I've never felt that Glenn advocated an armed assault-ever.

Isn't it odd how the MSM will twist things to shape public perception?

I wonder why...

HH
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Fox News’s Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star

Nicholas Roberts for The New York Times

Glenn Beck, after two months, has 2.3 million viewers.

BuzzPermalinkBy BRIAN STELTER and BILL CARTER

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30beck.html?_r=1&hp

Published: March 29, 2009

“You are not alone,” Glenn Beck likes to say. For the disaffected and aggrieved Americans of the Obama era, he could not have picked a better rallying cry.

Mr. Beck, an early-evening host on the Fox News Channel, is suddenly one of the most powerful media voices for the nation’s conservative populist anger. Barely two months into his job at Fox, his program is a phenomenon: it typically draws about 2.3 million viewers, more than any other cable news host except Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, despite being on at 5 p.m., a slow shift for cable news.

With a mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future, Mr. Beck, a longtime radio host who jumped to Fox from CNN’s Headline News channel this year, is capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans.

In an interview, Mr. Beck, who recently rewatched the 1976 film “Network,” said he identified with the character of Howard Beale, the unhinged TV news anchorman who declares on the air that he is “mad as hell.”

“I think that’s the way people feel,” Mr. Beck said. “That’s the way I feel.” In part because of Mr. Beck, Fox News — long identified as the favored channel for conservatives and Republican leaders — is enjoying a resurgence just two months into Mr. Obama’s term. While always top-rated among cable news channels, Fox’s ratings slipped during the long Democratic primary season last year. Now it is back on firm footing as the presumptive network of the opposition, with more than 1.2 million viewers watching at any given time, about twice as many as CNN or MSNBC.

While Mr. O’Reilly, the 8 p.m. host, paints himself as the outsider and Mr. Hannity, at 9, is more consistently ideological, Mr. Beck presents himself as a revivalist in a troubled land.

He preaches against politicians, hosts regular segments titled “Constitution Under Attack” and “Economic Apocalypse,” and occasionally breaks into tears.

Michael Smerconish, a fellow syndicated talk show host, said that Mr. Beck “has a gift for touching the passion nerve.”

Tapping into fear about the future, Mr. Beck also lingers over doomsday situations; in a series called “The War Room” last month he talked to experts about the possibility of global financial panic and widespread outbreaks of violence. He challenged viewers to “think the unthinkable” so that they would be prepared in case of emergency.

“The truth is — that you are the defender of liberty,” he said. “It’s not the government. It’s not an army or anybody else. It’s you. This is your country.”

And always, Mr. Beck’s emotions are never far from the surface. “That’s good dramatic television,” said Phil Griffin, the president of a Fox rival, MSNBC. “That’s who Glenn Beck is.”

Mr. Beck says he believes every word he says on his TV show, and the radio show that he still hosts from 9 a.m. to noon each weekday.

He says that America is “on the road to socialism” and that “God and religion are under attack in the U.S.” He recently wondered aloud whether FEMA was setting up concentration camps, calling it a rumor that he was unable to debunk.

At the same time, though, he says he is an entertainer. “I’m a rodeo clown,” he said in an interview, adding with a coy smile, “It takes great skill.”

And like a rodeo clown, Mr. Beck incites critics to attack by dancing in front of them.

“There are absolutely historical precedents for what is happening with Beck,” said Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism. “There was a lot of radio evangelism during the Depression. People were frustrated and frightened. There are a lot of scary parallels now.”

The conservative writer David Frum said Mr. Beck’s success “is a product of the collapse of conservatism as an organized political force, and the rise of conservatism as an alienated cultural sensibility.”

“It’s a show for people who feel they belong to an embattled minority that is disenfranchised and cut off,” he said.

Joel Cheatwood, a senior vice president for development at Fox News, said he thought Mr. Beck’s audience was a “somewhat disenfranchised” one. And, he added, “it’s a huge audience.”

Mr. Beck has used phrases like “we surround them,” invoked while speaking vaguely about people who do not share his discomfort with the “direction America is being taken in.”

His comments have prompted several bloggers to speculate recently that the TV host may have been promoting an armed revolt.

Fucking liberal pussies...

I hope he does stir some fucking people up enough to get mad at the goings on of our govt....There needs to be an awakening...Whatever happens....HAPPENS!

Now that's journalism.  Finish a supposed news article with an unsupported, non-specific non sequitur regarding an anonymous group that may or may not have any relevance.

Beck goes a little nuts sometimes, but I really like that he's stirring up an interest in the founders and the meaning of the Constitution and making people realize how little the current politicians in government follow either of them.

My professor was just on his show the other day!

Dr. Gellately, check him out on amazon.com. Very good reading, very relevant to this day.

Good.

oxeymoron(sp?)??

Seriously, what the fuck?

Not the worst thing i've heard that someone in the media can do.

Who the hell is 'Nicholas Roberts'? The only one I found was a photog specializing in bad photos of President Bush and good ones of Clinton.

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Nicholas+Roberts%22+%22new+york+times%22&ndsp=20&hl=en&start=10&sa=N

I may not agree with Beck, but seeing the NYT get their knickers in a knot over him is all good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn6goF9GRTY

Glenn Beck & Dr. Robert Gellately.

Glenn Beck's program speaks to the somewhat disenfranchised minority, but it is a media phenomenon that draws the third largest audience of cable programs?

The NYT couldn't find the truth to save thier life.

QTF: But who is #1 in viewership and the most hated man on T.V.; BILL FUCKING O'REILLY. People are pissed.