Glenn Beck screams Obama's a racist! Advertisers flee from Beck's Fox show as if Beck had leprosy

Click image, maybe this sucker grows.

The Associated Press (USA newswire)
Monday 24 August 2009

Glenn Beck's advertisers
flee in terror from his
Race-Hatred Fox Cable Fiesta

by David Bauder, Associated Press

NEW YORK —- Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago.

While it's unclear what effect, if any, this will ultimately have on Fox and Beck, it is already making advertisers skittish about hawking their wares within the most opinionated cable TV shows.

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that

"we do not want to be associated
with inflammatory speech used by
either liberal or conservative
talk show hosts."

The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that it has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.

The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a "safe" environment for their messages. 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.

They also host the most-watched programs on their networks.

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation, averaging 2,400,000 viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

ColorofChange.org quickly targeted companies whose ads had appeared during Beck's show, telling them what he had said and seeking a commitment to drop him. The goal is to make Beck a liability, said James Rucker, the organization's executive director.

"They have a toxic asset," Rucker said. "They can either clean it up or get rid of it."

It's not immediately clear how many of the companies actually knew they were advertising on Beck's show. Sometimes commercial time is chosen for a specific show, but often it is bought on a rotation basis, meaning the network sprinkles the ads throughout the day on its own schedule. Sometimes ads appear by mistake; Best Buy said it bought commercial time for earlier in the day, and one of its ads unexpectedly appeared in Beck's show.

One company, CVS Caremark, said it advertises on Fox but hadn't said anything about Beck. Now it has told its advertising agency to inform Fox that it wanted no commercials on Beck.

"We support vigorous debate, especially around policy issues that affect millions of Americans, but we expect it to be informed, inclusive and respectful," said spokeswoman Carolyn Castel.

Besides the unpredictability of the opinionated cable hosts, the rapid pace of today's wired world complicates decisions on where to place ads, said Kathleen Dunleavy, a spokeswoman for Sprint [US telephone company]. She said she was surprised at how fast the Beck issue spread across social media outlets and how quickly advertiser names were attached to it.

UPS' Hallabran said the decision to pull commercials "should not be interpreted as we are permanently withdrawing our advertising from Fox." He said the company wants to reach viewers with a wide spectrum of opinions.

Except for UPS Stores, there's no evidence that any advertisers who say they don't want to be on Beck's show are leaving Fox. Network spokeswoman Irena Briganti said the companies have simply requested the ads be moved elsewhere and that Fox hasn't lost any revenue.

She wouldn't say whether Fox was benefiting from any anti-anti-Beck backlash, with companies looking to support him. Some Beck supporters have urged fans to express their displeasure at companies for abandoning their man.

Beck supporters have suggested that retaliation might have something to do with ColorofChange.org's campaign. One of the group's founders, Van Jones, now works in the Obama administration and has been criticized by Beck. But Rucker said Jones has nothing to do with ColorofChange.org now and didn't even know about the campaign before it started.

Beck's strong ratings —- even at 5 p.m. EDT he often outdraws whatever CNN and MSNBC show in prime-time -— make it unlikely Beck is going anywhere even as the list of advertisers avoiding him approaches 36.

But it could mean advertising time becomes cheaper on his show than such a large audience would normally command. Some of his show's advertisers last week included a male enhancement pill, a law firm looking to sue on behalf of asbestos victims, a company selling medical supplies to diabetics and a water filter company.

Rucker said ColorofChange.org has contacted about 60 companies regarding Beck, and is heartened by the response.

"It's causing a certain conversation around Beck, which I think is important," he said.

On the Net:

* http://www.colorofchange.org
* http://www.foxnews.com

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

- 30 -

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http://www.colorofchange.org

Stop the Race Baiting

Here's the message we sent to our members, asking them to call on advertisers to drop their support for FOX's Glenn Beck.

After you've read it, please add your voice.

President Obama has "hatred for white people"?

Glenn Beck -- race-baiting and peddling fear

Glenn Beck is using his platform to stoke race-based hate and fear.

Help us fight back, by hitting Beck where it hurts, NOW:

Dear ColorOfChange.org member,

More and more, right-wing talk show hosts are bringing race-based fear mongering into the mainstream, but FOX's Glenn Beck just took it to another level. On Tuesday, Beck said:

This president has exposed himself
as a guy over and over and over again
who has a deep-seated hatred for white people ...
this guy is, I believe, a racist.

[1]

It's part of a larger argument Beck has been making:2 that President Obama is using the White House to serve the needs of Black communities at White people's expense. This kind of talk stirs up fear, hate, and it can lead to violence.3,4

Together we can stop Glenn Beck.5 Starting today we're calling Beck's advertisers, asking them if they want to be associated with this kind of racist hate and fear-mongering. When they see tens of thousands of people signing on behind that question, we believe they'll move their advertising dollars elsewhere, damaging the viability of his show and possibly putting him out of business.

All it requires is you, standing up and being counted. Please take a moment to join the effort, and invite your friends and family to do the same:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/

Glenn Beck is appealing to the worst in America. Of course, some people refuse to accept the fact that our president is Black or the idea that he could truly serve all Americans. We know that. The only way these views will fade away is if they're not reinforced by mainstream society. Instead, folks like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs,6 and Rush Limbaugh7 are exploiting racism and race-based fear to bump their ratings, stirring up racial discord in the process.

The dangers of these tactics are real. We saw the same dynamic during the presidential race: by the end, the McCain/Palin campaign was unable to control the violent energy whipped up by their race-baiting. The result was an unprecedented number of threats on Obama's life, a rise in the number of hate groups, and an increase in the number of threats and crimes against immigrants and Black people.8,9,10

FOX has had a long history of race-baiting and racism on its shows, and we've run campaigns calling them out.11,12 But Glenn Beck appears to be taking the network to an even lower standard. He's trying to divide and distract America when we should be coming together and talking about issues that really matter--like health care and the economy.

The good news is that we have the power to stop this. All major media is funded by advertising. And advertisers, more than anything, care what consumers think. If we want to change what's happening and put an end to folks like Glenn Beck having a platform, we can do it.

It's up to us, and it can start now. Please join us:

http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani
and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team

July 30th, 2009

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

https://secure.colorofchange.org/contribute/

References

1. "Beck: Obama has 'exposed himself as a guy' with 'a deep seated hatred for white people'" Media Matters, 7-28-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907280008

2. "Glenn Beck: Obama agenda driven by 'reparations' and desire to 'settle old racial scores'," Media Matters, 7-23-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907230040

3. "Palin linked to death threats against Obama," Economic Times, 11-9-2008
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3691429.cms

4. "Obama win prompts wave of hate crimes," Times Online, 11-17-2008
http://tinyurl.com/5rhf29

5. "MSNBC's Deutsch encourages viewers to demand advertisers on Beck's show spend money elsewhere," Media Matters, 7-29-09
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907290037

6. "On Television and Radio, Talk of Obama's Citizenship," The New York Times, 7-24-09
http://tinyurl.com/mb467j

7. "Rush and reparations," The Nation, 5-12-2009
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/435392/rush_and_reparations

8. See reference 2.

9. See reference 3.

10. "Homeland Security report warns of rising right-wing extremism, Huffington Post, 4-14-2009
http://tinyurl.com/cpgx6q

11. ColorOfChange.org email on Fox's attacks on the Obamas
http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/message.html

12. "An overview: Fox News and its problem with African-Americans," ColorOfChange.org

http://colorofchange.org/fox/summary.html