Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:08 pm
Bill O’Reilly had Glenn Beck on his FNC program tonight for what could best be described as a tag team effort to discredit the Color of Change boycott of advertisers on Beck’s show. O’Reilly claimed that the boycott was being carried out by “left wing loons.” Beck blamed Van Jones, and the commies in the Obama administration.
Here is the video courtesy of Media Matters:
O’Reilly said, “You may remember that earlier this year a fanatical left pressure group called Think Progress tried to get sponsors to boycott The O’Reilly Factor. That effort failed dismally, now Glenn Beck is under fire from another crazy group founded by a guy who is working inside the Obama administration.”
Bill-O continued the spin job by later saying, “You’ve got far left loons are over the place in this country, and they want to hurt you and they want to hurt me, because they don’t really believe in freedom of speech, the far left loons. They want to hear what they want and if you oppose them, they hate you.”
Beck went on the attack against Van Jones. Beck admitted that he didn’t know if Jones was targeting him but said, “I have been telling the truth about this guy for some time. This guy is our new green jobs czar, and he is a self proclaimed communist revolutionary, named his four year old son after a Marxist guerilla out of Africa…believes that Mao Zedong was a great guy. He is now in the White House as a special advisor.”
Instead of being a radical group as Beck and O’Reilly charge, here is what Color of Change does according to their website, “ColorOfChange.org is comprised of Black folks from every economic class, as well as those of every color who seek to help our voices be heard. Our members are united behind a simple, powerful pledge: we will do all we can to make sure all Americans are represented, served, and protected—regardless of race or class.”
So Beck and O’Reilly considers a group that is out to politically organize minorities to be radical. Something tells me that if Color of Change was a bunch of white people backing Republicans, Beck and O’Reilly would be praising them. If I understand this correctly, Beck is having his free speech violated, even though he still has his show and is free to say whatever he wants because some advertisers left him.
Notice how Glenn and Bill conveniently ignore the fact that the boycott started when Beck called Obama a racist on Fox and Friends. Advisers aren’t leaving Beck because of communists in the White House. They are leaving Beck because race based politics scares the hell out of corporate America. Beck brought this all on himself.
This segment tonight was the beginning of the Fox News push back against the boycott. They are going to try to frame it as a bunch of radical lefties out to get Beck. Unlike the Think Progress boycott of O’Reilly which did have very little success, the Color of Change boycott has worked. FNC can try to spin this any way they want, but it has been a constant headache for Beck and the network.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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