That’ll Cost You, Sport – 7

Another day, another exodus of advertisers: over on Fox News (fair and balanced my arse), the number of firms pulling their ads from airing on Glenn Beck’s show has passed sixty. Six zero. And it is not hard to see why.

As an aside, yes, I know that there have been a few Stateside items recently, but if you want to even try and understand the whole health care issue, figure out what politics is about across the pond, and get a handle on what the media is like without all that regulation that Murdoch Junior hates so much, my take is that it’s worth a look.

Beck, whose homespun yet particularly vile brand of presentation is actually taken as fact by some people, has gone beyond calling his President a “racist”. He’s now moved on to the memory of John Rockefeller (an arch capitalist if ever there was one) and has decided that John D was in fact a Communist. This is, apparently, because of the appearance of artwork around the Rockefeller Center. Not only that, Beck also says that Communists and Fascists are, well, pretty similar.

Now, if this weapons grade drivel were being pitched in a local bar, it would be interesting for the odd minute, but then dismissed as the ranting of someone who may have had too many sherbets. But it’s being sent out on prime time TV. View a few segments of Beck and the conclusion for many will be that the bloke is wacko, not dealing from a full deck, and out to lunch all at once. So why is he allowed to carry on?

Well, ultimately the decision is down to one man: Rupe himself. And the lack of any intervention suggests that Murdoch is happy to have Beck continue. It was once said that, if you wanted to know the Murdoch view on anything, you only needed to read a few Sun editorials. Nowadays you need to take in Fox News Channel, Beck included.

And this is the bloke whose endorsement Young Dave is chasing.