Is Glenn Beck Getting Too Big For His Britches?

Howard Kurtz, Wash Post media maven and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources," runs this photo and piece on anonymous Foxies pissed at Beck's "brand." Beck has become a constant topic of conversation among Fox journalists, some of whom say they believe he uses distorted or inflammatory rhetoric that undermines their credibility.


Ailes has occasionally spoken to Beck about the negative tone of his 5 p.m. program. And Beck, in turn, sometimes seeks Ailes's advice.

Publicly, there is plenty of praise. While Beck declined to be interviewed, Chris Balfe, president of Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, says that "Glenn and Roger have a fantastic relationship. That's the reason he went to Fox, because of Roger." He adds: "Roger definitely gives Glenn advice on a lot of different things he thinks Glenn could be doing better or differently."

Fox responded by arranging an interview with Bill Shine, its senior vice president. Shine says that last fall a vice president was assigned "to help keep an eye on that program" and review its content in advance -- a full-time job. "We see Glenn as an investment and we wanted to help him out even more," Shine says.

Shine dismisses the notion that Beck's prominence may be a liability for Fox, even while noting the left's "hate" for the host: "I don't perceive it to be a problem. . . . Glenn Beck is popular and controversial? Well, almost everybody here has been popular or controversial at some point in the last 13 years." For the channel's journalists, Shine adds, "sometimes it might make their job a little more difficult."

Television analyst Andrew Tyndall calls Beck an "activist" and "comedian" whose incendiary style has created "a real crossroads for Fox News."

"They're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization," he declares. "Do they want to be the go-to place for conservative populist ideas on television, or do they want to be a news organization? Ailes has done a good job of doing both."

The internal tensions are fueled by two views of Beck's success. He is either a self-promoting independent operator, as some at Fox believe, or a team player who regularly talks up his new colleagues, as the Beck camp sees it. Some journalists and other staffers who are upset about Beck's language declined to be identified criticizing a fellow employee.

Before launching his Fox program in January 2009, Beck had a popular radio show and Web site, as well as a magazine (called Fusion) and a thriving career as an author. These ventures -- Beck doesn't even work at Fox's Sixth Avenue headquarters -- give him an outside base that his team believes doesn't sit well with some Fox executives.

There is no question that the Fox exposure has transformed his career. When Beck had a show on CNN's Headline News, he averaged 367,000 nightly viewers in 2008, according to Nielsen figures. His Fox program is drawing 2.8 million viewers so far this year, slightly more than Hannity's.

Some Fox insiders say Ailes and his staff deserve much of the credit for Beck's new prominence, both by giving him a platform suited to a conservative audience and granting him the freedom to say what he wants. But with that freedom has come constant controversy.

More than 200 companies have joined a boycott of Beck's program, making it difficult for Fox to sell ads. The time has instead been sold to smaller firms offering such products as Kaopectate, Carbonite, 1-800-PetMeds and Goldline International. A handful of advertisers, such as Apple, have abandoned Fox altogether. Network executives say they believe they could charge higher rates if the host were more widely acceptable to advertisers.

Beck, who travels with a bodyguard and retains his own publicist, Matthew Hiltzik, has also clashed with Fox over media opportunities. Last fall Beck wanted to accept an invitation from Jay Leno's prime-time show, but Fox management was opposed. Beck kept pushing and finally got permission to appear on the program in December. A Fox News spokesperson says the network simply wanted Beck to wait until the reverberations from his racism charge against Obama had faded. The executive suite was also rankled last week when Beck spent two minutes of airtime to promote his one-man show at Broadway's Nokia Theater on Tuesday.

Fox staffers note that veteran producer Gresham Striegel left the network after clashing with Beck and say the host has surrounded himself with loyalists from Mercury, some of whom remain on that company's payroll. (Striegel did not respond to a request for comment.) When Fox covers breaking news during Beck's hour, some journalists say, they are flooded with angry e-mail from viewers about the preemption.

Friction between opinionated cable personalities and journalists has also flared occasionally at MSNBC. But Beck has caused such anguish at Fox that some of its journalists celebrated the failure of last week's interview with embattled ex-congressman Eric Massa, which Beck pronounced a waste of time.

Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style. Yet even that has caused grousing. Some staffers say they have watched rehearsals, on internal monitors, in which Beck has teared up or paused at the same moments as he later did during the show. Asked about this, Balfe responded sharply: "Glenn reacts the same way to issues whether he knows people are watching or not, and is proud to show his emotions, unlike the cowardly, two-faced critics who hide behind anonymity."

One thing is beyond debate: Beck provides a strong lead-in for the network's evening lineup. "The significance of Beck to Fox's bottom line cannot be underestimated," says Tyndall, the industry analyst. "Getting an audience that size at 5 p.m. is absolutely unheard of."

But that growth has come at a price, at least for those at Fox who believe that Beck is beginning to define their brand. Glenn Beck is a media phenomenon married to a phenomenally successful network, but away from the cameras, theirs is a troubled relationship.

Who are the leakers of the above?  If I were Fox News czarina I would've leaked it in attempts to rein in Glenn, assuage the Obama WH, and let the media world know that not all at Fox buy into Beck's shtick after this last week.  Or, are the leaks jealousy masked as "concern?"