Some Conservatives Cheer Beck's Departure From Fox
Written by Joe Strupp
Published
Conservative writer Jennifer Rubin isn't sad that Glenn Beck's Fox show is ending.
Rubin, who writes The Washington Post's Right Turn column, toldMedia Matters in an email: “It is good news for the conservative movement, especially at a time when serious and innovative individuals like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio are demonstrating leadership and far-sightedness while maintaining a tone of civility.”
Other conservative and libertarian journalists contacted by Media Matters reacted similarly.
Jesse Walker, managing editor of Reason magazine, pointed to Beck's repeated falsehoods, as well as his loss of viewers and advertisers:
“Beck was always someone who went off the reservation and he got criticism from other conservatives,” Walker noted, saying he liked Beck's independence, but not his inaccuracies: “he got a lot of his facts wrong.”
Further speculating on why Beck was dropped by Fox, Walker suggested that in Fox's view, “Controversy is fine when you are bringing in a lot of viewers, but controversy is not fine when you are losing viewers and dropping advertisers.”
Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative, said Beck's departure “is certainly good for the intellectual integrity of conservatism.”
“On the other hand,” McCarthy added, “Beck was the only fellow on Fox News who did not seem to be scripted by the RNC.”
W. James Antle, III, associate editor of The American Spectator, said Beck's act might have lost its impact in recent months.
“When Obama was elected and the Democrats controlled everything, you had conservatives feel disenfranchised,” Antle said. “You did not feel like you were involved in a serious level. That creates a market for very outspoken conservative commentators. That created a market for guys like Beck.
”Then the market for that kind of cools a little bit when the Republicans take the house and you feel like you have a little more leverage."
Antle also said Beck's focus steered away from some of the more important conservative issues:
“If you look at what conservatives are focused on now, spending has become all consuming, the size of government. That wasn't the case a few years ago.
”I wonder if [Beck's] interests in personalities and their relationship to one another and broader conspiracies are just not what conservatives are looking for right now."
This post has been edited for clarity.