UPDATED: Glenn Beck goes after Color of Change co-founder Van Jones

Glenn Beck used his popular Fox News show this afternoon to attack the background of Van Jones, a White House environmental advisor who co-founded an African American political advocacy group that organized an advertising boycott of his program.

During his 2 p.m. PDT show, Beck did not address the boycott spearheaded by Color of Change to protest the talk show host’s remark last month that he believes President Obama is “a racist.” 

Instead, he spent a large share of his program suggesting that Jones, who co-founded Color of Change in 2005, is a radical. Jones now serves as a special advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

During a six-minute biographical profile, set to ominous music, Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a "rowdy black nationalist." The talk show host cast the piece as part of a broader examination of Obama's "czars," special advisers to the president who "don't answer to anybody."

"Why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?" Beck asked.

Christine Glunz, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, noted that Jones has been lauded as an environmental hero and said his entire focus is on “building clean energy incentives which create 21st-century jobs.”

“Glenn Beck is trying to change the subject,” said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change, who noted that Jones has not been active with the group in almost two years. “The issue is his baseless fear mongering.”

Beck has gone after Jones in the past. On July 28, he called the activist a "self-professed communist" and questioned the role he was playing in the administration. His latest assault on Jones came as Color of Change announced that it has secured commitments from 36 companies who have pledged not to advertise on Beck’s popular program, including Wal-Mart and Sprint. However, some of the companies never had a presence on "Glenn Beck." Representatives of Procter & Gamble and AT&T – listed by Color of Change as companies that had signed onto the boycott – told The Times that their companies did not run spots on Beck’s program to begin with.

While the advertising boycott has generated substantial media coverage, Fox News said it has not impacted the network’s revenues or Beck’s audience. "The advertisers referenced have all moved their spots from Beck to other programs on the network so there has been no revenue lost," a spokeswoman said.

Since his Fox News show launched in January, Beck has attracted a sizable audience with his strident denunciations of the Obama administration and apocalyptic warnings about the country’s direction. Late last month, during an appearance on the morning show “Fox & Friends,” he accused Obama of having “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

“This guy is, I believe, a racist,” he added.

The flap that ensued did not appear to dampen Beck’s viewership. This month, his show has averaged 2.25 million viewers, 99% more than tuned in during the same period last year, when the network aired “America’s Election HQ” during the time period. And his ratings are up from July, when Beck's program averaged 2.05 million viewers. Fan websites such as Defend Glenn have called for viewers to fight back against the advertising boycott, and some media veterans have denounced the tactic as a suppression of free speech.

The controversy has triggered a broader discussion about the risks to advertisers of running commercials amid the incendiary rhetoric of cable talk shows. Clorox announced last week that it was pulling its ads off all political talk shows.

"We do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show host,” the company said in a statement. “After a comprehensive review of political talks shows across the spectrum, at this time we have made a decision not to advertise on them. Clorox has done very little advertising on political talk shows overall, and given the sometimes inflammatory nature of these shows, we feel our advertising investment is best directed elsewhere.”

-- Matea Gold

File photo of Glenn Beck by Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

RELATED:

As boycott continues, Glenn Beck's audience swells

Comments

[theresa]

Left groups want to flog their opposition destroy them by thugry ... shut up the opposition ... the thinking in the below quote is thugry ... and much like brown shirts .. the thing is we can easily find out the producers names now ... what you want is a public hanging of sorts ... you and your likes being judge and jury of those "rich" producers. Who will be next on your hit list .... SCARY THINKING to get your political agenda across w/o these thug tactics ...
Quote
"We should make the producers who make exhorbinate amounts of money from spewing right wing misinformation and hatred suffer publically...make their names and faces known...when they promote and support racist, hateful, militaristic, knuckle dragging jack boot thugs like Glenn Beck. Beck will go away and another will take his place...until we make the people who prop these lying sacks of crap up pay a very public price - instead of sitting up in their cozy corner offices raking in the cash, and never feeling the humiliation of being caught red handed lying." WHAT LIE ...

[Ric Duke]

Why are you writing about racism when the White House has taken convicted criminals, anti-capitalist, radical, revolutionary, Chavez supporting, idiots into their confidence. They not only listen to this people, but put them in positions of power. Why are you not reporting on the substance of Glenn Beck's assertions? Why do you not report the news WITHOUT a biased viewpoint?

[Alice]

I can't help but notice how pages upon pages of comments supporting Beck on this thread are being generated by a VERY small group of people (yes, Theresa, I mean you). Just curious, but
1) How much are you being paid to spam?
2) How bored are you, if you are not being paid for this?
3) Don't you have a job or need to earn a living? Or is this it?
4) Have you ever wondered whether a man's popularity could come from his skills at preaching to or feeding the worst in human nature, such as bigotry or hatred?
5) Ever heard of Hitler?
6) While doing everything you can to support the likes of Limbaugh, you do realize that if the USA fails, we all suffer, right (except maybe for the extremely rich, like Limbaugh)?

[Ric Duke]

Goes AFTER???? How about EXPOSES Van Jones?

[Notafanof ignorance]

To all those feeding off of the hate and ignorance (whether you are White, Black or of another color). This is truly sad in my eyes.....I speak as one with a history too many people of color can speak to if the South is part of your family evolution.

Beck speaks to those of a certain age, level of education and family upbringing. I speak as one whose Father was "lynched" in a small Kansas town in 1964, the day after my 4th birthday-I am 49 now. Actually, he was beat to death by 4 white men and thrown down a cellar stairwell in a hotel in my home town of Salina, Kansas. Nothing was ever done and I was blessed to be raised by a woman who though only a highschool graduate, was smart enough to protect her oldest son by withholding the truth until I was 25. Her reasoning was that I was going to have to live in this world and she didn't want me growing up with the ignorance being addressed in these messages.

Anyone, no matter what color can be blinded by those with access to the airwaves or given a forum to spout stupidity. We should ALL take a step back, look at the history of this country we love and realize we are all in this together. The grand wish is for all of us to work toward compromise....it's a lot to ask, but one can hope. Hate destroys and everyone suffers.

[theresa]

Liberals keep quoting lies and making GROSS assumptions to demonize all people who believe in the constitution and the 2nd ammendment. The below quote has been proven to be more of a domestic dispute ... and I don't see how this relates to this debate about Van Jones ... but just to show the whacked thinking ... lets explore this liberal mode of thinking ...

Quote:
"Cop killer Richard Poplawski murdered three Pittsburgh police officers because you said Obama was coming after his guns, Mr. Beck. I hope that their families sue you into abject poverty."

OK Conclusion: SO Because Beck discusses the 2nd ammendment and brings up points about Obamas and liberals disdain for it ... this makes him responsible for any whack jobs actions ... this is crazy like me saying ...

Van Jones is responsible for the beating of Reginald Oliver Denny and the death of 38 as he was protesting the courts decision at the LA Riots and was in support of them. I too, supported the peoples right to protest ... that is the way we get our voices heard ... buy they did not have the right to riot ... kill, mame, pillage and destroy others property .... Or using liberal thinking we could also say everyone at those riots was also racist destroing asian americans business' out of hatred. And any one supporting these protests and reported on them and the things behind them was responsilbe for the riots and the continuation .... ? ... not logical but liberals use this type of argument against constitutionalist / conservatives ....

what I do conclude about VAN Jones is he has no business to have any power in our white house ... our, meaning we the people ... this guy could't get a job at the post office or any city job ... He may be a fine man and great neighbor as others have stated in these comments but that doens't "confront me" as it has nothing to do with the questions asked about the person and the positions our president is creating w/o senate / our approval ... this is not a personal attack against Van Jones it is the fact of his record ... but obviously that doesn't matter as Obama is the president with a scimp record and shady past ...

We should start making the liberal follow their own rules of engagement ... think it through libs .... what you are saying most of the time is not logical ... it is emotional political talking points ...

[theresa]

more whacked lib thinking

Quote:
"Tailgunner Joe McCarthy is back! If you can't win on legitimate argument, accuse your opponent of being a communist." And people fall for it - again."

NOTE:
We arent accusing Van Jones HE IS A SELF PROFESSED communist ... do you know what self professed means ... he said it ...

This is a quote of Van Jones from way way way back in his past 2005 "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist." "

Do libs even listen to the above video or read for themselves ... people are really blind to what is going on ... just based on party lines or skin color your not even listening to THE FACTS ...

[Tice]

Yea I'm tired of Socialism! It's about time to get rid of public schools, libraries, police, firemen, social security, medicare, medicaid, the FDA, the DEA, the DoT, the military and so on!

Viva la Revolucion!

[Ron Smithe]

Glenn Beck is a racist and a traitor to this country. It is folks like him who deliberately and deviously misinform us into believing lies promoted by big corporations to further their interest at our expense. The very same kind of lies that lead us to invade Iraq without provocation and brought our economy to the brink of disaster. Wake up people he represents the promoters of big banks whose bonuses and profits from 10 years ago we are paying for with our taxes, he represents the promoters of Big Insurers who for years have been scamming us out of billions and billions of dollars by preying on the welfare of our families and our health.

He is a vicious man motivated by nothing but his own self promotion - Its a shame that Fox continues to air him.

[Notah8r]

NKM, look in the mirror for the clueless person. Claiming white people invented slavery is like saying black people invented drugs and gangs. Who do you think sold the slaves to the white people? Did slavery begin in the 1600s? When I was in school I learned that it was thousands of years old.

Why is reverse discrimination so blatantly ignored in this country? Why is anybody who disagrees with a person of a minority group automatically a racist?

I'm an independant/moderate and in the past have rolled my eyes at the likes of Beck and Limbaugh, just as I sometimes do at NPR. BUT, I can't help but notice that the conserviatives base their arguments, even the ones I don't agree with, on their interpretations of the facts, while the Liberals attack the person delivering the message or the ones who agree with it, but rarely dispute the actual facts. That scares me more than the right-wing nut jobs do.

{{Thomas: Are you really THAT clueless? The white man dragged the black man away from his home land to sell him as personal property to other white men. White children were (and some still are) raised to believe that people of color are not equal to white people. Racism that exists as a result of a long history of prejudice and inequality is justifiable. Racism that exists because of perpetual ignorance is not. You, my friend, are demonstrating the latter. Oh, and by the way, Fox News, by its own admission, has some of the highest ratings of any media outlet anywhere. If the media, as you claim, is liberal, then Fox must be as well.

Posted by: NKM | August 24, 2009 at 04:27 PM }}

[Robert Land]

Glen Beck in one short week will take the lead as a conservative prophet & leading voice. Rush Limbaugh is seen as Mr mean (as he dominates terrestrial radio) & his approach is seen as heavy handed to moderates. Sean Hannity touches a nerve in the administration but most on the right see him as tentative. He circles the topic without the killer instinct (as he dominates cable TV) that would expose what lurks in the shadows of this administration. To really make an impact against team Obama you have to be willing to take on race/black nationalism/socialism & promote the opposite. That stance will ensure the race card in SPADES being pulled against you and you will have to fight the racist stigma. Glen Beck is opening eyes and ears to the first administration that was voted/appointed/advised in by the people it loathes-HATES. The retard Lib/Limp/DemoRAT-left woulda voted for Obama even with the radical appointments, associations, and thuggery tactics that are now the norm in the black house. White guilt was the driving force into the election of the half white guy. The only problem with white guilt is that there's an expiration date on it - that date has come and gone with the creation of the LIB phrase POST-RACIAL AMERICA. The independents are the ones in shock after realizing what their votes have done. Independents-moderates on the left and right will flood the polls in 10 & 12 to cleanse their souls of the biggest mistake of their lives. Once the morning fog clears it will be conservative radio / TV that will expose and lead the demolition of the communist party in America. You want a one party system in America - ramrod that health-care bill through and you'll get your ONE PARTY - it'll be our party but you'll get the one party system - LOL-Keep protesting FOX - their ratings make MSNBC look like a cable access channel. The proof is in the ratings.

[Bruce D. Birch]

We the People are taking back America NOW! That is why the liberals are freaking out!!! I personally am starting a We the People movement in my town to start bringing the liberals and racists to light!

[Gregory Berry]

Lets advance the Boycott, Those who support freedoms of opinions on Political talk shows, Lets boycott all the Corporations that have now boycotted BECK and FOX. Hit them where it hurts. I am on board for that. Bye bye Walmart

[Richard]

You may not agree or you may agree with Glenn Beck. That is not the point. The question is would you be willing to go out on a battle field and defend his right to say and express his view. That my dear is what our county was founded. In my opinion you can disagree with him but take a step back and realize he has a right to his views. Ask the ACLU. He is right to say white is black and black is white, no pun intended. From reading many of these remarks, you would not be willing to defend his right to talk. If this is your opinion, step light because your right to talk will be taken away.

[David N Ackert]

Now I must ask; did you do any research on Jones? If you had you would have found that Beck is only reporting fact. Not to mention using our 1st amendment right to do so.

To boycot someone for using his 1st amendment right to inform his country of what and who are making policy is shamefull. On this count not very smart either.

You state yourself how his audience has grown. I would have to say that is because more Americans believe in what Bech is saying then what the rest of the media has the guts to say and if the advertisers would rather reach smaller audiences well, thats their right.

I have always believed in our media to be a fair and unbiased media. Far superior to any other countries media. Today, not so much, all most of the stations such as ABC, NBC and CBS only report what they want to and not the entire truth or everything that is going on.

That in itself allows for the decline of our trust in the media as well as in our government. We will have the truth and we will stay free, retain our freedom of choice, the freedom to live to be 90 or more. The right to see the doctor of our choice.

There will always be people like Beck that will bring the truth to the people. Take one down and two more will rise and be even stronger.

There is no place for communists whether past associated or present in our government or any other organization that helps mold our way of life.

It is time that all media start to let the people know the facts all the facts. Because no matter how stupid the government thinks we are we are indeed as smart as we were the last time we had to fight for our freedom on our own land and just like the last time, we will retain our freedom!

[Brian]

Why is it that he is the only one in the entire media questioning all of these czars?

I think this should be the job of the mainstream media.

[Uncle Billy Briscoe]

It is ironic that the story mentions that Becks viewership is flat with a year ago with 2.25 million.

There are at least 2.25 million who drink the Fox Koolaid each evening.

I mean it is easy to understand. Why think for yourself, if you can be told what to think and feel? Why not just stick with the majority of other people who watch Fox and then let them decide what you can believe and not believe. Don't do anything on your own, without checking the talking points and listening to what you are "supposed" to think.

Fox would have been a hit in the 1970s USSR. They would have only needed one Network.

[johnl]

God bless Glenn Beck ! People that put him down must not listen to what he is saying.Over and over this man puts down everyside of Gov't. He's not for one side or the other. He's for demanding that we just take a look at these people that are running our Gov't and make sure that this is what is RIGHT for our country.Is it not time to somehow figure out a way to manage our debt ? Is this admin. doing anything to help this problem ? It's not the fault of the current admin. that we have this problem but we have to face that hard question. DON'T WE ? Has anyone out there faced credit card problems in the past ? When it came time to face the music and pay up did any of them say lets give you more debt to pay off old debt ? How does that work ? Not to mention the fact that the Gov't is the one thats wants control over all this.We gave these folks the entitlement programs to run over the years and there doing just fine, right ? Social Security, Medicare, Medicad etc.
Whats so wrong about asking people that if you put into the system(whatever it is) that you will get something out of it ? I would think that putting something into a system and rewarding them would make people do that. But we reward people who do NOTHING and elect or appoint those who wish give our hard earned money away on exactly those principles.
Wake up America ! Before it's too late.

[T Hodges]

Why is suddenly okay and patriotic to question the government and critisize what they are doing. During the Bush years, if you questioned the war, Bush, 9/11, you were labelled unpatriotic, you were critisized and told if you askd you were sympathetic with the terrorists....

Isn't it funny how Fox News can control and entire segment of the popular of America? These people only see and believe what they are told by Fox. Kind of scary really.....

[PookieNeedsAJob]

I saw the video were Van Jones said that "green jobs" should go to give "Pookie" a job who lives in the inner cities.

I thought the "green jobs" were supposed to go to help the environment, not for social welfare programs? I thought they were going to build solar plants and wind mills, or programs to educate on the environment and to scientists and programs that dealt with the environment. Not to some guy named Pookie in the hood.

If Pookie wants a job, Pookie should drop his street name, go back to school and get a degree in a subject that is in demand, like in the nursing or in the medical field.

Tax dollars set aside for the environment shouldn't be hijack to go to SOCIAL SERVICE WELFARE programs. They should go to help and fix the environment.

Fire Van Jones, not Glenn Beck.