Still a huckster: Beck turns radio ad argument into Fox News monologue
Written by Zachary Pleat
Published
Yesterday, I documented how Glenn Beck turned a paid radio advertisement for his sponsor into a segment on his Fox News show within a single day.
Tonight, Beck doubled down, devoting his entire monologue to the perils of food inflation:
During his paid radio ad for Food Insurance on November 1, Beck told his audience that people he knows have urged him to tell his audience to invest in food commodities:
When I got this one guy on the phone, and I've had two now tell me this. They have said to me, “Glenn, please, tell your audience -- food. If you're investing, buy corn or commodities, because commodities are going to go up.” One of the guys, who's not a crackpot at all and very, very reasoned, said to me, “It doesn't seem unreasonable that in the next 12 months, a quarter of this country can't afford food, because commodities -- the foodstuff is going up.”
During tonight's Fox News monologue, Beck suggested that food commodities were an excellent investment, saying:
Now, if you would be scared of what would be coming next, if you're in the rest of the world, and you're like, OK, I don't really know, I got gobs of money. What do I put it in? What do I invest it in? I don't know if I trust bonds. I don't know what I trust anymore. What do you buy?
Well, you don't -- if you think that maybe times are going to be a little tough, you don't necessarily, you know, put your money into a company that's going to be making those 200-inch plasmas. You look for something stable.
What does the world always need? Food, corn, rice, wheat -- commodities.
It is abundantly clear that Glenn Beck is, without disclosure, taking an argument he used to promote his radio sponsor Food Insurance and turning it into a 17-minute long monologue on his Fox News show. Indeed, Glenn Beck seems to have quite the relationship with this particular sponsor. On the Food Insurance home page, the company features a Glenn Beck ad with the words, “as recommended on the Glenn Beck Program.”
A video testimonial featuring Glenn Beck can also be found on the Food Insurance website under its “in the news” section:
Isn't it about time Glenn Beck's employers at Fox News investigate whether he is violating his contract with them -- again -- by serving as a paid product spokesperson, like they did nearly a year ago when it came to his incessant promotion of gold?