Glenn Beck

{{Infobox person | name = Glenn Beck | image = 5.3.10GlennBeckByDavid-Shankbone.jpg | image_size = 225px | caption = Beck at the Time 100 Gala, May 4, 2010 | birth_name = Glenn Lee Beck | birth_date = (1964-02-10) February 10, 1964 | birth_place = Everett, Washington, U.S. | education = Sehome High School | nationality = American | occupation = [[gay pornstar] (host/owner of eponymous talk radio show and television show, related website and magazine)
author
live entertainer | salary = US$ 32 million (2009–10) | spouse = Claire (1983–1994), Tania (1999–present) | children = Mary, Hannah (from first marriage); Raphe, Cheyenne (from second marriage) | website = http://www.glennbeck.com/ | religion = Mormon |residence = New Canaan, Connecticut |home_town = Mount Vernon, Washington }}

Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative radio and television host, political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He is currently the host of The Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks; He is also the host of a self-titled cable-news show on Fox News Channel. As an author, Beck has had six New York Times-bestselling books, with five debuting at #1. Beck is also the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multi-media production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet.

Beck was born in Everett, Washington and raised as a homosexual. He obtained his first broadcast job as a disc-jockey for his hometown radio station at the age of 13 after winning a contest. When his mother died, Beck moved to Bellingham, where he attended high school. After graduation, he worked at radio stations in Provo, Utah, Washington D.C. and New Haven, Connecticut. Along the way, Beck struggled with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and substance abuse, and went through recovery in the mid 1990s. After marrying his wife Tania in 1999, and with the encouragement of his daughter, the couple joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Beck's array of media outlets have brought him wealth and popularity, along with recurring controversy and criticism. Beck's provocative and polarizing views can range from being seen as principled and revelatory, to erroneous and offensive. His supporters believe he is a Constitutional stalwart defending traditional American values from secular progressivism, while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric.

Personal life

Early years

Glenn Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, and sometime later moved their family to Mount Vernon, Washington where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended private Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon. At age 13, he won a contest that landed him his first broadcast job as a disc-jockey for his hometown radio station, KBRC.

In 1977, William Beck filed for divorce against Mary due to her increasing alcoholism. Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, his mother drowned in Puget Sound, just west of Tacoma, Washington. A man who had taken her out in a small boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.

After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope.

At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in," Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.

Adulthood

While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. The couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. Along with being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of his fellow Washingtonian, Kurt Cobain. However, he cites the help of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in his sobriety and attended his first AA meeting in November 1994, the month he states he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. After getting clean, Beck would claim that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of sixteen.

In 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck briefly attended Yale University. Beck took one theology class, "Early Christology," and then dropped out. This was followed by Beck going on a "spiritual quest" where he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores." As Beck later recounted in his books and stage performances, his first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors: Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an offer that Beck vehemently rejected until a few years later.

In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they "settled on Mormonism", and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck would be baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray, in an emotional ceremony. In 2008, Beck created the CD/DVD An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ."

The couple have two children, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Beck currently resides in a $4.2 million dollar colonial mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut, with his wife and four children.

Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes." The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.

Viewpoints

Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society. Beck also believes in low national debt, and has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence."

Beck supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.

Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming. He also says there’s a legitimate case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind, and has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design. He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

In a 2010 interview in Forbes, Beck asserted that his business was not political, but is an entertainment company: "I could give a flying crap about the political process," continuing on to say that Mercury Radio Arts, his production company, is "an entertainment company". In a follow-up story, Beck said, while explaining why Tyler Perry is his hero, “[Perry] has the luxury of not doing the political stuff, which is really where I want to be as a company. I just happen to believe the Republic is on fire and it wouldn’t be as effective if I had Pluto come out with a cartoon fire hose to put it out.”

Ideological influences

According to Joanna Brooks, a scholar of American religion, one pre-eminent influence on Beck's political ideology has been fellow Mormon W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006). Skousen was an anti-communist, a supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government conservative whose works involve a wide range of subjects (including the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, and even parenting). Skousen also believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with the Communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praises Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, Leap reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America’s success as a nation." The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of Leap and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In June 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative Weekly Standard opined that "Glenn Beck is a Skousenite." Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 critical book Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the ten books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.

In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti also stated that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict", noting that in Beck's novel The Overton Window, which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in Tragedy and Hope, the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."

Other books of importance that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes’s The Forgotten Man, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen’s A Patriot's History of the United States, and Burt Folsom Jr.’s New Deal or Raw Deal. Beck has also urged his listeners to read The Coming Insurrection, a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture.

In addition, on June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, remarking "this is a book, The Red Network, this came in from 1936. People — (Joseph) McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized however by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who noted that Dilling was a proud anti-semite and Nazi sympathizer.

Countering progressivism

"What’s the difference between a communist or socialist and a progressive? Revolution or evolution? One requires a gun and the other eats away slowly."

— Glenn Beck, keynote address to the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 20, 2010

During his 2010 keynote speech to CPAC, Beck wrote the word "progressivism" on a chalkboard and declared, "this is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Beck believes that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived." In Beck’s book Common Sense, he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."

A collection of progressives whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform America. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc" accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Beck, these individuals already have or are surreptitiously working in unison with an array of organizations and corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, ACORN, Apollo Alliance, Tides Center, Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation Investment Management, Enterprise Community Partners, Petrobras, Center for American Progress, and the SEIU; to fulfill their progressive agenda.

9-12 Project and Tea Party protests

A group of protesters hold signs praising Beck at the Taxpayer March on Washington.

Main article: 9-12 Project

Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and 12 values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. Beck has supported the tea party protests from their inception and held a broadcast from one of the April 2009 rallies in San Antonio, Texas.

Newsweek magazine opined on Beck's relationship with the Tea Party movement stating:

Tea partiers are driven by the belief that the America that elected Barack Obama isn't their America, and Beck comforts them by telling them they're right: that the America they love, the America they now feel so distant from, the America of faith and the Founders and some sort of idyllic Leave It to Beaver past, is still there, waiting to be awakened from Obama's evil spell. And he flatters them by saying that the coastal elites are too stupid or too lazy to figure out what's really going on; only his loyal viewers are perceptive enough to see the truth and, ultimately, to save the nation.

In September 2009, the conservative political activism group FreedomWorks organized the Taxpayer March on Washington, to rally against President Barack Obama's policies. The event was inspired by Beck's 9/12 project. In June 2010, The Weekly Standard named Beck "one of the fathers of the Tea Party."

Lucy Barber, author of Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition, argues that mass events by advocacy groups are "often about movement-building and creating a sense of solidarity and, in our lovely virtual world, bringing people into a physical space together."

Restoring Honor rally

Main article: Restoring Honor rally

The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The religious and patriotic themed rally was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks and heavily supported by the Tea Party movement. The rally was billed as a "celebration of America's heroes and heritage". Along with Beck, speakers included Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and niece of Martin Luther King Jr. activist Alveda King. Beck received criticism from some black civil rights leaders and media observers for holding the event at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, which marked the 47th anniversary site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I Have A Dream" speech.

Media career and income

"Glenn Beck has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth."

— Forbes magazine, April 2010

In 2002 Beck created Mercury Radio Arts, a media platform which produces his broadcast, publishing and online projects, as well as his live performances. In addition to broadcasting, Beck has written six New York Times-bestselling books, and is the publisher of Fusion Magazine. He also stars in a one-man stage show that tours the US twice a year.

In June 2009, estimators at Forbes calculated Beck's earnings over the previous 12 months at $23 million, with 2009–2010 revenues on track to be higher. Although the majority of his revenue results from his radio show and books, his website's 5 million unique visitors per month also provides at least $3 million annually, while his salary at Fox News is estimated at $2 million per year. Additionally, Beck's online magazine Fusion sells an array of Beck-themed merchandise, while his website offers a web subscription service called "Insider Extreme" where for $75 a year one gets access to behind-the-scenes footage and a fourth hour of his daily radio show. In April 2010, Forbes calculated Beck's earnings for the previous year (March 2009 - March 2010) to be $32 million.

Beck's controversial views have potentially hurt his earning potential, however; despite millions of viewers, more than 200 companies have joined a boycott of Beck's television program, making it difficult for Fox to sell ads. The time has instead been sold to smaller firms offering such products as Kaopectate, Carbonite, 1-800-PetMeds and Goldline International Goldline International also sponsors Beck's radio show and was the exclusive sponsor of Beck's 2009 comedy tour; their sponsorship has brought Beck criticism.

Radio

See also: Glenn Beck Program

Beck began his radio career in 1977, at age 13, when he won a local radio contest on station KBRC in Mount Vernon, Washington, to be a disc jockey for an hour. It was then that Beck and his school classmates produced old-time radio with live scripts and sound effects for radio station, KGMI, in Bellingham. In his junior year of high school, he began working part-time at Seattle station KUBE 93 (FM) having to take a Greyhound Bus from Bellingham to Seattle in order to get there. After hosting a show midnight to dawn on Fridays and Saturdays, Beck would sleep in the station's conference room following his show.

After his high school graduation, Beck pursued his career as a Top 40 DJ. He moved to Provo for six months and worked at FM 96.1. Beck left in February 1983 to go to WPGC-FM in Washington, D.C., another First Media radio station. Later that year, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.

In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included off-color humour. One of his competitors, Terry Meiners, was critical of Beck for jokes regarding another competitor who was overweight. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.

Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage.

In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings. He would later recount to the Houston Chronicle that his stint at Power 104 "was the worst time in [his] broadcasting career".

After leaving Houston, Beck moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested for speeding in his DeLorean with one of the car's gull-wing doors wide open. According to a former colleague, Beck was "completely out of it" when a B104 manager went down to the station to bail him out. After a year of struggling personally and professionally, Beck found himself working alone when Gray's contract was canceled. When Beck was fired also, the two men spent six months in Baltimore living off of their severance, unemployed and planning their next move. Then, in early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved on to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Template:City.

At WKCI, Beck and Gray co-hosted the local four-hour morning show, billed as the Glenn and Pat Show. On a 1995 broadcast of the show, Alf Papineau pretended to speak Chinese during a taped comedy skit. When an Asian-American listener called to complain, Gray and Beck made fun of the caller and played gongs in the background while Papineau spoke in a mock-Chinese accent. The listener contacted a number of human rights organizations, four of which formed the Connecticut Asian American Coalition Against KC101 Racism. The station manager read an apology on the air and the station issued a written pledge to refrain from offensive activities and instituted cultural sensitivity training for employees.

When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was told that his contract would not be renewed when it expired at the end of the 1999.

The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Template:City, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Template:City, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, The New York Times reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners.

Television

See also: Glenn Beck (TV program)

In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block Headline Prime. The show, simply called Glenn Beck, aired weeknights at 7:00 p.m., repeating at 9:00 p.m. and midnight (all times Eastern) from May 8, 2006 to October 16, 2008.

CNN Headline News described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective on the top stories from world events and politics to pop culture and everyday hassles." At the end of his time at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. On July 21, 2008, Beck filled in for Larry King on the show Larry King Live. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.

On October 16, 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. A news hour with Jane Velez-Mitchell filled Beck's former slot, with subsequent slots filled by Lou Dobbs Tonight encores. Chris Balfe, president of Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, said that the reason Beck came to Fox was because of president Roger Ailes, remarking that they "have a fantastic relationship."

After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck began to host Glenn Beck airing weekdays at 5pm ET, beginning January 19, 2009, as well as a weekend version. His first guests included Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the wives of Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos. He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call." As of September 2009 Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows on CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined.

However, his show's high ratings have not come without controversy from both outside and inside Fox News. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" has given him a "lightning-rod status", that in turn, has complicated the channel's and their journalist's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, calling Beck an "activist" and "comedian" whose incendiary style has created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization." Eric Burns, the former host of Fox News Watch, has also been very critical of Beck, whom he refers to as "Huey Long without the political office", "Father Coughlin without the dour expression", "John Birch without the Society", and "an embarrassment to all true conservatives."

Authorship and publishing

Arguing with Idiots was published by Simon and Schuster in 2009.

Beginning in 2003, Glenn Beck became a popular and best-selling author. As of 2010 he had released ten books in various formats. In 2005, Beck began publishing Fusion Magazine, whose title is a play on the slogan of The Glenn Beck Program, "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.".

Beck had reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List in four separate categories as of 2010: Hardcover Non-Fiction (Arguing with Idiots and An Inconvenient Book), Paperback Non-Fiction (Common Sense), Hardcover Fiction (The Christmas Sweater), and Children's Picture Books (The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book).

• The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland was published by Pocket Books in 2003. The idea for the book came to him on a bus between rallies he staged to show solidarity with the U.S. military on the eve of the Iraq invasion. An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems was published by Simon and Schuster in 2007. This book was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for the week of December 9, 2007, and remained on the list for 17 weeks.

• The Christmas Sweater was published by Simon and Schuster in 2008. It was a quasi-autobiographical account of Beck's troubled childhood told through a fictional 12-year-old boy. This book was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for the weeks of November 30, 2008, and December 25, 2008.

"You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense."

— Glenn Beck, Common Sense, 2009

• Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-Of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine was published by Simon and Schuster in 2009. Beck did not expect it to be a commercial possibility and originally planned to release it anonymously on the Internet. This book rose to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, for the weeks of June 26, 2009, through October 18, 2009.

• In 2009, Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government was published by Simon and Schuster. The book has been described by Lacey Rose in Forbes magazine as "a diatribe against unions, health care, progressivism and so on". This book debuted #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for the week of September 30, 2009, and retained the #1 spot for three weeks. The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book was published by Threshold Editions in 2008. This book debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, for the week of November 15, 2009.

• On June 15, 2010, Beck's novel The Overton Window was released by Threshold Editions. The Overton Window is a political thriller that is largely inspired by the political theory of the same name and Beck's views regarding the current political climate inside the U.S. federal government . This book was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for the week of June 25, 2010.

In November 2009, Beck announced a non-fiction book The Plan, which, according to Beck, will "provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role" in a "Refounding". Beck originally planned to unveil the book during the Restoring Honor rally on August 28, 2010 at the feet of the Lincoln Memorial, but he canceled the unveiling soon after.

Beck has also released three books only in audio format. America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades is an audiobook that was published by Simon and Schuster in 2008. An Unlikely Mormon, The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck was published by Deseret Book in 2008 (DVD). Idiots Unplugged is an audiobook that was published by Simon and Schuster in 2010.

Live events

Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, Salon Magazine's Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist."

In Beck's hometown of Mt. Vernon, Washington, supporters and detractors hold handmade signs on the day Beck was honored by the mayor.

In 2005, the summer show Glenn Beck: On Ice advocated diminishing the role of politics in daily life. The 2006 summer show The Mid-Life Crisis Tour featured life's lessons from the perspective of a middle-aged man. In June 2007, Beck completed his tour called An Inconvenient Tour. It focused on the inconvenient aspects of everyday life, and was a parody of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. A show from the Beck `08 Unelectable Tour was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country. The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.

Beck has done numerous other live events. In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies called Glenn Beck's Rally for America in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Template:City. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is "to provide deeply felt emotional experiences that celebrate and promote the traditional American values of family, freedom, God and country." On May 17, 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

In late August 2009, the mayor of Mount Vernon, Washington, Beck's hometown, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009 as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to some local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850-seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 people, both supporting and opposing the event, demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.

In December, 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film version of his book "The Christmas Sweater" entitled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption." In the film, Beck plays multiple roles and shares his "most profound childhood memories, along with his philosophies on life, love and happiness."

In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010." During each event, Beck and O'Reilly would each take the stage for 30–40 minutes individually and offer their perspective and commentary on a variety of issues. Then, following a 20 minute intermission, the two appeared on stage together for approximately 30 minutes, trading questions and discussing their differing viewpoints on several matters. The January 29th show was also recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.

Public reception

"The old American mind-set that Richard Hofstadter famously called the paranoid style – the sense that Masons or the railroads or the Pope or the guys in black helicopters are in league to destroy the country – is aflame again, fanned from both right and left. ... No one has a better feeling for this mood, and no one exploits it as well, as Beck. He is the hottest thing in the political-rant racket, left or right."

— David Von Drehle, Time Magazine

In 2009, the Glenn Beck show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America’s "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for the Times top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.

Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, and a "rodeo clown". He has said that he identifies with Howard Beale, a character portrayed by Peter Finch in the film Network: "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."

Time Magazine described Beck as "[t]he new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theorizing about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program. (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, Time argued, is a sense of siege. An earlier cover story in Time described Beck as "a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies", proclaiming that he has "emerged as a virtuoso on the strings" of conservative discontent by mining "the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us."

Beck's shows have been described as a "mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans." One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room."

The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director Peter Hart argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries as well as promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style." In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography entitled Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, with a title echoing Beck's work, Common Sense.

Satire, spoof and parody

Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live. The Daily Show's Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9-12 project with his own "11-3 project", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking." Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker." Through the character Eric Cartman, South Park parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". The Onion, a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an Onion News Network video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck." Meanwhile, the Current TV cartoon SuperNews! ran an animated cartoon feature entitled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon." Noted novelist Stephen King has referred to Beck as "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."

Notable public disputes

Anti-Defamation League

The Anti-Defamation League special report referred to Beck as America's "fearmonger-in-chief" and said "Beck and his guests have made a habit of demonizing President Obama and promoting conspiracy theories about his administration." Beck responded by claiming that the ADL was "as responsible for the plight of Jewish people as the National Organization for Women is for the plight of women. It is nothing, I believe, nothing but a political organization at this point."

Keith Ellison

In 2006, Beck remarked to Muslim congressman-elect Keith Ellison, a guest on his show, "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel." Ellison replied that his constituents, "know that I have a deep love and affection for my country. There's no one who's more patriotic than I am, and so you know, I don't need to — need to prove my patriotic stripes." Beck's question, which he himself suggested was "quite possibly the poorest-worded question of all time," resulted in protests from several Arab-American organizations.

Barack Obama

Several incidents involving Beck and President Barack Obama have resulted in notable public controversy. In response to Obama's remarks on the Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture," saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change. In 2009, the boycott resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. Beck was also criticized for mocking 11-year-old Malia Obama during a discussion of the President's response to the BP Gulf oil spill. He questioned her level of education and imitated her voice asking her father why he hated black people. Beck later posted an apology online, stating that he broke his own rule of keeping the family members of political figures out of the discussion.

Van Jones

In July 2009, Glenn Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at President Barack Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in STORM, a communist non-governmental group, and his support for hotly debated death row inmate, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that Bush knowingly let the 9/11 attacks happen. In September 2009, Jones resigned his position in the Obama administration, after a number of his past statements became fodder for conservative critics and Republican officials. Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones while a writer for New York's Daily News called it Beck's "first knockout punch." Jones would characterize the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide."

Eiland-Hall

In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (Beck v. Eiland-Hall) against the owner of a satirical website named GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.

Jim Wallis

On March 11, 2010, Beck asked Christians to leave their churches if they hear preaching about social justice because they were code words for Communism and Nazism. This prompted rebuttal from some Christians, such as the Rev. Jim Wallis, an Obama administration advisor and leader of Sojourners Community, a Christian social justice organization. Beck later said he meant that if confronted with a Black liberation theology church, such as that of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one should find another parish. Wallis described this as a mischaracterization and asserted Beck threatened him by stating "the hammer is coming, because little do you know, for eight weeks, we've been compiling information on you."

Honors

Glenn Beck was honored by Liberty University during their 2010 Commencement exercises with an honorary Doctoral Degree. During his address to the students, he said that he did not have enough money to pay for more than one semester of college.

Works

• The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland, Simon & Schuster 2005. ISBN 978-0-74-349696-4
• An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems, Simon & Schuster 2007. ISBN 978-1-43-916857-8
• The Christmas Sweater, Simon & Schuster 2008. ISBN 978-1-41-659485-7
• An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck, Deseret Book 2008 (Audio CD). ISBN 9781590389447
• The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. ISBN 978-1-41-699543-2
• America's March to Socialism: Why we're one step closer to giant missile parades Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-74-359854-5
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-43-916857-8
• Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government, Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-41-659501-4
• Idiots Unplugged, Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1442333960
• The Overton Window, Threshold Editions 2010. ISBN 1439184305

See also

• Beck University

External links

• Glenn Beck's Official Website
• Glenn Beck's Radio Program
• Glenn Beck – The 912 Project
• Glenn Beck's Common Sense Tour
• Official Site at Fox News

Multimedia

• A Day in the Life of Glenn Beck - photo slideshow by Time magazine
• Katie Couric Interview of Glenn Beck - video by CBS News
• "Brand it like Beck" - video interview by Forbes magazine
• John Stossel: "Glenn Beck, Conservative Narcissist?" - video by ABC News