from Drew

We all know that cable news can be loud and annoying - like when Fox News host Glenn Beck called President Obama "a racist" with "a deeply seated hatred of white people."1 But now that Beck's character assassinations are beginning to impact the real world, things are getting dangerous and we need to act.

Last week, Beck claimed credit for getting Van Jones - a senior African American advisor to the President and our nation's first Green Jobs czar - to resign.2 And he's still on the warpath, spouting wild conspiracy theories and vitriolic attacks almost every night on his program.3

Nobody's denying Beck's right to free speech. But there need to be consequences for people like Beck who use the platform of cable news to destroy our ability to have a real debate about the environment, health care and the economy.

Fortunately, our friends at Color of Change have an answer. They're hitting Beck and Fox News where it hurts - in their wallet. Color of Change already has cut Beck's ad revenue in half. Sign their petition today, and force Fox to consider how much it's worth to keep Beck's poison on the air. http://colorofchange.org/beck/hold/?rf=tm

So far more than 200,000 people have signed the petition asking advertisers not to support Beck. 62 corporations have listened and moved more than $500,000 worth of advertising away from his show.

In response, Beck got nastier. Lashing out at Green-Jobs Czar Van Jones, NEA official Yosi Sergant and others for being too liberal, too close to Obama or too ideologically impure.4 Beck has made it clear he's determined to create an atmosphere in which the White House can accomplish nothing, and he's doing it partly by launching vicious smear campaigns on Obama's advisers.

But with Fox sacrificing more than half a million ad dollars a week to Beck's vitriol, there's a chance to turn this around. It's a simple matter of supply and demand: If there's no advertising demand for Beck's show, the network will have to shut him down or shut him up to cover their costs. And in the process we'll send an important message to the cable news networks that facts and tone still matter in reporting.

Sign the petition now to thank the advertisers who are standing up to Beck, and ask more to do the same.

-Drew

Drew Hudson
TrueMajority / USAction

1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS8jOlY6U6o&feature=player_embedded
2 - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/us/politics/07vanjones.html
3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWL-pfCao-U&feature=player_embedded
4 - http://www.voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/09/10/beck_strikes_again_yosi_sargen.html