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Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American talk radio and television host, conservative political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He hosts the nationally syndicated Glenn Beck Program on Premiere Radio Networks, while also hosting the Glenn Beck Show every weekday on the Fox News Channel. He has become a well-known public figure, whose provocative views have afforded him media recognition and popularity, along with controversy and criticism.
Personal lifeGlenn Beck was born in February, 1964 in Everett, Washington. His parents, William and Mary, lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington at the time of Beck's birth[3] and sometime later moved their family to Mount Vernon, Washington.[4] where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area.[5] Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Mount Vernon's private Immaculate Conception Catholic school. At 13, he won a contest that landed him his first broadcast gig as a disc-jockey for his hometown radio station, KBRC.[6] Beck's parents were divorced in 1977 and the 13 year-old Beck moved with his mother to Sumner, Washington, attending school in Puyallup. In 1979, his mother died in a mysterious drowning in Puget Sound, just west of Tacoma, either accidentally or as a suicide.[7] A man who had taken her out in a small boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report filed after the drowning stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have either fallen or jumped overboard.[7] After his mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father’s home in Bellingham,[6] where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in 1982.[8] 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.[9] At 18, following 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,[10] taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February, 1983.[11] It was while working at WPGC that Beck met his first wife, Claire.[12] The couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah; Mary was born in 1988 with cerebral palsy, the result of a series of strokes at birth.[12] The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. Along with being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict[13], Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.[14] He cites the help of Alcoholics Anonymous in his sobriety and attended his first AA meeting in November 1994, the month he states he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.[15] In 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. One of his recommendations for admittance came from Senator Joe Lieberman.[citation needed] Beck took one theology class, "Early Christology," and then dropped out.[15][16] In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania.[15] They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary.[17][18] The couple have two children, Raphe and Cheyenne, and currently live in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 2002 Beck created Mercury Radio Arts, a media platform which produces his broadcast, publishing and online projects, as well as his live performances. Political viewsBeck says of his political views, "I consider myself a libertarian. I'm a conservative, but every day that goes by I'm fighting for individual rights."[19] Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, right to life, freedom of religion, low debt, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society.[20] Beck supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.[21] He has suggested that President Barack Obama's health care reform agenda is a means by which Obama can effect reparations for slavery.[22] Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming,[23] views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.[24] InfluencesAccording to Joanna Brooks, a scholar of American religion, one pre-eminent influence on Beck's political ideology has been W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006).[25] Skousen was an anti-communist, a supporter (though not a member) of the John Birch Society,[26] and limited-government conservative[27] whose works involve a wide range of subjects (including, for example, the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, and even child rearing).[27] Beck praises Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's The Naked Communist [28] and especially The 5,000 Year Leap (originally published in 1981),[27] which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life".[27] According to Skousen's nephew, financial and political commentator 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."[29] The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person".[27] 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.[27][30] 9-12 ProjectMain article: 9-12 Project Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and twelve values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks.[31] Beck has supported the tea party protests from their inception and held a broadcast from one of the April 2009 rallies in San Antonio.[32] In September 2009, the conservative political activism group FreedomWorks organized the Taxpayer March on Washington, to rally against President Obama's policies.[33] The event was inspired by Beck's 9/12 project.[34] Media career and incomeIn addition to broadcasting, Beck has written three 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.[35] In June 2009, estimators at Forbes magazine calculated Beck's earnings over the previous 12 months at $23 million, with 2009-2010 revenues on track to be even higher.[36] 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.[36] Additionally, Beck's online magazine Fusion, sells an array of Beck-themed merchandise.[36] RadioSee also: Glenn Beck Program Radio historian Marc Fisher has posited that Beck is "first and foremost an entertainer, who happens to have stumbled into a position of political prominence."[36] 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.[6][37] Following 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.[10] 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.[12] 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.[12] His four-hour weekday show was called Captain Beck and the A-Team.[38] Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included tasteless jokes. 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.[39] Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck, then 23, was partnered with a 26-year-old Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program.[15] 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.[15] 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.[12] He would later recount to the Houston Chronicle that his stint at Power 104 "was the worst time in [his] broadcasting career".[40] 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 27-year-old 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.[41] According to a former colleague, Beck was "completely out of it" when a B104 manager went down to the station to bail him out.[41] 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 Hamden, Connecticut.[15] 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.[42] 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.[15] The Glenn Beck Program first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, Florida, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year.[43][44] In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on forty-seven stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 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.[45] TelevisionSee 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. By 2007, Beck's success on CNN had ABC wanting him for occasional appearances on Good Morning America.[citation needed] 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."[46] At the end of his time at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace.[47] On July 21, 2008, Beck filled in for Larry King on the show Larry King Live.[48] In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.[49] On October 16, 2008, it was announced that Glenn Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving behind CNN Headline News. CNN pulled the program off the air the same day. A news hour with Jane Velez-Mitchell filled Beck's former slot, with subsequent slots filled by Lou Dobbs Tonight encores.[50] 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.[51] His first guests included Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the wives of Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos.[52] He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program The O'Reilly Factor titled "At Your Beck and Call."[53] As of September 2009[update] Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows on CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined.[54][55] Authorship and publishing Arguing with Idiots was published by Simon and Shuster in 2009. Glenn Beck has become a popular and best-selling author, releasing six books since 2003. He is one of the few authors to hit #1 on the New York Times New York Times Bestseller List in three separate categories: Hardcover Non-Fiction (Arguing with Idiots[56] and An Inconvenient Book[57]), Paperback Non-Fiction (Common Sense[56]), and Hardcover Fiction (The Christmas Sweater[58]). The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland was published by Pocket Books in 2003.[59] An Inconvenient Book was published by Simon and Shuster in 2007.[60] This book was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller for the week of December 9, 2007, and remained on the list for 17 weeks.[61][62] The Christmas Sweater was published by Simon and Shuster in 2008.[63] This book was #1 on the New York Times Bestseller for the weeks of November 30, 2008, and December 25, 2008.[58][64] America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades is an audiobook that was published by Simon and Shuster in 2008.[65] An Unlikely Mormon, The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck was published by Deseret Book in 2008 (DVD).[66] Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-Of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine was published by Simon and Shuster in 2009.[67] This book rose to #1 on the New York Times Bestseller, for the weeks of June 26, 2009, through October 18, 2009.[68][69] Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government was published by Simon and Shuster in 2009.[70] This book debuted #1 on the New York Times Bestseller for the week of September 30, 2009, and retained the #1 spot for three weeks.[56] Beck is also the publisher of Fusion Magazine, which is a play on the slogan of the The Glenn Beck Program, "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment."[71] Live eventsSince 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.[72] 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." [73] 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.[74] The finale of 2009's Common Sense Comedy Tour was simulcast in over 440 theaters.[75] The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.[36] 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 Provo, Utah. 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."[76] On May 17, 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.[77] 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.[78] 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.[79] Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.[79] OtherWhile working in Connecticut, Beck appeared and sang background vocals on The Delrays' Red, White and Blues CD, a fund raising effort by then Governor John G. Rowland produced by guitarist Tom Guerra. The CD was well received and was promoted by a series of live appearances. Public reception
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."[80] 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."[36] An Anti-Defamation League special report said, "Beck and his guests have made a habit of demonizing President Obama and promoting conspiracy theories about his administration."[81] Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer,[80] a commentator rather than a reporter,[82] a rodeo clown,[80] and identified with Howard Beale "When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy."[83] Time Magazine describes 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 conspiracies against FEMA but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program.[84] What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes they note, is a sense of siege.[84] Time further describes 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's discontent ... mining the timeless theme of the corrupt Them thwarting a virtuous Us."[36] In 2006, Beck asked Muslim congressman-elect Keith Ellison, a guest on his show, to "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."[85] Beck's question, which he himself suggested was "quite possibly the poorest-worded question of all time,"[86] resulted in protests from several Arab-American organizations.[87] During the 2009 Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that President Barack 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."[88] These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change.[89] The boycott resulted in 80 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers.[89][90][91][92][93][94][95] Due to the show's high ratings, broadcast industry observers believe Beck's potential earnings remain unharmed.[96] In July 2009, Glenn Beck began to devote what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows, focusing on President Barack Obama's Director of White House Council on Environmental Quality, Van Jones. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in 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. Among other things, Beck referred to Jones as a "communist-anarchist radical".[97] It has been speculated that Beck's criticisms may have been motivated in part by Jones' prior involvement in Color of Change, the organization that had previously convinced advertisers to pull their support from Beck's TV show.[97][98] 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.[97] Time magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones,[36] which Jones would characterize a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".[98] In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were also critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons including claims of voter fraud in the in the 2008 presidential election.[99] In September 2009, he promoted a series of undercover videos portraying community organizers offering inappropriate advice to filmmakers who posed as a pimp and prostitute while visiting various ACORN offices. Following the videos' release the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.[36] The controversies throughout 2009 garnered increasing attention and Beck was featured on the cover of the September 28 issue of Time magazine. The piece called him "the hottest thing in the political-rant racket" and reported that his television program had drawn upwards of 3 million viewers in recent days.[36] He was also parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on Saturday Night Live.[100] The Daily Show's Jon Stewart quipped about Beck: "Finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking."[101] 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.[102] Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain should be turned over to Beck.[103] The site, created by Isaac Eiland-Hall, claimed to be parodying Beck using the same kind of straw man arguments Beck reputedly employed. 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.[104] Works
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