Our campaign to hold Glenn Beck accountable for his race-baiting and fear-mongering has been a great success, with 62 advertisers making it clear that they don't want their brands linked to Beck's vile rhetoric. Up until now, however, there's been a question of what the real consequences are for Beck and for Fox, especially as Beck's ratings have soared. It's starting to become clear.
Today, we're announcing that Glenn Beck's show has lost over 50% of its advertising dollars since just before our campaign started. From our press release about the news:
The advertising boycott of Glenn Beck has cost the controversial host over half of his estimated advertising revenue since it was launched by ColorOfChange.org a month ago. This according to data analyzed from industry sources.
Estimated advertising revenue [the total amount of advertising money being spent during a block of commercial time for a program] was collected on a week-by-week basis for a period of two months. According to the data collected, the amount of money spent by national advertisers on Beck's program per week was at its highest at approximately $1,060,000, for the week ending August 2, 2009. ColorOfChange.org launched their campaign at the end of that week and since then, 62 advertisers have distanced themselves from Beck. Data collected for the week ending September 6, 2009 shows Beck's estimated ad revenue at $492,000, equal to a loss of $568,000.
"Fox News Channel has consistently claimed they haven't lost revenue as advertisers abandon Glenn Beck, but the numbers prove otherwise," said James Rucker, Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org. "Fox News Channel has a limited amount of ad positions. If 62 companies refuse to run ads on two of their 24 hours of programming, they are losing inventory. No matter how high Beck's ratings have been lately, advertisers still see Beck as toxic and don't want him associated with their brands. There is no way that Fox News Channel is making the money they should be making with Glenn Beck."
Our campaign is working. Respectable companies don't want to be associated with Beck or support his show with their dollars. It's resulting in a major loss of funding for his show, and at the same time making it clear that Beck's race-baiting and fear-mongering are far outside the mainstream.
The longer Beck stays isolated, the more of a problem he'll be for Fox, and the less he'll be able to spread his lies and distortions. If we can keep the pressure on, Fox will have to make a choice: 1) drop Beck because it doesn't make business sense to keep him; or 2) communicate to the world that they're so intent on providing a platform for race-baiting and fear-mongering that they don't care if they lose money (a serious problem for a public company like News Corporation, the owner of Fox).
Thanks for everything you've done to make this effort a success -- none of it could have happened without the more than 200,000 of you who have stepped up to be a part of this campaign. More than ever, it's time to keep the pressure on. You can help by joining us in thanking the advertisers that have stopped supporting Glenn Beck, and calling on those whose ads are still running on his show to follow suit.
Watching the Glenn Beck show this past month, one might have assumed that Van Jones had assaulted Beck, insulted his wife, and stolen his kids' lunch money. Beck devoted time on a whopping 16 shows to crafting a distorted, despicable portrait of Van that few who know him would recognize. As political smears go, it was as serious as it gets.
But make no mistake: this attack was not about Van Jones. Beck, in league with big business groups, is seeking to derail the President's progressive agenda, and taking out Van became the vehicle for undermining clean energy and green jobs.
There was another, more personal motivation too. Beck was trying to change the subject from the previous week, when headlines were dominated by dozens of major advertisers dropping his show. Beck had no choice but to up the ante, and at the same time indirectly take on the group responsible for his shrinking ad roster. His distortions not surprisingly found purchase on other Fox News shows, spread to the mainstream media, and rather than let this circus distract from the relaunch of health care and the rest of the President's agenda, Van chose to fall on his sword.
In the fallout, one thing is certain: wherever Van decides to go from here he will be a force. But now that he has left the White House, it's time to change the subject back to Beck.
I have to admit, last week when Barack Obama went on Bill O'Reilly and his spokesperson Bill Burton said, "I think there are people who have yet to make up their mind who watch Fox..." I was skeptical. Especially given pollster Mark Mellman's finding that in 2004:
Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7 percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News viewers.
But today, I was reminded of how Fox's innovation in the marketplace may truly be bringing in all sorts of new viewers and open-minded swing voters. For instance, what other network offers viewers the chance to watch live shots of Barack Obama's speech and OJ Simpson's latest trial at the same time? Truly amazing:
If I was wrong to imply that Fox is a race-baiting, Republican mouthpiece whose viewers will predominantly never vote for Obama -- in true Democratic fashion, I apologize.
(Of course, if I wasn't wrong, you can always join MoveOn's ongoing campaign against Fox's smears here.)
Back in November I laid out my reasons for not voting for Clinton in the general election. My reasons had to do with structural concerns for the long-term health of the Democratic Party - redistricting, DLC conservatism vs. progressivism, growth of the party. If anyone is interested in reading the full post:
My reasons really had nothing to do with the personality or political style of the Clintons.
That has changed.
During the week preceding the South Carolina primary, the Clintons have revealed themselves as the disgusting, slimy wretch pols that they are. The coded language they have used against Barack Obama to stoke racism against black people literally had me in a deep depression for days. No one sums up the Clintons' revolting tactics better than The Nation's Bob Moser. Writing of South Carolina's rejection of Clintonian race-baiting, Moser wrote:
"The majority of white Democrats, in a state where the Democratic Party was so long the organized mob enforcing Jim Crow, repelled the Clinton campaign's unspeakably vile attempt to paint Barack Obama as some kind of coke-dealing, slumlord-pimping cousin of Al Sharpton--and their equally vile assumption that Deep South whites, whether they're Democratic or Republican, can be manipulated by coded racial divisiveness in 2008 the way they were in 1968."
I honestly believed the Democratic Party had turned the page on racism - or that we were well on our way. The people of South Carolina have proven that my idealism could be justified. However, what will shock me is if Clinton remains viable in the Democratic electorate after South Carolina. Make no mistake: this was the "macaca" moment of the Clinton campaign - a moment which should have destroyed her campaign overnight. That George Allen could lose Virginia over one word (and he should have lost) while the Clintons continue to receive Democratic votes after a carefully constructed strategy of racism astounds and mortifies me. George Allen was a racist. The Clintons are worse than racist because they encourage and seek to benefit from the racism of others. Their whole campaign against Obama relies on racism and divisiveness. Hillary was on Face the Nation not one hour ago talking about the need to "heal the breach" and erase the lines that divide this country. Yet she and her husband have been widening those breaches and drawing those lines for weeks. She disgusts me. She disgusts me so much that I feel motivated to actively campaign against her if she wins the nomination.
I've worked in black precincts for several elections and heard how much the Democratic Party has abused the black community and taken them for granted. I - a privileged white woman - looking into someone's eyes and encouraging him or her to support a party that could violate them as brutally as the Clintons have done this week. I feel so ashamed of everything I have ever done for the Democratic Party. I feel ashamed of the glee I felt when I cast my first vote for Bill Clinton in 1996. I feel nausea - deep existential nausea.
And I know that nausea will turn to anger very soon if Clinton gets the nomination. For an activist, anger can become the seat of action. I'm not going to feel powerless this election cycle, and I'm going to do my best to make sure the black community doesn't feel powerless either. Blacks do not have the numbers to elect a president, but I know that I can work very hard in the black community to see the Clintons lose Florida in November. "Kerry plus Ohio" indeed! I have friends in Ohio and money for a plane ticket.
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