Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Meet Angelo Carusone. The Guy Who Took Away Glenn Beck's Pied Pipe.

With economic woes and natural disasters, the nation has been hungry for legends and fairytales. Movie audiences continue to clamor for larger than life heroes that can leap tall buildings with a single bound or vanquish villains with a POW! and a BAM!  The fairytale wedding of an English prince to a "regular girl" and the death of the world's most hated boogey man had Americans glued to their collective television sets.  


Here in the United States, we had another bedtime story.  Once upon a time a young man noticed  millions of enamored Americans being misled by a television pundit.  He would dare to point out that the emperor had no clothes.  He would take the pipe from the pied piper.  He would help bring down Glenn Beck.  And he's a recent law grad to boot.


Mild mannered Angelo Carusone proved to be Glenn Beck's greatest nemesis. He would take away the chalk from Lex Luthor's hand.  Heck, Angelo proved to be Scooby Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang all rolled into one.  Old man Beck would have gotten away with it too if not for that meddling kid at StopBeck.com (Too much? OK, maybe I read too many comic books as a kid).   


Like Peter Parker, Angelo Carusone was a native New Yorker.  He began noticing some outlandish claims being made on the Glenn Beck show.  A former competitive debate champion, Carusone was well versed in the importance of presenting the facts.  After watching  Beck's show, he noticed that the show was devoid of them. Nevertheless, millions of Glenn Beck's fans were mesmerized by his words.   Beck had the secret formula.  He played into people's deep seeded fears and prejudices.  He would mix in a little truth with a little lie.  He would then hit repeat.  Beck's television show was on several times a day.  He was on the radio.  He was on the internet.  He was writing books, holding rallies and touring the country.  His followers were beginning to believe some pretty ridiculous things. It was dividing the country.  After all, it's hard to doubt a man sitting in front of the American flag and cutouts of our founding fathers.  George Washington never told a lie.  Plus he wrote on a chalkboard and wore glasses.
Your teacher wouldn't lie to you either.

Carusone was fed up.  He contacted Fox News with a request that they start being more responsible with their reporting. When they turned a blind eye to him, Angelo turned to twitter via the moniker @stopbeck.  It was the worst thing that could happen to Glenn Beck.  Not only was Carusone a former debate champion, he would enhance his skills at the University of Wisconsin's School of Law.  He had facts, common sense and over 23,000 like minded twitter followers on his side.  (Heck, Hall & Oates only has around 1700.  Ronald Reagan's son Michael has a little over 4000).  

Carusone started contacting Beck's sponsors to point out the vitriol and outlandish lies coming out of the Glenn Beck camp.  In August of 2009, Kraft Foods became the first company to listen. Hundreds would follow suit.  The show completely lacked sponsors in Britain.  Media Matters took notice of Angelo's efforts and hired him in their efforts to hold Fox News accountable.  Glenn's ratings dropped as an estimated third of his audience left.  He was left with fringe sponsors that appealed to the doom and gloom crowd. They included a company that sold $150 super seeds to help you prepare for Armageddon.  Yes, Glenn Beck fans were being sold "magic beans."  Which brings us back to Jack...errr  Angelo, the giant killer.
  
I began following Angelo Carusone on Twitter.  I was amazed at the threatening language and vulgar insults publicly hurled at Mr. Carusone for his efforts.  I can only imagine the private emails he received.  I applaud him for sticking with it. I like when the good guy triumphs in fairy tales.  It's even better when it happens in real life.  Fox has announced the cancellation of the Glenn Beck show.   Maybe we can all now live happily ever after.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved the post. Really got a kick out of this. Somebody needs to give Angelo a medal.

Jane Harington said...

I love this article. Very entertaining and true lol

Unknown said...

Rather stupid wasn't it!!! The person behind this article evidently continues to read kids comic books.

I hope he doesn't end up with a show of his own...no way could I listen to his childish bable.

Adrian M. Baron said...

Thank you Carol. Love the comments.

Anonymous said...

Oh look some nobody with a law degree spread lies and got the Glenn Beck show "canceled". Seems strange that I'm watching it on my dvr as I type this out. What a putz.

Anonymous said...

The conservatives just hate it when their emperors have no clothes, don't they? Sour grapes?

(BTW, Obama is sorry it took so long to get you that birth certificate, but he was busy killing bin Laden.)

John Henderson said...

Awesome article. Keep up the good work Media Matters

Anonymous said...

Angelo Carusone has spent $250k on his education to be a low life lawyer. He has graduated but can't get a job or pass the bar. He is gay and the majority of his 'followers' are gay rejects on twitter. They are all mind numb robots who do whatever the ex-catholic loser tells them to do. He announced he was engaged to his boyfriend. The only good thing is that mother nature fixes it mistakes - Carusone's dna line dies with him. This guy is a loser who lives off his parents at age 28. He can't speak without shuddering and stammering. You would think you would have to be able to speak in court and make sense.

Anonymous said...

Carusone is at the beginning of her career, and took down Beck? An
auspicious start! Perhaps he is the next Bill Gates!

Anonymous said...

As a regular reader of this blog, there is one thing that I would like to point out to everyone who commented, and that is this:

Aligning oneself with a political party should NOT be akin to siding with your favorite "team".

Any political pundit who sees it necessary to spew hate-mongering vitriol rather than presenting straight facts is doing so for one reason and one reason only:

Ratings

Ratings==money in the pocket of the pundit who's audience drools at their feet, waiting for the next morsel of anger-inspiring rhetoric.

Instead of listening to and BELIEVING everything your pundit of choice has to say, RESEARCH, QUESTION, and LEARN what the facts are. Read up on the fact on NON-PARTISAN sites, look up actual voting records (again, from a non-partisan resource, like www.senate.gov, for instance) instead of believing what is spoon- or shovel-fed to you in the mass media.

Think about that the next time you turn on your favorite pundit's TV/Radio show, regardless of whether you side with Republicans, Democrats, or Independents.

I started doing that about nine years ago, and it was a major eye opener.

I invite and challenge anyone who reads this to do the same. You will think differently of Republican, Democrat, and Independent politicians in general as well as their parties' PAID pundits, and several well-known "news" organizations as well.

Unknown said...

Just recently become a 'twitterfritter' eg. couch potato twitter acitivist. Found @stopbeck ... love him. Thanks to him, and to you for this recognition.
Next, Rush Limpbaugh.

Adrian M. Baron said...

Dear Anonymous 4,

Speaking as a fellow "low life lawyer", I got to say Angelo did a pretty terrific job. Over 300 advertisers left Glenn Beck's show due to his efforts. I congratulate him on his position with Media Matters. Pretty high profile job for a recent law grad. (Of course, I am a mindless robot who blew 250,000 on my law degree. Looking forward to my wife being a mindless robot as well. She graduates law school this month).

I found it telling that Angelo was willing to publicly put himself out there to take on Glenn Beck. I assume your derogatory anonymous comments are due to your sadness regarding the cancellation of the Glenn Beck Show. We all grieve in different ways. Please accept my condolences.

If you miss Mr. Beck's ranting, may I suggest spending the day on a NYC subway platform. You are bound to hear an earful of conspiracy theories.

Adrian M. Baron said...

Dear Anonymous et al.

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Special thanks to our regular readers.

-Adrian