Media Critic Glenn Beck On His Shocking Time Cover: Pot Meet Kettle

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by Glynnis MacNicol | 8:10 am, September 18th, 2009

» 9 comments

340x_custom_1253203512448_becktime Glenn Beck took a moment on last night’s show to critique the cover of the this week’s “fringe media” Time featuring him, the ‘Mad Man.’ And to give credit where credit is due he makes a fair observation about the media world: he is not the only media type out there peddling paranoia!

The Time cover story describes Beck as a man “with his ear uniquely tuned to the precise frequency at which anger, suspicion and the fear that no one’s listening all converge…People are scared.” Scared you say? Why might that be? Beck rightly points out that all the top stories on the cover of Time are also rather fear instilling: flu phobia and how fear goes viral, Mason ardor, why the system is still broke. Beck does not own the patent on media paranoia.

It’s not just Time of course, sharp, sometimes shocking covers are have become a last desperate push to get magazines off of newsstands. One need look no further than this summer’s Newsweeks for evidence of that. Beck is arguably just doing a far better job of getting the public to buy into it.

Cover Wars, Glenn Beck, New York Post, Newsweek, Time

Gianrico

If Beck taps into 1% of the general population, does that mean that the “public” is buying into his fears and paranoia? EMPHATIC NO! He still represents the lunatic fringe. Albeit a very profitable fringe. They follow him and buy what he sells. He’s not expanding his base. Time tapping into it will make it profitable this week. I would suspect that Beck’s base will snap up this week’s copies. But, the magazine will remain as fringe as it’s cover subject.
m

Beck is not fringe at all. He’s mainstream. That’s what’s incredibly depressing about the whole thing.
mikesundown

With all the focus on the goofy left getting routed by Glenn Beck, little attention has been paid to the media’s worst purveyor of hate — Keith Olbermann. Apparently the concept of hypocrisy is lost on him, because while bleating about the lack of civility in public discourse today, he spends every night calling people racists, cowards and liars. He even called John McCain a coward, raising the delicious fantasy of Obermann being tortured for five years and seeing how well he’d bounce back. Obermann is a prime candidate for the c-word himself, since unlike nemesis Bill O’Reilly he never brings on a guest who might disagree with him, preferring to stack his nightly lineup with lockstep liberals and sycophants. As a political intellect, he’s a great sports anchor.
http://www.youtube.com/cmdrgmh cmdrgmh

I think Chris Matthews had it right last night.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4aUnXAR7y4
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mo-MoDo/1622750324 Mo MoDo

Media Matters thinks the article isn’t vicious enough (surprise). Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post defends the Time article writer and starts a inter-league squabble with Media Matters. Follow all the action here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2009/09/media_matters_glenn_beck_and_t.html
sarainitaly

Mo MoDo says:
September 18, 2009 at 4:31 pm

I’m sorry, but when I read this: Follow all the action here, I hear: Follow all the action here, you racist b*tch.

Fair or not, that’s what I hear.
ImNotBlue

Sara… I heard that too!

It’s amazing what you “hear” when you’re not really listening… right MooMoo?
SuperSmart

sarainitaly/ImNotBlue, you can read between the lines?? Who would have guessed.
sarainitaly

yes, we have the same ability as MoDO! we hear things that aren’t there.