Man of the Year Finalist No. 4
December 28, 2009

The daily countdown continues until the announcement on New Year’s Eve of the Man of the Year of the Don Surber blog.

When he was on CNN Headline News (now HLN), Glenn Beck was the lonely little petunia in the onion patch. Up against Shep Smith on Fox News, Beck was roadkill, averaging less than a half-million viewers a night.

But placed in the garbage timeslot of 5 PM Eastern on Fox News, Beck became a star — averaging five times the audience he had at HLN. Beck turned 5 PM into yet another hour of prime time for Fox News (not so much for everyone else) and is running neck-and-neck with Sean Hannity for the second-most popular cable news show.

He is a major reason Fox News gained viewers while its competitors lost viewers. Fox New went from a 38% market share last year to 44% this year.

But his TV stardom is not why he made the list.

It is his journalism. While he readily admits he is an entertainer — a rodeo clown turned talk radio host — Beck has scooped the rest of the political world on stories that cost at least 3 White house aides their jobs and in airing the videos that showed that ACORN not only has embezzlers at the top but aiders and abettors of prostitution, illegal immigration, child molestation, and tax evasion at the bottom.

Rather than hail him as a hero who is fighting political corruption, the rest of the media attacks him — not the corrupt politicians.

Perhaps his greatest service is giving voice to those patriotic dissenters who dare to speak up to the well-heeled insiders and lobbyists in Washington who have taken over the government and who want to plunder this economy.

The president and his henchmen and henchwomen are feeding America lies. Beck is calling them on it.

Glenn Beck, Man of the Year Finalist No. 4.

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