Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 04:57 pm
On his radio show today Glenn Beck and co-host Pat Gray made what could perhaps be labeled as their most fantastic claim yet. They claimed that Fox News is crawling with liberals, “How many liberals does Fox have on the network? Many. Not just guests either, there are some who actually host programs.”
Here is the audio from Media Matters:
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Beck co-host Pat Gray claimed that Fox News is full of liberals, “How many liberals does Fox have on the network? Many. Not just guests either, there are some who actually host programs. I mean yes. Can you think of any? I mean they come immediately, they spring immediately to mind. This idea, this notion that I have clearly stated in the past that there are no dissenting points of view on Fox, it’s ridiculous. It’s unbelievable. Beck chimed in with, ” Well it doesn’t matter, because look, once they start going down this trail, they’re done.”
What I found most interesting is that Gray used the same argument to defend Fox News that racists use to defend their hiring practices. Compare, Gray’s statement, “How many liberals does Fox have on the network? Many. Not just guests either, there are some who actually host programs,” to, “Sure we have lots of black people who work for us. In fact, some of them are even managers.”
Wow, who knew that Fox News was just crawling with liberals? I love their liberal shows like….hmmmm, you know, and then there is that other…..wait a minute, there are no liberal shows on Fox News. I guess Beck and company were trying to sell Shep Smith as one of the many liberal hosts on Fox, but I don’t view Shep as liberal. Smith is more like a lonely sane conservative island surrounded by a sea of right wing crazy.
I know that Beck and Gray think that their audience is stupid, and if their audience is a little light in the gray matter their condition can be attributed to spending their days listening to Glenn and Pat, but this claim should be an insult even to the intellectual black hole known as Glenn Beck fans.
The very reason that Fox News is so profitable is because it caters to the audience of the closed-minded. The typical FNC viewer does not want to watch a liberal host or guests. If this was what they wanted, they wouldn’t be watching Fox. (To some degree MSNBC follows the same model, but at least some of their hosts like Rachel Maddow and O’Donnell try to give a fair hearing to the opposing point of view. I won’t even venture to include Fox News/Bill O’Reilly styled Keith Olbermann in this discussion). It is a joke that Beck and Gray would even try to sell FNC as a home for dissenting points of view.
The problem with much of cable news is that there is too little discussion from differing points of view, but at least MSNBC is honest about what it is, while Glenn Beck continues to treat his audience like paste eating three year olds, who he continually urges to take their allowance money and buy his latest endorsed trinket, scam, or book.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
