Beavis wept.
We won, you guys. Glenn Beck announced yesterday that he will not renew his existing contract with Fox News, meaning that the network will stop airing The Glenn Beck Program and Old-Tyme Conspiracy Hour sometime between now and December. The news is startling but not surprising. Reports have swirled—swirled!—regarding Fox executives’ displeasure with Beck, whose show has lost 300 advertisers and 40% of its ratings share since the salad days of late 2009. It appears that the same principle applies to Fox viewership as applies to the nation: the more people know what Glenn Beck is talking about, the less they buy it. The bad news is that he may purchase his own cable channel—in order to, and I quote, “extract more value” from his fan base—but the interesting news is his and Roger Ailes’s mutual attempt to hide their contempt for each other. “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News,” Beck said in a statement yesterday. Ailes quote and uncharitable analysis after the jump.
Says Ailes, “Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards. I look forward to continuing to work with him.” You can tell how much a man is lying by how often he uses the word “true.” Consider the following progression of statements:
1) These cookies are delicious.
2) I believe these cookies are delicious.
3) I truly believe these are delicious cookies.
We’re drifting away from credibility, aren’t we? The thing about intensifying phrases like “truly” and “I believe” is that they remind us of the existence of “falsely” and “I claim.” Or, to put it in pragmatic terms, they leap to mind most readily among people who have been thinking about lying and not believing. It helps that Ailes and Beck are two of the most famously dishonest people on earth, and watching them talk about sincerity is like watching two hookers talk about love. Presumably they know people think about them this way, which explains why their diction subconsciously tends toward ever more desperate expressions of how genuinely they believe what they are truly saying.
But we are examining the icing on a big smug cake. The point is that we’re not going to be watching Glenn Beck on the treadmill at the gym anymore, and it appears that we have reached the end of a television micro-era. Since this is a dated entry in a published journal, I’ll go ahead and wildly predict that he will start some sort of ministry or para-religious organization. You heard it here first, Mom.
Bonus Quote of Little Concrete Value:
In their completely unbiased reporting on this topic, Newsmax interviewed DePauw University communications professor Jeffrey McCall. And I quote:
I think the timing, as we head to some really tough governmental decision that have to be made, and also heading into the election season in 2012, I think Fox probably just wanted to turn the page on this.
Communications professor Jeffrey McCall, ladies and gentlemen.
If Glenn Beck added the word “man” to his sentences, he’d sound like a paranoid stoner.
e.g.
“It’s not just spending, it’s not just taxes, it’s not just corruption, it is progressivism, and it is in both parties. It is in the Republicans and the Democrats.”
becomes
“It’s not just spending, it’s not just taxes, it’s not just corruption, it is progressivism, and it is in both parties, man! It is in the Republicans and the Democrats, man!”
and
“The majority does not rule in America, but the minority shouldn’t hijack it. And it’s because we’re afraid. They have isolated us and made us feel as though we’re alone. We’re not.”
becomes
“The majority does not rule in America, but the minority shouldn’t hijack it, man. And it’s because we’re afraid, man. They have isolated us and made us feel as though we’re alone, man. We’re not.”