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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHoly F**k! CNN Explores Joint Venture With Paranoid, Racist, Lunatic Glenn Beck
By Mark NC - August 23, 2014
As if to prove that television news executives are lowest form of life on the planet, CNN recently held talks with Glenn Beck about forming a joint venture between the struggling network and Becks lame video blog, The Blaze. According to a report in Rupert Murdochs Wall Street Journal it would be
a new venture between CNN-parent Time Warner and The Blaze that would replace HLNs current programming with Blaze programming.
What on Earth could they be thinking? The prospect of bringing Beck back to CNN (or television) makes no sense whatsoever. When Beck left his show on CNNs Headline News it was in the ratings dumpster. He routinely lost to his competition and was the lowest rated program on CNNs primetime lineup. He gathered more viewers at Fox News, but only because his toxic philosophy was a better fit for the fear-mongering, right-wing propaganda channel. However, when he left Fox News just two years later he was a pariah who couldnt keep advertisers due to his rancid rhetoric and hate-filled, paranoid tirades. Even Fox acknowledged that he was a liability. After Beck, pretending that the exit was his idea, said he told himself that If you do not leave now, you wont leave with your soul intact, Fox retorted
Glenn Beck wasnt trying to save his soul, he was trying to save his ass. Advertisers fled his show and even Glenn knows what that means in our industry.
So what exactly did CNN find attractive about the notion of reignited their romance with this loser? He has an even smaller audience now than he did at CNN five years ago. Thats why he is currently on a PR campaign to rehabilitate his noxious image. But despite admitting that he has said stupid things, and his other disingenuous attempts to cast himself as repentant for his past vulgarities, he is still the same vituperative huckster of gloom that he has always been. For example, he recently complained about not being able to use the words fag and nigger, in reference to artwork by a guest on his show.* He is also being sued for defamation by a student from Saudi Arabia whom Beck falsely accused of being a key figure in the Boston marathon bombing.
Where does CNN think his advertisers would come from? A visit to TheBlaze website reveals that he has no advertising other than Google Ads. He is still anathema to the Fords, Campbell Soups, Procter & Gambels, Fidelitys, etc. So if Beck cant produce ratings, and he cant attract advertisers, but he is widely reviled and divisive, what could explain CNNs interest in him?
There only two possible answers to that question. One is that CNN is desperate beyond all comprehension. They are like a drowning man grasping for the only thing in the water, even if its an anchor. And secondly, CNN is run by tabloid TV king Ken Jautz who was promoted from his position as head of HLN. It was while he was at HLN that Jautz gave Beck his first job in television. So perhaps it is that unique brand of insanity that causes one to do the same stupid things over and over expecting a different result.
The fact that CNN was participating in these talks says something about their health as a news organization. They would not be considering this if they had bright prospects for the future. It also says something about Becks media operation. His Blaze video unit is currently financed by viewer subscriptions. If that were as successful as he pretends it to be, he would not be contemplating giving the same programming away for free on cable TV. That would dry up his web subscription base. He would also have to be pretty desperate to consider returning to the network about which he said
I used to call it the Pit of Despair because there are all these people plunking out stories like, I just want to hang myself, I just want to hang myself. (...and...)
If you ever think that CNN is a rational, normal, non-leftist organization, look who they hired [referring to Crossfire co-host Van Jones as a 'communist revolutionary'.
More recently, Beck asked himself Why is CNN in a ratings free fall? And he gave himself the answer that it was the unbelievable level of manufactured outrage on the network. Actually, that may have inspired him to seek out these talks. He may have seen that as a sign that the network was the perfect platform for an outrage manufacturer like himself. But it doesnt clear up why CNN would seek to recruit someone with such a horrible opinion of the network.
Reports on the talks indicate that they broke down over financial terms, not ideology. That makes the whole incident even worse. Apparently CNN is cool with Becks evangelical, ultra-conservative messaging. And it isnt just that hes conservative, but that he is so violently hostile toward progressives that he once said that to stop them youre going to have to shoot them in the head. And despite that sort of vile discourse, CNN only walked away from the negotiations over money. Journalism, honesty, integrity, civility, etc., never entered into it.
(Update Brian Stelter, reporting for CNN, says that it was Beck who sought to hook up with CNN, but that from the CNN side The talks were never serious. This may just be CNN covering its ass so as not to be embarrassed by the disclosure of the talks, but it also confirms that Beck is scrambling to keep his head above water.
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=20307
The Internet's Chronicle of Media Decay
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*Read the whole article at the link:
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=16361
Cha
(296,853 posts)one more nail in the metaphorical coffin of freaking desperate teabagger nation cnn.
I shut off that claptrap in 2002.
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Skittles
(153,113 posts)I ditched it because of garbage like Honey boo boo and those racist duck fucks.....I couldn't even take seeing the commercials - f***ing nauseating
global1
(25,225 posts)November.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Though there is one good thing that would come out of this: Jon Stewart would have a field day
freshwest
(53,661 posts)They were the cheering section for the Ken Starr Chamber of Horrors. The same anchors who got their break on cable are still polluting the mind.
3rdwaydem
(277 posts)This is an act of pure desperation. If they put the Blaze on HLN that will only worsen their problems. They have every right to do it but, it doesn't make sense to me.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)So I can block that channel as well as Faux Noise. I don't allow garbage like that on my TV!