Thursday, April 7, 2011

It's Stifling in Here!

Photo by David Shankbone

Said Fox News chief Roger Ailes of the reasons behind Glenn Beck's departure: "Advertisers who get weak-kneed because some idiot on a blog site writes to them and says we need to stifle speech, I get a little frustrated by that."

I spent a little time wondering what he meant by "stifling speech". It's obviously not about Beck's ability to speak. That's unchanged. And he can do it in public, too. Then there are the books that he publishes. He's losing his TV show at Fox, but I haven't heard that his radio show is over. Oh, and he has a website.

So what does stifling speech mean to Roger Ailes? I guess it means that nobody is willing to pay Beck millions of dollars to speak on TV. With that it mind...

Stop stifling my speech!