shrug the timestamp on my post was before your edit. I prefer the old days when edits weren’t allowed.
You haven’t revealed your research. What year was it?
Oh, my favorite is the bizarre stuff about gold endorsements. That and the ratings claims mediamatters.org keep making.
Media Matters doesn’t make any claims that it’s unbiased. It declares that it’s “a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Hardly a “middle-of-the-road” news source. I guess you accept everything MRC.org says about the NYTimes?
Did your research for you. It happened when Beck was at Y-95. Even the wikipedia page lists Beck as leaving Y-95 in 1989. Soooooo, you’re referring to a 20-year-old incident. Now, the second part of the homework: what has Beck said about his life between 1989 and today?
I believe he’s on record as saying it was, “Totally radical.”
It’s very surprising to me that people don’t understand the difference between “news” and an “editorial”. Talks show hosts are providing editorials. They are providing their opinions, not objective analysis. They get paid to preach to their respective choirs. I’m not sure why people don’t get that.
Well, we all know what he allegedly did in 1990…
The editorial management at Fox News certainly doesn’t understand the difference.
Well, I guess one can make a distinction between rodeo clown and ass clown, but I’ll leave it to others to ponder the definition of the latter.
If I’m not a regular watcher of his show, I can assure it’s not from lack of trying. My dad used to be a fan of his back when he was on CNN (and before he crossed into Howard Beale territory). I couldn’t stand to watch more than 10 minutes of his pontificating even then. Anyway, as I’ve said before the guy is basically Mancow without the strippers, fart noises, dick jokes or anything else that might offend a socially conservative audience.
I’ll give you one thing though, the man is not idiot. Yeah, book smarts and analytical thinking aren’t his strong suits, but he’s a genius when it comes to working an audience and capitalizing on their gullibility, and in his business that’s the type of smarts that matters most.
I do tend to accept, at least provisionally, most of what I read on SourceWatch:
And I always trust John Stewart! 
As for declining ratings, just what specific assertion in this Media Matters story is inaccurate, if you please?
Well Krammer, I guess you have your answer. You may not trust people such as Beck, but he’s at least more honest than several of his critics here in this thread. At least I’ve seen him change a position when the facts convince him.
Beck was a morning-zoo-type radio guy until his alcoholism nearly killed him. He’s repeatedly told the story of one blackout too many that led him to AA in 1994. In 1996 he tore down everything he believed and started reading philosophy searching for meaning, etc. In 1999 he went “church shopping” to find religion. He’s openly stated that he was a horrible person when he was a drunk – one of the stories that he sees as an example of that is when he fired someone for bringing him a ball point pen instead of a sharpie to sign autographs. He’s very open about his mistakes. He urges his audience to check his sources and conclusions, which I regularly do.
Any claims about his being a dirtbag before 1994 aren’t new news. He’s outed himself. Has he really changed? I think so. I’ve listened to his radio show for most of the last decade, heard the chatter behind the commercials (as an “insider” I can listen to his stream live without commercials). From a skeptical viewpoint, I can’t be 100% certain of his character, but what I have seen convinces me that he’s legitimately changed from what he was earlier in his life.
As for the so-called Goldline “controversy”, Beck has openly sponsored them for quite a while. Where is the controversy? A person uses a product or service, likes it and then the service becomes a paid sponsor of his show. This is a controversy? Note that Sourcewatch’ sources for Glenn Beck are a slew of Media Matters, Salon.com and NYTimes references. In fact, there are dozens of links to Media Matters articles and videos of Beck. Sourcewatch (at least for Glenn Geck) is simply a vehicle for Media Matters.
He dropped another sponsor of his, GM, when they were nationalized. According to him it was expensive, but he couldn’t in good conscience be sponsored by a business that is now run by the government.
Eric Boehlert’s (of Media Matters) fascination with Beck’s ratings is myopically focused on comparison against January. He seems to miss the fact that ratings typically go down mid year across the board. Beck’s point back in June was that though May was down compared to January, it was up 22% over May 2009. I haven’t seen Boehlert respond to that claim, but I’d love to see it if he has.
The controversy is in Glenn telling his viewers, for purportedly disinterested reasons, how urgent it is for them to buy his sponsor’s product, Goldline’s gold, hyperinflation is coming omigod! :eek: (Hint: It ain’t coming and it’s deflation we really have to worry about; I think Beck probably knows that too.)
I’m sure you haven’t actually paid attention to Beck, because he’s been warning about deflation followed by hyperinflation. He’s no longer the only one worried about massive inflation, (see Thomas Sowell for instance). And if he’s “overhyping” goldline while … buying his gold through goldline? Wait, you mean he actually believes in buying gold, tells his audience that and does ads for a company that provides the service?
Now if he was warning of inflation, telling people to buy gold – but then wasn’t buying gold himself, you might have something. As it stands, it’s a bizarre non-scandal.