Howard Kurtz: Glenn Beck Attacking Van Jones Because of Ad Boycott

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Howard Kurtz on Sunday accused Fox News's Glenn Beck of attacking White House "green czar" Van Jones in response to the advertiser boycott implemented by Color of Change, an advocacy group founded by Jones.

Such a conclusion seems to stem from all the time Beck spent on his program last week chronicling Jones's activities as well as his background.

What Kurtz conveniently ignored in this installment of CNN's "Reliable Sources" was that Beck did two reports on Jones prior to the start of Color of Change's campaign to get companies to end their sponsorship of Beck.

Ironically, this came as Kurtz chided Beck for not sharing all the facts with his viewers (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 39:20):

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HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Glenn Beck devoted some time this week to trashing a man named Van Jones, a special adviser at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLENN BECK: Let's start at Yale Law School. Van Jones showed up wearing combat boots and holding a Black Panther book bag. A major turning point came in 1993 when he was arrested during the Rodney King riots. He spent the next ten years as a full-fledged radical. Among other things, founding a group called STORM, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement which held study groups in the Marxist and Lenin teachings. And why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: And why is it that the Fox News host would target this relatively obscure administration official along with that scary music? Van Jones was a co-founder of Color of Change, an advocacy group that has been promoting an advertising boycott of Beck's show over his denunciation of President Obama as a racist. Some three dozen advertisers have pulled their spots from the Beck program, a detail that Beck somehow neglected to mention.

Well, here's a little detail Kurtz neglected to mention: Beck discussed Van Jones's radical background on July 23 --

Obama's new green czar, Van Jones, this is a guy who is a self-avowed communist, and he is in the Obama administration. He says in his book that has been out now for about four months, "The Green Collar Economy," subtitle: "How One Solution Can Fix Two Big Problems," that the best way to fight global warming and urban poverty is by creating millions of green jobs.

This guy wasn't a radical, and then was arrested. He spent six months in jail, came out a communist. Then he was a communist-anarchist radical. And then he decided -- he found the eco-movement -- and decided green is the new red. He then went on to become a green expert.

A percentage of these jobs, he says, should go to the disadvantaged and to the chronically unemployed. Well, why are they chronically unemployed? "The green economy should not just be about reclaiming thrown- away stuff. It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities."

And again on July 28:

BECK: All right. You know, what we're uncovering here on this program is complex, and it is -- it takes a lot of our day just to figure out how to explain it to you. And it's complex by design. You know, it's the vast left-wing conspiracy.

The Apollo Alliance combines environmental policy, the green movement, with labor and social justice. Why is that troubling? Maybe it's the guy behind the curtain making it all happen. He's a former black nationalist and self-professed communist.

Here is Phil Kerpen. He is the director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.

Phil, how are you, sir?

PHIL KERPEN, AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY: I'm good, Glenn. How are you?

BECK: Good. Tell me about -- tell me a little bit about Apollo and these -- I have ACORN and the Black Farmers and the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and AFL-CIO and SEIU. Why are these thee categories -- how are they tied to Apollo?

KERPEN: Well, the Apollo Alliance is designed to bring together the elements of organized labor with the community organizers with the green groups, the environmental groups, and to access all of the big foundation money that's been supportive of those causes in the past. So, it's kind of -- Van Jones, who you mentioned, the self-described communist who is now green jobs czar, he described the Apollo Alliance mission as sort of a grand unified field theory for progressive left causes that ties all these things together.

BECK: OK. And Apollo is named Apollo. Do you know why it's named Apollo?

KERPEN: Yes. They really admire the Apollo mission, the moon shot mission, and they think that we need a similar centrally-planned, organized massive mobilization to reorder society and take control of energy and their various other objectives. They admire that.

BECK: I saw.

KERPEN: . and they want it like a moon shot.

BECK: Right. And I saw on their Web site, and I can't remember the exact quote, but it's something like "massive and fast." They wanted something like the moon shot that could happen and just be launched quickly. OK. So, Van Jobs -- Van Jones, he is the self-proclaimed communist. He is -- he is one of the founding members of Apollo, right?

KERPEN: That's right.

BECK: OK.

KERPEN: The national Apollo, yes.

BECK: OK. And then we have Wade Rathke -- Wade Rathke, who is the founder of ACORN. He was on the board of directors, if I'm not mistaken, of the institution that is funding and paying for Apollo, right?

KERPEN: Yes. He's on -- he was until this year on the board of the Tides Foundation and the Tides Center, which are the parent organizations that host the Apollo Alliance.

BECK: OK. So, Wade Rathke, ACORN, Tides Center, they decide that they're going to fund and create Apollo. One of the founders is the guy who went to jail -- this is during the Rodney King thing -- he went to jail and he was just a black nationalist. He came out a communist and he also then started looking into the green movement, and he is the guy who said, "Hey, if we tie labor and ACORN and Greenpeace together, we've got a super- powerful group, Apollo."

Is it true Apollo helped design the stimulus package?

KERPEN: They did. They put out a draft stimulus bill last year in 2008. It included almost everything that ended up being in the final stimulus bill. Harry Reid has thanked them for helping design the final stimulus package that was enacted into law. And they brag on their Web site that they helped design this thing and push it through.

BECK: OK. SEIU, this is the -- this is the labor group, that they're the ones pushing through health care. This is -- this is ACORN/SEIU. Their vice president is on the board of directors of Apollo, correct?

KERPEN: Yes. Gerland Hudson (ph), the vice president of SEIU, is on the Apollo board of directors.

BECK: OK. Can you tell me where John Podesta fits in to all of this?

KERPEN: John Podesta is also on the Apollo board. He, of course, is also the president of the Center for American Progress, which sends out the daily marching orders, the talking points for the left side of the blogs and the online activists. And those organizers out on the street, the ACORN and SEIU folks, they get their daily talking points from that Center for American Progress e-mail.

BECK: OK. America, I would like you -- I just like to ask you, Barack Obama keeps trying to separate himself from all of these organizations. He's telling us -- he's giving speeches and saying, "I'm one of you, guys; I really am one of you." But then these organizations he'll always distance himself over and over and over again from the individuals.

But let me ask you this -- John Podesta, Van Jones, who is now his green jobs czar, an avowed communist, we've got the SEIU, who's in his office once a week talking about labor. They're the ones who were negotiating with all of the health care industry. He's in the Obama's office all the time. Wade Rathke, former founder of ACORN. It all ties to the Tides Center.

But who's really at the top of all of this? Who's the one that's trying to stay away from all of it and say I have nothing to do with it? Obama. But if you look at what Apollo, social -- see, if this sounds familiar, like, maybe, I don't know, the way we're going to transform America: social justice, the green movement, and labor unions.

Maybe it's just me, Phil. Can you talk me out of the crazy tree here and saying that's -- this is exactly what Barack Obama stands for, and these are his soldiers?

KERPEN: Well, look, there are a lot of connections here that makes it look like that certainly the case. Of course, we've got John Holdren, the science czar, who's also tied up with a lot of these folks. We've got Jason Grumet, who was the chief advisor for energy on the Obama campaign, who's also on the board of John Holdren's group, the National Energy Commission, which is also tied in with these folks.

I think that if you look at Obama's past, he was an organizer for ACORN. He was actually their chief national trainer. If you look at all the organizations that are actually doing the footwork to push through all the elements of the Obama agenda, and it's pretty clear that he's part and parcel of these radical movements. He really can't separate himself from them, in my view.

BECK: I don't know how you can put self-acclaimed communists as a czar and claim you're not part of that. I don't know how you can is surround yourself with radicals and say that you have nothing to do with that. This man is a radical. Please talk me out of the crazy tree, America.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Kurtz neglected to mention that Color of Change's campaign against Beck started AFTER these two programs critical of Jones aired.

In fact, many have speculated that this well-publicized boycott was a response to the conservative host's attacks on Jones, another detail Kurtz neglected to tell his audience Sunday.

C'mon, Howard...we expect much more from you.

*****Update: For the record, it appears the first suggestion of a Beck boycott by Color of Change came in an e-mail message sent to members on July 30 (h/t NBer Gary Hall).

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.


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Where is the money?

follow the money and we will find out who is behind this!

Obama?

I would think so!

Glenn Beck Attacking Van Jones Because of Ad Boycott

So ...

Do you have a point Mr. Kurtz?

allenf--

My thoughts exactly. "Well, duh!" Beck is fighting back...good on him, I say.

Kurtzie!

He never has a point. He only has 20 viewers.

Kurtz: Heart of Blindness

Kurtz neglected to mention that Color of Change's campaign against Beck started AFTER these two programs critical of Jones aired.

Well spotted ns...

I'm not an avid Beck watcher, but even I recall Beck outing Vanity "Unfair" Jones as a self-proclaimed commie BEFORE Jones tried his Afro-Turfing FAUXCOTT.

It's pretty transparent (about the only thing in Camp Obama) that this was the main reason the vexed, irked and miffed Van man got his extremist organization to start turfing Beck.

These government bullies really don't like push back do they?

Thanks Barack! You've done more to promote conservatism than any president since Ronald Reagan (PBUH).

⇒ Afro-Turfing.... OMG funny ha ha ha

 

State controlled health care is Tort Reform.

WTF?

TotalKaosDave

That's like saying terrorists attacked us on 9/11 because we invaded Iraq...

Connections?

A competent press corps would be looking for extant connections between Van Jones and the White House, and the Color of Change organization. We need some angle to allow legal discovery. That would be a bonanza.

start off on the right foot

Before certain unnamed trolls and other undesirables show up here to disparage Beck, let's call everyone's attention to some important facts:

-Color of Change claimed that the boycott was because of a passing comment about Obama that Beck made on Fox and Friends. What does that have to do with Van Jones?

-To accept the premise of Kurtz's argument, you would have to concede that CofC is still affiliated with and working at the behest of Van Jones. Hmm, a White House advisor using front groups to attack the media?

-As noted above, Beck exposed Jones (among other shady personalities) before the boycott started. So conceding Kurtz's argument means CofC was out for revenge.

-You can't claim that Jones has nothing to do with this, and then claim Beck is exposing him for revenge. If Beck "disclosed" the boycott was connected to his report on Jones, he would be accusing a government official of intimidating him. Do you really want Beck to go there?

This is an just one example

This is just one example of dishonest reporting by Howie.  I noticed that there was no disputing the charges that Glenn Beck made against Van Jones. If Howie contends that Van Jones is still connected to Color of Change then this boycott is connected directly to the White House. Hmmmm. Howie's credibility has just be trashed, if he really ever had any.

C'mon Howard..

really Noel? you really expect much more than that from him?

Paul

Paul,

Yes, I do. I respect Howard. I don't always agree with him, but I've never met anyone I agree with 100 percent of the time.

This was a foolish oversight on Howard's part. I've e-mailed him about it, and wonder if he'll respond back. I hope he does.  ns

No offense Noel..but..

After all these yrs on this site,you sound like Orrin Hatch talking about Kennedy.  You REALLY respect him?  even after all the posts about Howard on this site?

Noel, this was not an

Noel, this was not an oversight on Howard Kurtz's part. Glenn Beck has put a lot of information out there the past month, and all Howard had to do is to look at it to understand what Beck is doing. Either Howard is too dumb to understand, or he is delibertly overlooking the data and has chosen to attack based upon a populous chant from the left. I think it's the latter. Howard Kurtze is a putz.

___________________________________ 

"Tax the rich" is a basically unstable way of governing - The NYT

Afternoon TnT... Glad I

Afternoon TnT...

Glad I read the posts first before commenting, you saved me some time, I watched all of this this morning...our conclusions are exactly as you have stated, I've watched Howie from day one, read his Spin Cycle, as far as I am concerned, he has all but sold out to the left...he knew what he was doing this morning, let all of them go after Fox, they are the losers, what is unfortunate for them, is they don't take a lesson from Fox and present some fair and balanced reports, then there would be real competition in the network ratings...they are fools for their agenda....fools.

Just my two cents.

Obama's a Community Agitator, a walking, talking destroyer. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I'm so glad I didn't waste

I'm so glad I didn't waste my time watching this morning. My health insurance policy doesn't cover "aggrevation caused by liberal liers".

I've thought, though, that Glenn Beck now needs to go on a little vacation, and Fox needs to re-run last week's shows over and over again until somebody actually gets it. Beck kept on telling us -- "The Obama administration, so far, has not refuted one, single, item". That's pretty telling, isn't it? And Kurtz had an excellent opportunity to pick apart Beck's entire presentation this morning, didn't he? He chose to not touch it, didn't he? Instead, he brings out his talking points, and tries to convince us that Beck is evil and wrong -- simply because a left-wing organization is organizing a boycott.

Kurtz really, really blew it today. He should be ashamed of himself for pretending he's some kind of journalist.

___________________________________ 

"Tax the rich" is a basically unstable way of governing - The NYT

TnT... You are

TnT...

You are spot-on....and in answer to your questions...

That he did.

Thank you once again for summarizing my feelings in a nutshell.

Obama's a Community Agitator, a walking, talking destroyer. ~ Rush Limbaugh

What an idiot!

Wow, what an idiot Kurtz is. Glenn Beck was looking into Van Jones LONG before the ad boycott. The ad boycott started because of Glenn looking into the administration's dirty laundry.

In or Out?

Are you in or are you out?

Sounds like Howard is out.

 

Camouflage conservative in Baghdad-by-the-Bay

Wanted: Better watchdog

The watchdogs of the watchdogs needs replacing. Or would that be "re-educating?"?

He can't help it...

He can't help it...lookup the word 'liar' in the dictionary, and you will find a personality trait distinctive of our oh-so-modern American liberal.

You see, the reason liberals lie is simple:

THEY CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

So is Van Jones a communist

So is Van Jones a communist or not Mr. Kurtz?

Or are you just carrying water for the far left movement as being proposed by Pelosi, Reid, and Obama?  Because you seem awfully more concerned about Beck raising questions about Van Jones than the radical positions which Van Jones holds.

Yeah, DJ, that was my first

Yeah, DJ, that was my first thought. I want to know if Kurtz agrees or disagrees that Van Jones is an avowed communist. And if he agrees, then I want to know why Kurtz has decided to attack Beck rather than help us answer this fundamental question:

Why has an avowed communist been invited into the inner circle of the White House?

Can anyone convince me that Obama didn't have better choices? That Van Jones, an avowed communist, was his only -- and best choice? OMG!

___________________________________ 

"Tax the rich" is a basically unstable way of governing - The NYT

Funny, when Kurtz goes

Funny, when Kurtz goes after someone in the media, it's a conservative at Fox News. For all the others, he half heartedly relates the charges and offers up excuses and mitigating circumstances.

The "Mainstream" Media: By liberals. For liberals.

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTT do you

WHATTTTTTTTTTTTT do you expect from this jerk.  He does it all the time.  It is like Hewitt on 60 min.  You stake out your position as a judge of ethics and moraility in journalism.  Kurtz is simply not up to the task of judging others ethics.

Wikipedia cleaned up Jones bio

I cannot believe this one....Van Jones bio on Wikipedia before he became obama's "gree czar" was WAY different and described how radical he was, how radical the organizations were etc. he was involved in. Now, it reads totally different-it's been sanitized. I cannot believe the revisionism that is going on! Unbelievable and citizens HAVE to organize and start rising up against this very real threat to civil freedom.

"Hypocrisy, the lie, is the true sister of evil, intolerance, and cruelty."

Wikipedia Bias

Great find; this is Newsbusters article material. Let's hope one of the writers picks up on it. Wikipedia has had a liberal bias problem from its inception.

Howard, lets follow it through shall we

Any reporter worth their salt would know that Beck has been on Van Jones for a while.  But lets go ahead and agree to your premise.  Which is scarier Howard?  The White House is using its power to shut down a person in the media.  You claim that Van Jones attacked Glenn when Glenn didn't provoke him?  That's pretty scary.

Haha

So I checked Mediamatters.org today before I checked Newsbusters because I had been debating people and I was checking for responses.  They have this story up and it took me five minutes to find out the truth...so I commented on it...the first response I got back was just a lib posting a video of Keith Olbermann repeating the same fallacy back on 08/25/2009 for his Worst Person bit.  I come on here and I realize that I wasn't the first to find this out!!! So good job newsbusters. 

"You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." - Evil Conservative

targeted with *scary music*

(oh yeah and a bundle of those pesky things called facts.) 

And those three dozen advertisers?  Mr Kurtz needs to check his facts with someone other than CoC.  I'd thought this whole thing with CoC started with Beck calling the president a racist after the Gates Jr. thing (posted July 30th).  A full week after Beck started speaking out against Obama's "Green Czar" and other suspect czars?  I guess "racist" passed the spaghetti test. 

God forbid we pay attention to the executive branch power grab and the fully complicit legislators.  Maybe Kurtz has unwittingly helped get the correct message out.

___________________________________________
"Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller" Barack Obama (Dr. In Chief)

It's amazing how media types claim to see the world so clearly..

...despite having their heads planted firmly up their backsides. 

wish I could understand Kurt's

point of view, but it's hard to get my head that far up my ass.

Howie just doing his job for Obama

What do you expect out of Howie Kurtz he works for a network that's almost at the bottom in ratings he like the goons at MSNBC are constantly attacking Fox?  Kurtz and his critical lens on the media is never turned on CNN or the Washington Post.  He almost always follows  this administrations talking points and goes after people who are critical of it. He loads his panels with like minded individuals.

He also has a pattern of this kind of reporting where he leaves out major info that totally undermines his point.  I record the show on Sunday so I can yell at him and the way it covers issues.  He may be a nice guy who everyone likes but his show isn't a Reliable Souce in my opinion.

Rather than investigate and

Rather than investigate and expose media bias, Kurtz either dismisses it or offers up lame excuses for it. He may concede a minor thing here or there, but it's usually in regards to what he calls "perception".  I don't watch his show but I've heard him on Imus and it's frustrating and provoking to listen to him and his squishy views of bias. What a waste of a show he has. It should be renamed "What Bias?".

On the same topic but different show, I have been disappointed with "News Watch" on Fox lately. While Kirsten Powers and Judy "Giggles" Miller reliably offer up a defense of the media, the others seem to have lost their edge. The conservative members of the panel don't specialize in bias. I think it's past time to replace the panel with some fresh voices - Noel, Tim, Mark, Brent or any of our people would do a much, much better job.

The "Mainstream" Media: By liberals. For liberals.

Noel wrote: "C'mon, Howard...we expect much more from you."

I don't.

Howard Kurtz is a liberal. Liberal "journalist" handle the truth recklessly, obfuscate, omit important parts of a news story, and as the MRC reports in Media Bias Basics: "approach the news from a liberal angle."

By revealing their bias and journalistic malfunctions, NewsBusters and other blogs can sometimes shame them into occasionally reporting the news in a 'fair and balanced' way.

But only occasionally. For liberal journalist, such as Howard Kurtz, will generally conform to what statistics defines as a "regression toward the mean." As with any system based on liberal values, liberal journalist will generally revert back to their liberal mean.

----------------------------------------------------------

"They have sacrificed integrity (whatever little they had) their character, their professionalism, to prop this guy and his administration up.  They are stenographers for Rahm Emanuel.  They're propagandists for the White House and, increasingly, the Democrat Party at large" ~ Rush Limbaugh on the state-run media

RF... ...they always

RF...

...they always will, Kurtz throws a few bones out there now and then, but that is it...for me he has been easy to see through him and others like him years ago.

Obama's a Community Agitator, a walking, talking destroyer. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Who is Kurtz talking to? 

Who is Kurtz talking to?  Those few who watched him have little idea who Beck is unless they're deep into the Looney Left, and those of us who do watch Beck know that he hit Comrade Van Jones first and that it's Jones who is reacting-not the other way around.

One of the 34% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 86% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.

I used to have some respect for Kurtz...

but lately he's sounding more and more like your typical Liberal.  I will continue to watch Glenn Beck and though I occasionally caught Kurtz's show in the past, I will not bother in the future.  Jim Webster

Wow Kurtz! You described Van

Wow Kurtz!

You described Van Jones as "Relatively obscure administration official"

He has the ear of the POTUS.  

The only reason he is relatively obscure is because msm won't do their jobs and ask questions.  

Question with boldness and without fear of the answer.

 

         Kurtz is

         Kurtz is just another reporter that sold out to obama. After we take back our country from the corrupt polititians in washington, we can take care of the sell outs.