Updated: Even more advertisers pull support for Glenn Beck
 

Updated: Even more advertisers pull support for Glenn Beck

An online campaign against Fox News editorialist Glenn Beck is working.

Web site ColorofChange.org, reacting to a long line of racial comments about President Barack Obama, has managed thus far to knock loose from Beck's fold Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, Progressive, S.C. Johnson, GEICO, Men's Wearhouse and, just Wednesday morning, Sargento.

**UPDATE: On Thursday, ConAgra, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis and RadioShack all backed out of sponsoring Glenn Beck's programs, according to a media advisory.

"We applaud GEICO and all of the other companies who have stepped forward to pull their ads from Glenn Beck," said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change, in a Tuesday media advisory release. "Beck’s rhetoric is dangerous to the fabric of our democracy, and we are heartened that so many big companies feel the same way. We won’t stop here — we’re going to continue our fight to see that as many of Beck’s advertisers pull their support as possible."

And video clips like this may have something to do with it ...

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Watchdog group Media Matters, which has emphatically joined in the crusade to knock Beck from cable television, notes that many of the advertisers who refused in 2006 to support progressive-tilted Air America radio are still backing Beck.

According to the group, those companies are: General Electric, Farmers Insurance, Office Depot, Nestlé (Gerber), Red Lobster, State Farm, Travelocity, the U.S. Postal Service, Walmart and Wyeth.

Media Matters includes ">a long list of controversial, provocative (some would say shocking) segments on Beck's television program that, for the sake of brevity, is excerpted below:

Beck talks about "put[ting] poison" in Speaker Pelosi's wine. On his Fox News show, Beck gave a glass of wine to a person wearing a Pelosi mask, encouraged her to drink it, and then said: "By the way, I put poison in your -- no, I -- I look forward to all the policy discussions that we're supposed to have." [Glenn Beck, 8/6/09]

Beck: Obama is a "racist" and "has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture." Beck said: "This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy -- over and over and over again -- who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture -- I don't know what it is. But you can't sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and not hear some of that stuff and not have it wash over." He later added, "I'm not saying that he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. He has a -- this guy is, I believe, a racist. Look at the way -- look at the things he has been surrounded by." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 7/28/09]

Beck: "Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill" is "driven by President Obama's thinking on ... reparations" and his desire to "settle old racial scores." According to Beck, "Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America. And they are all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations." Beck later added that Obama's "goal is creating a new America, a new model, a model that will settle old racial scores through new social justice." [Glenn Beck, 7/23/09]

ColorofChange.org has created a simple form for media activists: just enter your name and off an objection goes, directly to Beck's remaining advertisers.

Whether the campaign will be successful remains to be seen. And while the conservative Fox News channel still appears resolute in keeping Beck, at this point there's bound to be some discussion of how to stem the tide of advertisers pulling their support.

-- Stephen C. Webster

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 10:24 am

The Raw Story

:applause

Its amazing how extreme this guy became when he jumped ship to Fox. Watching fox and msnbc use to be entertaining, but now that you have radicals like Beck, Olberman, Hannity, Maddow, and others running the show I cant see how anyone can rely on these channels as a reliable source of info.

btw...I wish Media Matters really exposed both sides. They do a great job catching what is wrong in the conservative media.

I’m always amused how everyone gets riled up when a television/radio being, whether it is Glenn Beck or Keith Olberman says something “controversial”. Their job is to get viewers/listeners. In the same context, Job #1 for politicians is to get reelected. Why the hell do you think they tell you want you to hear?

This is no different than your favorite restaurant or watering hole. You go there because you get what you want.

Now, if favorite restaurant or bar quits giving you what you want, you go somewhere else. Same thing happens to radio & TV shows, people quit watching/listening and IN THEORY, politicians do not get reelected.

The problem with politics is it is not a free market industry. It’s a monopoly that is allowed to makes its own rules. Thus we end up with poor, unresponsive, egotistical “servants”.

Just remember Time Warner before satellite TV and U-Verse or Ma Bell before internet phone.

There is a difference between being controversial and being bigoted. That is why people are riled up and why advertisers are justifiably pulling out of Beck's show -- because the ratings belie the value of those advertising dollars that were spent. People may be watching, but they sure as hell aren't going to forget that your brand is okay being associated with these absurd ideas that Beck is espousing.

Props to those who have pulled out. For those who haven't, you're getting everything you deserve.

Where can you find it published of the corporations/companies who decided to stay as a sponsor or even joined after the comments? Trust me...there are plenty of private sponsors of this show.

Like it or not...this country is devided pretty much evenly as far as comments like Beck are concerned. And Bill Mahr makes just as many "contreversal" comments as well.

It just depends on which side of the fence you stand that will get you upset over comments made via media no matter who makes the comments.

And racism is not dead...There's plenty of racist inequities going on in this country from different colors of skin to even government intervention through bias programs.

And one doesn't have to be white to be a racist.

Per Websters Dictionary

racsit could also mean:
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.

If Beck's comments were based on this definition....I would have to agree to some extent.