Fox may not renew Glenn Beck's contract

Glenn Beck's contract with Fox News expires in December, and according to the New York Times, the network may not renew it. As we noted in February, Beck's ratings are down 39% from last year, and apparently there's been considerable in-fighting at Fox over the pundit's controversial statements. According to the Times' David Carr, many Fox insiders fear that Beck's conspiracy theories "have made it difficult for Fox to hang onto its credibility as a news network." (Here I am fighting the urge to make a rude remark.)

Carr also notes that around 300 advertisers have left the show, not wanting to be associated with a guy who called Barack Obama a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred of white people" and claimed that Al Gore was creating a "Hitler youth." This mass exodus, Carr says, has left "sponsorship to a slew of gold bullion marketers." Nothing pairs better with level-headed reporting than gold-bullion ads! Carr's whole article is worth reading, but before we all get too excited about Beck's maybe-impending demise, we should remember that Glenn Beck is a much smaller problem than the millions of people inclined to listen to someone like Glenn Beck, who will probably get a whole new Glenn Beck by this time next year.