the editors' choice of stories they felt the mainstream press had ignored. Whatever.
Bernard Goldberg's recent book, "Arrogance," on what he called a "liberal" media bias, is largely unreadable (in my opinion). Perhaps it makes for good john reading, if you like a good laugh or an overly long, poorly written rant. But Bernie has a point to make. It concerns what is believed by some to be an elitist culture at what has come to be known as the "prestige press." Why is it OK to disparage fundamentalist Christians, or Scientologists, but not Jews, Native Americans, or an African American president? There is a political correctness that marginalizes many Americans outside the "protected" groups, and I think it certainly is an improvement over the bigoted culture that defined much of our history until the late 1900s, but there is an overcompensating backlash to that era and I think that this is a media and free-speech problem that will only get bigger. And it will soon have little to do with advertisers.
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