Fair and unfair criticism of Glenn Beck
Bookworm on Nov 20 2009 at 1:15 pm | Filed under: Media matters
I have to open this post by saying that I have never seen Glenn Beck, not even for a second. I don’t like the emotional school of journalism and, in any event, I prefer to read, not watch, my news. I do appreciate Glenn Beck, however, for two things: his ability and willingness to break the stories no one else will touch, and his commitment to classic libertarian (that is, “liberty from government”) principles. I like that in a man.
Not having seen Glenn Beck isn’t the same as not knowing about Glenn Beck. And one of the things I do know is that he probably ranks second to Sarah Palin in the amount of hatred he generates in the liberal heart. To them, he is Satan incarnate and must be destroyed. A perfect example of this is Nancy Franklin’s review of the Glenn Beck show in the most recent issue of The New Yorker. I have to say that it’s a fascinating review, because Franklin’s whole problem with Beck, when you boil her article down to its essentials, is that she believes his political views are evil. In that, it’s a startling contrast with Charles Murray’s review of Glenn Beck’s show, which approves of Beck’s politics, but disagrees with his periodically dishonest or careless tactics. To me, the latter review is an entirely credible approach — and one to which Beck should pay attention — while the former review is just a meaningless bit of “I hate him” journalism.
To expand upon my point about unfair criticism (he has a terrible show because he’s an evil man) versus fair criticism (he makes valid points but cheats by using invalid tactics) let me quote from and discuss each review. Here’s Nancy giving the game away in one of the very early paragraphs:
Some see him as a joke, and some see him as a danger, and some—especially those who like guns, don’t want health-care reform, and feel that their freedom is somehow threatened by every political initiative of the Obama Administration—are grateful to him, for his efforts to “take back America.” In March, Beck started the 9.12 Project—a forum for frustrated folks, meant to “bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001.” On that day, the Project’s online mission statement says, “we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created.” It’s true—we were. But nothing about Beck’s 9.12 Project has even a tinge of that post-9/11 spirit of generosity. One of the “principles” of the organization is “I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.” Beck invariably uses his real or feigned bromance with the Founding Fathers to explain his crabbed selfishness; he justifies this “principle” with a quote from George Washington, which actually has an entirely different spirit: “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” (Emphasis mine.)
Did you get that? Nancy’s problem with Beck is that she firmly believes that Government should force people to be charitable. It’s totally evil of him to believe, as both the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence would have us believe, that government exists primarily to stand aside. Foolishly, she tries to defeat this perfect libertarian principle by quoting George Washington in support of charity. Now, I ask you, did Glenn Beck dis charity or did he simply say it’s not charity anymore when the government stands in front of you and takes your money at gun point? Nancy, however, takes Washington’s classic Christian formulation and implies that Washington was in favor of socialized medicine.
This drumbeat is constant in Nancy’s review, even as she’s conceding that, well, maybe he was actually right:
Throughout the year, Beck has gone after Administration officials, repeatedly showing irresponsibly edited video clips, in which they say things that make them easy marks. Sometimes, though, the clips really do raise questions about someone’s judgment or self-awareness, even when you hear a longer version of the comments. Take Anita Dunn, the former White House director of communications. (She was filling the post this year on an interim basis and left last week.) Dunn gave a speech at a Maryland high school—Beck played a snippet so often that you could repeat it by heart—in which she clumsily used a quotation from Mao as a positive life lesson, and it’s no wonder Beck latched on to it. Van Jones, who was brought in by Obama to spearhead the creation of green jobs, was undone, in part, by Beck’s ceaseless screenings of his video past, and resigned in September. (The Administration should have known that some of Jones’s speeches, and other questionable parts of his record, would be made public; the Internet-savvyness of the Obama Presidential campaign seemed to vanish not long after the election.)
So, if I understand this correctly, Beck is a foul excuse for a journalist because he goes after Administration officials who say stupid things. (Apparently this was a good tactic during the Bush years, but is an unfair tactic during the Obama years.) Except that, actually, they really did say certain things and the administration should have known that they were hiring people who would make the American public see red, both in anger terms and political terms.
And so it goes. Nancy doesn’t like Beck’s style (which I can understand, because I don’t either), but what she really doesn’t like is his politics — something she ought to have confessed at the top of the column, just as I confessed at the top of this post that I know of Beck only by reputation.
Charles Murray has a much more interesting, and devastating, take on Beck — why is it that the loudest, truest, strongest voice of classic libertarianism keeps cheapening himself, and taking the risk that he destroys his message, by careless and dishonest tactics?
It’s been like that for six weeks of watching. Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95 percent of the substantive issues he talks about. He is a full-throated libertarian in a world of wishy-washy Republicans. The man is a gifted communicator. His style doesn’t happen to be one I like, but many times I’ve sat there on my sofa wishing I could make the same point as effectively.
But Beck uses tactics that include tiny snippets of film as proof of a person’s worldview, guilt by association, insinuation, and occasionally outright goofs like the fake quote. To put it another way, I as a viewer have no way to judge whether Beck is right. I have to trust that the snippets are not taken out of context, that the dubious association between A and B actually has evidence to support it, and that his numbers are accurate. It is impossible to have that trust.
So here’s the unbearable paradox. Beck really has had important effects on the way the Obama administration and its legislation is perceived. It is conceivable that if healthcare goes down to a razor-thin defeat, Beck will have made the difference. If that turns out to be the case, he will have made a far greater contribution to the survival of the American project than ink-stained wretches like me can dream of having. And I want to shut him up?
I don’t really want to shut him up. I want him to change. Take those enormous talents and make all the arguments that he can legitimately make. Keep the cutesy gimmicks (I understand that we’re talking entertainment here), but have an iceberg of evidence beneath the surface. Fox is making so much money from the show that it can afford the staff to do the homework.
Absolutely! Yes. That’s right. And an honest reviewer would have said the same, while at the same time acknowledging that she also has a huge problem with his political ideology. Instead, though, Franklin attacked his ideology and buried the core problem with Beck, which is his honesty.
I would love it if Beck and his staff would take Murray’s criticism to heart and clean up the show’s act. The show is a useful tool but, as Shakespeare said, “”Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have/ lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of/ myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,/ Iago, my reputation!” Beck cannot simultaneously (and appropriately) savage the reputation of the amazing collection of radicals surrounding the president while, at the same time, routinely sacrificing his own reputation for honesty and diligent research.
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11 Responses to “Fair and unfair criticism of Glenn Beck”
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My wife really likes Glenn Beck, so I have watched him periodically. For the most part I enjoy his show. I agree with you Book that I admire his audacity and agree with his political philosophy
I read Charles Murray’s review. I take him at his word that GB was broadcasting false or misleading information in the instance he cited. Whether that instance was typical or atypical, I don’t know. I do know that he frequently invites his critics to call him on misstatements, and few do. Do they think it better to ignore him? They have to answer that.
No question he is a showman. Often it is an effective way to hold his audience and to get his message across. Sometimes it is off-putting.
In sum, I am glad he is there, and doing what he does. I take some information from his program, and get more from sites such as this. Unless the information is something just too juicy to pass up, in other words for serious stuff, I insist on confirming sources.
“as Shakespeare said, ‘Oh, I have lost my reputation’”
The New Yorker, along with much of the MSM, has also lost its reputation, except that it is known for formulating its lies in long, dry, boring prose.
“I have to trust that the snippets are not taken out of context, that the dubious association between A and B actually has evidence to support it, and that his numbers are accurate. It is impossible to have that trust.”
a) He only has an hour show. To fulfill your requirements would probably take twice as long. If Fox would remove Geraldo (Jerry to his mother) and give Glenn his hour of broadcast time, maybe he could fulfill your requirment! It’d be ok with me…!!
b)The question really is “who can you trust?” We’ve all been lied to so often by the MSM doing the same sort of misleading reports that Murray complains about that it’s reasonable to be untrusting. In the end though, either you have to do all the research yourself, or you have to trust _somebody_.
Glenn Beck’s style isn’t really my cup of tea…but what he says…is.
Murray’s contradictory *quotes provides the cannon fodder for the argument that Beck puts across his message with too many bell and whistles. While he makes his case, in a less than sophisticated style (Top 40 radio style) he has your attention. For the non-reader or reader-lite, he moves his point along – the Evelyn Wood Speed Viewing Course.
That’s why it’s called the Glenn Beck Show, not the Glenn Beck News Hour.
*”Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are brothers” and “ Beck is spectacularly right (translation: I agree with him) on about 95 percent of the substantive issues he talks about”
Beck’s style has certainly ruffled the feathers of the peacock network and Franklin. If the New Yorker felt compelled to point and shoot and Book dropped the ‘Beck’ word (it’s like dreck in many circles) and he succeeded in bringing Van Jones front and center and his ‘exit’ – let him keep the format. If he moves to a news hour one day, he can clean up his act later.
“I want him to change. Take those enormous talents and make all the arguments that he can legitimately make. Keep the cutesy gimmicks”
In other words…”I agree with him…but d*mn, he embarasses me! Can’t be more _sophisticated_? … like _me_????”
In other words…he’s like Palin – he appeals to the everyman, which is just really embarassing for the well educated class…even though they really know she – and he – are absolutely right. And in my mind, I think of Kerry and Bush…the one so lah te dah, and the other so… well… _nice_!
“I would love it if Beck and his staff would take Murray’s criticism to heart and clean up the show’s act. ”
You know…it’s a pretty general accusation. Did he mention any specific erroneous information that Beck has broadcast? or is it just because of a lack of demonstrable specific references for his statements?
I think Murray only used the Jefferson quote as an example.
The irony here is that Obama is all style and no substance, but of course, no one on the flip side of the coin thinks that’s relevant to coverage.
suek, you hit the nail with Palin and Beck in the same breath/sentence. It’s gotten to the point when someone is honest and in your face with it – the doofuscats are aghast.
The voter has gotten so used to a snow job, they can’t see Spring.
It is impossible to have that trust.
Why do you need trust when you can research the connections yourself.
Oh right, that’s because you don’t have the motivation or the resources to do the research yourself.
At the same time that Beck is forward on these issues, it is precisely because he has the motivation and thus the resources. If it was so easy for Fox to hire up some background researchers, one would expect the New York Times, the Obama administration, and professional columnists to be able to do the same thing. But they won’t do the same thing, because they lack motivation.
The same thing that propels Beck to the front, automatically implies that the motivation to do research is only invested in those like Beck. You can’t separate the two abilities. Remove the motivation, and you get Peggy Noonan. There’s no such thing as taking initiative and attacking the enemy means that one could do just as good a job if one changed one’s methods. In point of fact, often the methods are the very reason for original success.
Beck is just one man, and one man has a multitude of flaws. But those flaws aggregate to form success in this case. Take away the flaws and you take away the success. There is no such thing as reverse engineering human personality to a more pleasant original form. What you see is what you get.
Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are brothers.
That’d be more convincing if the author did his own homework.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/j/jefferson-quotes.htm
“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.”-Truth! Found on page 143
You see, it doesn’t matter if this quote existed or not. What matters is that Beck has access to many quotes like this, which if aren’t necessarily true to an ignorant public addicted to google, is at least academically verified by sources.
“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”-Truth! Found on page 227
Beck has many of these quotes in his arsenal. But these aren’t popular knowledge. You don’t see em on google, or rather if you do see em on google you won’t have access to the original source documents or even the secondary sources covering the primary sources. This is not your average Ivy league research project. Much of this stuff is buried by Leftist lies, obfuscations, and historical decimation.
Status: This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It bears a very vague resemblance to Jefferson’s comment in a prospectus for his translation of Destutt de Tracy’s Treatise on Political Economy: “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.’”
Beck has to use sub-standard sources because the academic firepower or professional researchers are not on his side. And it wouldn’t even matter if they paid someone else to do this, because this kind of research actually takes skill and judgment, not just Democrat patronage type hackery. You have to find someone that can acknowledge the truth when they see it. And where are you going to be able to find someone like that from the public education system willingly to work for a price Beck can pay? If Fox News and their competitors can’t find enough people to research shallow war and civic CURRENT EVENTS to get things accurate, how are they going to justify putting serious conservative and valued academics on this subject.
We’re talking about a conspiracy needed, not a one on one private relationship.
And how the hell does the author know, absolutely know, that it was Beck who ‘found this quote’ and not one of his staffers and research artists who, being either young or underpaid, didn’t devote the days required to search through all of Jefferson’s writings and second source sources for verification?
The author should take his own advice, precisely because a google search gave me an alternative quote Beck could have used. If I was criticizing Beck, I’d recommend he use that quote. Because you see, if I want him to do his homework, I’d do my homework and then I’d showboat him by giving him a better result than the one he created, while this author admits openly that he can’t equal Beck’s work but criticizes it nonetheless as being inferior to some abstract standard.
Victory and failure are born of realistic standards, not abstract standards.
Take those enormous talents and make all the arguments that he can legitimately make.
That’s like telling Bush that Bush should stay stubborn and have all his good qualities, but change how he does things politically.
Newsflash: Bush wouldn’t be Bush without his problems and virtues, which means you can’t drastically change his style without changing what made him Bush.
It’s also like wishing Obama and Clinton could be just as charismatic as they are in speech, but with a conservative and military loving personality. Hello sheep of the world, the reason Obama and Clinton are charismatic is because they are narcissists. Narcissists hate people who excel in life through merit, and not through cunning deception and narcissistic rage. Remove the narcissism and you remove much of Obama and Clinton’s personal magnetism. They can’t keep their good qualities, change their core behavior on stuff, just to please you, and still be the Obama. No, better to wish they were Sarah Palins. Change the entire edifice. Don’t try to reverse engineer stuff that can’t be reverse engineered. Wipe the slate clean and start all over, from day 1 of birth.
The local radio station in Columbus Ohio started carrying the Glenn Beck radio program starting 9/11/01 to replace Dr. Laura. I’ve been listening to Beck ever since, was thrilled when his show was on CNN Headline News and was elated when he moved to Fox. Not everybody gets Glenn Beck. I liken him to an everyday guy you would have a conversation with at the water cooler. But I believe he does the research to back up his accusations. I think if Murray is poo-pooing Beck’s use of an unattributed Thomas Jefferson quote as one of Beck’s flaws, he’s skating on thin ice. I’m wondering if Beck uses Bartlett’s Book of Quotations or their database for his quotes? Frankly, I think Beck’s method of presenting things in a humorous manner is sometimes a detriment. I subscribed to his magazine and found it unreadable. I haven’t read any of his recent books for fear they are similar. I would rather have a hard-hitting, fact-laden volume than some of the picture books Beck produces. In spite of his shortcomings and showmanship, Glenn Beck is doing some very important work in countering the evils of the reigning Marxists in Washington. I wish we had 100 more like him, or a least more honesty in the Lame Stream Media.
I have to agree with all that is said here. Nancy Franklin is simpy beating down some one who is her enemy. She can’t win with facts of truths so she is going right to the liberal game plan of destroying your enemy by saying nasty things. Glad some one is calling her out. I wrote a paper on this as well and submitted it to the NewYorker for my class. Hahahah think they will publish it?