The White House has openly challenged Glenn Beck and the topics he covers on his program trying to discredit Beck and his program, this has done little to hurt The Glenn Beck Show and many argue that it may have helped raise his ratings. However, maybe the new approach that has begun will finally cash in on some of Becks credibility. There are a few extremely popular shows on television that have recently attacked Beck, shows such as South Park, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and SNL. These shows for some reason (hint: they may or may not… well, scratch the may not… lean left) have chosen to follow the lead of the White House and discredit Beck by doing over the top comical impersonations (sort of over the top ha!) of Beck and his show. We debated in class whether news media leans left and we found it hard to prove it did but proving whether the more popular comedy shows on television today lean left could be a lot easier. We talked about one of the problems with a bias media is it could skew information which in turn could alter people’s perceptions on certain topics, however, due to the fact that it is hard to prove the news media is bias it is hard to say if news media has changed anyone’s perception. I would argue on the other hand that popular shows (especially comedy) that give use misleading or over exaggerated information do mislead people. I am a direct example of this dilemma. Before I began to study Political Science I knew little about politics and the issues that revolve around it because of this I was extremely influenced by the things I saw on my favorite comedies. I received my news information form Stephen Colbert for crying out loud! Seriously though, I used the things Colbert talked (joked) about on his show and presented them as facts in political arguments I had. Although I knew South Park was a bit outrageous, the stances they took on certain people and situations altered my own reality on the subject in favor of the view South Park portrayed. The same influences these shows had (have) on me in my life continued to be manifested in the words and views of many of my friends. My friends who have no political knowledge have already begun to talk about the things they have seen about Beck on South Park and have already tried to present them to me as facts… this is not good. The problem I see here is that the White House can only go so far to prove someone wrong until they eventually win the battle or until they eventually lose credibility themselves, these comedy shows on the other hand don’t need to prove they are credible because they say they don’t claim to be nor need to be credible! They are comedians for crying out loud! If only the people I know watching the shows understood this! This misinterpretation of reality could be the reason why South Park has to show a stated warning before every show explaining to people the things in the show are not actual reality but are false… certain people obviously have believe the things they have seen on the show. These shows only prove how powerful humor can be. I will always believe humor is one of greatest weapons anyone can use in their day to day activities and these programs have mastered that weapon. People in general wants to be friends with the guy (or girl) who can make them laugh, and in most cases they would chose the humorous guy over the straight forward guy (or girl). If any attack were to discredit Glenn Beck I think this attack by comedy has the best chance by playing off people’s ignorance (maybe Beck haters believe what goes around comes around). I only hope if Beck goes down it is from real issues not comedy.
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