Glenn Beck: Stop the Insanity

By Josh Silver, Free Press. Posted September 11, 2009.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Father Charles Coughlin's hate speeches were broadcast into millions of homes during the 1930s. Coughlin's anti-Semitic rants incited prejudice and violence. Now, in the Internet age, it seems positively antiquated that one person could have such a powerful soapbox to engage in fear-mongering and hate speech.

In fact, it seems insane.

We would never stand for that today, right? So why do our media continue to resemble the hate radio of decades past? How did it happen that just a few media pundits can disseminate such vitriol and misinformation into millions of homes, and -- worse -- cast it as real news?

Father Coughlin must be dancing in his grave. His model for using the media to manipulate the American people through fear and division lives on in the form of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and other extremists that propagandize millions of Americans daily. And unlike Coughlin, these guys have powerful corporations to back them up.

In the last month, Beck launched a smear campaign against one of Obama's top environmental advisers and forced his resignation. Van Jones is one of the great, principled leaders of our time, and he was unceremoniously hung out to dry while the White House quietly acquiesced to the agents of fear.

Emboldened, the extremists have moved on to other targets, calling Obama's speech to kids -- in which the president implored them to work hard and stay in school -- a "socialist" plot that must be stopped. Their baseless hysteria caused entire school districts to cancel plans to air the president's speech. Beck said on his website last weekend, "....judging by the other radicals in this administration, I expect that questioning to continue for the foreseeable future."

That Fox News Channel lets Beck use its media megaphone to stir up hatred and fear of others is repulsive, divisive and beyond all common sense or decency. By giving Beck a nightly platform for witch hunts and smear campaigns, Rupert Murdoch's media empire undermines our democracy.

But Fox News is not alone. Unfortunately, this kind of rant is endemic to a media system that cares about ratings far more than about the truth.

Most Americans want their kids to work hard and stay in school; most Americans want affordable health care. But if you watch Fox or listen to right-wing radio, you would think the opposite is true, and that the only proponents of these common goals are radical communists operating out of the White House basement.

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Josh Silver is the Executive Director of Free Press a national, nonpartisan organization that he co-founded with Robert McChesney and John Nichols in 2002 to engage citizens in media policy debates and create a more democratic and diverse media system.

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