Some interesting tidbits that I've found - albeit no smoking guns (and, these come from an academic database that I have access to through the university, so I don't have links): From a Worcester Magazine item of 11/14/2001 entitled, "A Shock-jock respite: Local commercial radio stations beef up news in the wake of Sept. 11": Since Sept. 11, [W]TAG has shuffled its program lineup so that live programming is presented during the entire day. "We want to stay up to date," Brown explains, "because things are happening so fast." His own program has gone from midmornings to afternoons, bumping "Dr. Laura" to evenings. A new addition is syndicated talk host Glenn Beck from 9 a.m.-noon. "Glenn is news-oriented, but he's not afraid to use his sense of humor, and it's a balance between news and entertainment," Brown says. "I compare it to how people were shocked when we first put Rush Limbaugh on the air."
One difference: I distinctly recall Limbaugh occasionally being funny in the early 1990s (politically incorrect to be sure, but it wasn't three hours of diseased bile.) From the Philadelphia Weekly of 3/29/2003: "The monopoly of the media is equivalent to losing any claim to democratic society," says Gerbner. "Democracy requires pluralism. This is why there have hardly been any dissenting voices in the media in this idiotic rush to war." A recent Chicago Tribune story called into question Clear Channel's sponsorship of a series of recent "patriotic" rallies around the country. The so-called Rally for America--there have been more than a dozen so far in places like Atlanta, San Antonio, Cleveland, Houston, Orlando, Fla., Tulsa, Okla., Richmond, Va., and right here in Philadelphia--is the brainchild of local talk radio host Glenn Beck. The Glenn Beck Program, which airs locally on WPHT 1210-AM, is syndicated by the Premiere Radio Networks, a Clear Channel subsidiary. Beck's show airs on more than 110 stations across the country. For his part, Beck claims the idea for the rallies was listener-inspired, and that after the first one the idea spread like a grassroots wildfire--onto which Beck might have thrown a little gasoline with the power of his microphone. "I don't throw them. I just attend them," says Beck, a self-described "average Joe with a very loud voice." "This is something completely spontaneous," he claims. "This isn't coming from some radio station or corporate monolith. The reason we had 25,000 at the rally in Atlanta is because it resonates with people." After a brief debate, Councilman Cohen's anti-media-monopoly resolution passed 13 to 3. Media Tank's Coates concedes it's a largely symbolic gesture, but that it sends the right message to Washington and raises public awareness through articles like the one you're reading now. "Obviously the media never writes about media monopolies," says Annenberg's Gerbner. "And as a result the general public is no more aware of it than the fish in the sea are aware that they swim in saltwater."
First off... "I don't throw them. I just attend them." That was 2003. Sound like so-called 'tea parties'? An "average Joe"? I wonder how many of his listeners would knowingly associate wih a Mormon under any circumstances - other than blindly following Beck's on-air dementia? From Albany's Metroland a few days after the Philadelphia Weekly piece: Clear Channel Communications is under fire for its 18 "Rally for America!" events, engineered by radio personality Glenn Beck, who claimed the rallies were a response to his call to "Mr. and Mrs. America" to hold rallies. "There is not a corporate conspiracy, hidden agenda or grand design," he wrote, claiming that criticism of these events was part of a "concerted media effort to marginalize the voices of patriotic Americans." That's an interesting defense to ponder in the wake of Peter Arnett's dismissal by both NBC and National Geographic after his ill-advised interview on Iraqi television. NBC, initially defending Arnett, decided to let him go after criticism of his interview became intense.
2003... Remember 2003? That was only six years ago? And the corporate money-making venture war that Beck and his buddies were pimping is still going on and still sucking young American lives out of the 'patriotic' gene pool. From Duluth, MN's Ripsaw of 3/26/2003, an awards issue: BIGGEST LITTLE CORPORATE PAWN Sydney Whitmyer Sydney Whitmeyer has been getting a lot of ink for organizing "The Rally for America and Her Troops" held at Bayfront Festival Park last weekend and headlined by Glenn Beck, a national radio talk-show host flown in on a corporate jet owned by Jeno Paulucci. Beck is a Philadelphia talk show host whose program is syndicated by Premier Radio Networks, a Clear Channel subsidiary (a mammoth radio-station conglomerate). Beck has been flying across the country to speak at "Rallies For America," a concept he invented and the inspiration for Whitmyer's rally. "Instead of screaming at George Clooney or Brad Pitt, that would be me with Glenn Beck," said Whitmyer in one interview posted at www.kbjr.com. Whitmeyer said she wants the troops to know "it's ... worth giving their lives in order for us to sustain the freedom, to sustain the constitution and the constitution of America." It's also good for Clear Channel to have their pro-war rally while hiding behind a teenage girl.
Again - none of these are smoking guns re: Beck. But they are reminders - in case youv'e forgotten where this fascist spore came from. As are... From the Aug. 25, 1988 edition of the Seattle Times (even though its about Arizona): Jessica Hahn said yesterday she will work as disc jockey on a Phoenix radio station, the latest stop in the ``crazy journey'' of the former church secretary whose disclosures led to PTL founder Jim Bakker's downfall. Hahn, 29, who can now be seen posing nude in Playboy magazine, said she will become a member of the Y95 FM ``Zoo Team,'' a comedy-oriented morning drive-time show featuring calls from listeners. Glenn Beck , who will be co-hosting the program with Hahn, said, ``She'll be the Vanna White of the morning show. She'll be our own little deejay bunny.''
The Lexington Herald-Leader's take on this item (on 8/27) was: Poor Jessica Hahn. She hopes her job at Phoenix radio station KOY-FM, starting Monday, will change her bimbo image and end the Jim Bakker phase of her life. "I want to show people that there is more to me than the scandal, and radio is something I've always wanted to do," she said. "It's a new beginning." KOY disc jockey Glenn Beck described Hahn's duties: "She'll be the Vanna White of the morning show. She'll be our own little DJ bunny." Good luck, Jessica.
From the San Francisco Chronicle of 8/30: Hahn began her 30-day trial as a novelty on KOY's "Morning Zoo" program on Michael Jackson's 30th birthday. Hahn, Jackson and Jackson's pet monkey, Bubbles, all became fodder for drive-time gibes from the "Morning Zoo" anchors, Glenn Beck and Tim Hattrick. The big difference is that Hahn is being paid an undisclosed fee to suffer her abuse. Phoenix's sixth most popular station (out of 33 AM and FM stations) hopes to catapult into first with the addition of the perky, pouty Hahn, station general manager Mike Horne said. In addition to having a new career that does not require being a visual sex object, Hahn could break new ground in a broadcast genre that might be termed "aural abuse," judging by yesterday's show. Hahn appeared to come closest to showing a little outrage at her treatment when Tim and Glenn played a doctored version of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in her honor: "I want Jessica Hahn, when she's got nothing on. . . . Oh please, just one squeeze, I want Jessica Hahn! I want Jessica Hahn."
By the end of that year, Beck had slithered east on I-10 and was in Houston. I'm actually proud to say I never once listened to him there (and, in fact, didn't even know he'd been on Houston's airwaves until long after I'd moved north.) From the 12/9/88 edition of the Houston Chronk: KRBE (104.1-FM) is excited about its new morning DJ, Glenn Beck , formerly of KOY-FM in Phoenix, Ariz. Beck has just signed with the station and packing to leave for Texas. He starts in the next few weeks. ``Glenn is a dynamic, creative DJ, and we've been looking for someone like that for our morning show,'' said operations manager Jim Sartorius. KRBE is a contemporary-hit, Top 40 station. Its format will not have any changes. In Phoenix, Beck was head of a ``zoo-type'' morning format, but Sartorius stressed that was not what he would be doing in Houston. A zoo format features several personalities on the same show and stresses humor and the outrageous. In Houston, KKBQ (92.9-FM and 790-AM) calls itself Q-Zoo. ``We wanted (Beck), not a zoo,'' Sartorius said. ``We don't need another zoo in Houston.''
I guess he was packing in the bananas and letting himself be backed up until he got to Faux News, eh? Well, he started out with eggs. From the 1/6/89 edition of the Chronk: [I]f you want to rule the roost in rock radio, you got to hatch up a morning show that will get people interested, wake them up, get them involved in something. KRBE operations manager Jim Sartorius knows that and he's been scrambling for several months to get a show that will go over and go over easy. The pile of slimy envelopes leaking yellow and clear glistening gobs of gelatinous goo was not egg-zactly what he had in mind, but it seemed to be working. Working, that is, until the U.S. Post Office said Glenn Beck and Clydie Clyde, the new morning-show guys who just started this week at KRBE, had better quit asking people to send eggs through the U.S. mails before they turn it into the U.S. smells and wind up in the frying pan for it. ``See, Wednesday was our first day and before that we had been running around like chickens with our heads cut off around here and I had mentioned at one point that I wanted to meet the listeners,'' said Beck. Get out of the office, visit some malls, shake some hands, that sort of thing, he said. ``But Clydie took it in a completely different direction.'' Clyde decided Beck meant ``meat'' instead of ``meet,'' and he went to the production manager who OK'd the contest with a $1,004 prize - mere chicken feed for a big rock station. Listeners were invited to send in a breakfast meat and a raw egg in a regular envelope with no packing or padding. The prize would go to the sender of the first egg to make it unbroken through the mails, delivered by the usual postman to KRBE (104.1 FM). They egg-stended the invitation on the Wednesday show and on Thursday, then the post office called to say stop. Beck is already famous. He came here from Phoenix, where his on-the-air partner was Jessica Hahn, who once was involved with television preacher Jim Bakker. Meanwhile, there is a winner in the egg contest, which was closed as soon as the post office said to. The station began asking people not to send any more eggs just after the post office called to say if one of the U.S. mail's $900,000 sorting machines got yucked up with yolks, KRBE would wish it hadn't. The contest winner was to be announced this morning, if Beck was able to find the slip of paper with the winner's name that he had misplaced in his already cluttered office. The egg that arrived first was one of 11 contest envelopes delivered Thursday. Five contained unbroken eggs. ``I think that's pretty amazing,'' Beck said.
No comment - but I might do so about the following. Beck was gone from Houston almost as fast as the all-Beatle format KBTL (which weren't even its real call letters) was in 1983. By 1992, Beck was up north... and involved with TEA PARTIES! From the New Haven Register of 7/11/92: Radio station KC101's Glenn and Pat Show added some levity Friday to city residents' heavy tax burden. Taxpayers were invited to Spanky's Restaurant on Crown Street to eat breakfast and hang tea bags on stunt man Fred Calleri. Then, in Boston Tea Party style, they dumped Calleri in Long Island Sound. Radio hosts Glenn Beck and Pat Gray broadcast their morning show from the '50s-style eatery, with its jazzy jukeboxes and walls covered with vintage album covers of Little Richard and Nat King Cole, and black and white glossies of Elvis, Joan Crawford and Rock Hudson. People who came in to protest tax increases caused by the recent property revaluation included Westville Alderwoman Nancy Veale Ahern, R-25; State Rep. and Alderman Chris DePino, R-18; state income-tax foe and congressional candidate Tom Scott; and revaluation protest leader Kevin Skiest. Public furor over the tax hikes, which average 40 percent, led the Board of Aldermen to decide this week to hire an attorney to look into possibly revising or throwing out the revaluation. Skiest, who's organizing protests against the revaluation, said that while the morning show added some fun to the situation, "The (tax) issue is more serious than anyone thinks." He said, "The city is is total decline and chaos, with no hope or light at the end of the tunnel." Mayor John C. Daniels was invited to the protest but didn't attend. He could not be reached Friday for comment. Skiest and other residents who filled the booths at Spanky's said they're not against paying taxes, but just want fair and accurate assessments. After residents hung hundreds of tea bags on Calleri - better known to KC101 listeners as Jack Tragic - he was dumped into the Sound. "The water was a balmy 70 degrees," he said after emerging with soggy tea bags and seaweed clinging to the asbestos removal suit he was wearing. Glenn and Pat wisecracked all morning, but also tried to send a serious message. Referring to those who are hurt by tax hikes the most, Glenn said, the city administration seems to have forgotten about those on fixed incomes, "who are 65 and older (and) who have lived here all their lives."
Referring to those - including oneself - who have a looooooooooooong track record with clearly fake (and possibly fake) 'tea parties' as 'average Joes' is................ well, you know. |
