Alright, what bug crawled up Glenn Beck's ass? Options

[mipadi]

In his latest rant, Glenn Beck is actually criticizing the Obama administration and the media for encouraging Americans to volunteer. Like most of Beck's "journalism" pieces, his speech is mostly rambling and incoherent and completely lacks any thesis whatsoever...but if I'm not mistaken, he's pissed off that Americans are being encouraged to do community service for free:

Glenn Beck reminds me of my alma mater's Conservatives Club: he rails against any progressive policy, even if it's essentially an all-around good thing -- and isn't helping people a positive thing?

[mipadi]

I don't buy it. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Beck may not want to call himself a journalist, but if you report on news and social goings-on, and provide commentary for them, you are, in fact, a journalist. Beck does sneer at other journalists and the "lib'ral media", as evidenced in the very video I posted. There's a subtext to his claims of not being a journalist: he clearly doesn't want to associate himself with the news media because it would damage his conservative credibility.

If he's not a journalist, what is he? In the interview you posted, he had a chance to say, "I'm an entertainer, just like Jon Stewart," but he didn't take the opportunity to call himself an entertainer, so he clearly doesn't see himself that way. He does refer to himself as an "opinions guy", but guess what: if you're an "opinions guy" on a news-like show on a cable news network with the name "Fox News", then you're more akin to a journalist than...well, whatever Beck would prefer to think of himself as.

[kryogenix]

I don't buy it. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. Beck may not want to call himself a journalist, but if you report on news and social goings-on, and provide commentary for them, you are, in fact, a journalist. Beck does sneer at other journalists and the "lib'ral media", as evidenced in the very video I posted. There's a subtext to his claims of not being a journalist: he clearly doesn't want to associate himself with the news media because it would damage his conservative credibility.

Bloggers do all of those things, but would you call them journalists? Stewart and Colbert?

I used to watch Glen Beck's program on CNN (back when it was cool, yo), and I did so because I found it entertaining, not because I was expecting him to inform me of what was going on in the world. Stuff like this:




was clearly not hard news, so I didn't treat it as such. I found it entertaining to watch a guy who was diagnosed with ADHD sarcastically giving his opinion on current events. Wasn't hard to distinguish between hard news and opinion/entertainment. Heck, I just went on his website right now and it says right at the top that his program is the "fusion of entertainment and enlightenment."

I admit that I haven't caught his new show on Fox News, but if his current website is any indication, he doesn't seem to be trying to hide the fact that his show is meant for entertainment, so why is there confusion?