Should the U.S. Military Be Promoting and Endorsing Glenn Beck?

[unhappycamper]

Should the U.S. Military Be Promoting and Endorsing Glenn Beck?
Chris Rodda
Senior Research Director, Military Religious Freedom Foundation; author, "Liars For Jesus"
Posted: October 28, 2010 08:14 PM

Over the past several years, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has received a steady stream of complaints about two related issues: 1.) religious "infomercials" on the American Forces Network (AFN), the television and radio service provided by the military to service members stationed overseas and on naval vessels; and 2.) televisions located in various facilities on military installations, such as PXs and gyms, being tuned to religious programming, subjecting service members using these non-religious facilities to unwanted evangelizing and/or proselytizing.

Recently, these complaints have taken on some new twists. The complaints about religious "infomercials" on the AFN now not only include evangelizing by chaplains and other unacceptable promotions of religion during non-religious programming, but are promoting religion as a substitute for professional mental health care for service members suffering from PTSD, suicidal thoughts, and other mental health problems. (Read more about this military-wide problem here.) And, complaints about the programs on the televisions in PXs, gyms, and other facilities now include complaints about these televisions being tuned to Fox News's own evangelist, Glenn Beck. And then there are the unusual complaints -- like one about a senior NCO beginning each day by quoting a bit of Glenn Beck's "wisdom" to his subordinates, and telling them they should continue their education by attending Beck's online university, making their base a satellite Beck University campus.

While the incessant pushing of religion on Beck's show is certainly enough to put this "news" program in the same category as any other religious programs when it comes to what's not appropriate for a military facility to be foisting upon service members trying to work out or shop, this isn't the only issue that needs to be raised about the military's endorsement of Beck. There's actually an even bigger issue -- Beck's continual contemptuous statements against the President of the United States -- something that makes Beck's show inappropriate as a programming choice for both facilities on military bases and airing on the American Forces Network.

AFN's television service consists of eight channels -- the military's Pentagon Channel, plus seven channels carrying a variety of American programming, one of which is a news channel. Like all AFN channels, the news channel airs a mix of programs from a variety of networks. And nobody would argue that the AFN shouldn't provide its politically diverse military audience with the same kind of something-for-everyone variety in its news channel programming that it tries to provide on its entertainment channels -- some Fox News shows for the conservatives, some MSNBC shows for the liberals, and shows from other networks that fall somewhere in between. But, this should be equally balanced, and it isn't. AFN's news channel is clearly dominated by Fox News, with the daily schedule containing eight hours of Fox programming -- twice as much time as MSNBC (four hours), twice as much as all three networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS combined (four hours), and nearly twice as much as CNN (five hours).

Obviously, while the military cannot promote or endorse political opinions, it would be impossible for the AFN to provide any kind of variety in its news programming without airing some shows that espouse a particular political viewpoint. And that's fine. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are in the current AFN news line-up, as are Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. But, while shows like these are clearly either liberal or conservative, and regularly contain strong opinions and commentary about politics and politicians, none of them cross the line into contempt crossed by Glenn Beck.

[Solly Mack]

1. I would love to see less religion on AFN. There's a community channel which lets everyone know

what their local places of worship are doing that week. Dates, places, contact information. That's enough. That's more than enough. The channel also gives out info on all community events. (Thrift store hours, yard sales, upcoming trips, sales, etc..)

And then there's the 2-4 times hourly infomercials on Chaplains all over AFN. Either telling everyone how great they (Chaplains/Chaplain asst.) are or asking about "your spiritual fitness".... Blech.


Lately, AFN has been running an infomercial about how they air all kinds of political content programs, all across the political spectrum and how that's only fair. This infomercial (in any form) was never used when Bush was in office.