Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded. The genre, which has existed in some form or another since the early years of television programming, exploded as a phenomenon around 1999–2000 with the success of such television series such as ''Big Brother'' and ''Survivor''. Programs in the reality television genre are commonly called reality shows and often are produced in a television series. Documentaries and nonfictional programming such as television news and sports television shows are usually not classified as reality shows.

The genre covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game show or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning Japanese variety show shows produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (such as ''Gaki no tsukai''), to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as ''Big Brother.''

Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, at times utilizing sensationalism to attract audience viewers and increase advertising revenue profits. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are often persuaded to act in specific scripted ways by off-screen "story editors" or "segment television producers", with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through direction and post-production editing techniques.

History

1940s–1950s

Precedents for television that portrayed people in unscripted situations began in the 1940s. Debuting in 1948, Allen Funt's hidden camera ''Candid Camera'' show, (based on his previous 1947 radio show, ''Candid Microphone''), broadcast unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks. It has been called the "granddaddy of the reality TV genre". In 1948, talent search shows ''Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour'' and ''Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts'' featured amateur competitors and audience voting. The ''Miss America'' Pageant, first broadcast in 1954, was a competition where the winner achieved status as a national celebrity.

In the 1950s, game shows ''Beat the Clock'' and ''Truth or Consequences'' involved contestants in wacky competitions, stunts, and practical jokes. The Groucho Marx-hosted game show, You Bet Your Life, was primarily composed of Marx' prescripted comebacks to what was most often candid interviews of the contestants, although some 'contestants' were actors.

The radio series ''Nightwatch'' (1951–1955), which tape-recorded the daily activities of Culver City, California police officers, also helped pave the way for reality television. The series ''You Asked For It'' (1950–1959), in which viewer requests dictated content, was an antecedent of today's audience-participation reality TV elements, in which viewers cast votes to help determine the course of events.

1960s–1970s

First broadcast in the United Kingdom in 1964, the Granada Television series ''Seven Up!'', broadcast interviews with a dozen ordinary seven-year-olds from a broad cross section of society and inquired about their reactions to everyday life. Every seven years, a film documented the life of the same individuals during the intervening period, titled ''7 Plus Seven'', ''21 Up'', etc. The series was structured as a series of interviews with no element of plot. However, it did have the then-new effect of turning ordinary people into celebrities.

In the 1966 Direct Cinema film ''Chelsea Girls'', Andy Warhol filmed various acquaintances with no direction given; the ''Radio Times Guide to Film 2007'' stated that the film was "to blame for reality television."

The first reality show in the modern sense may have been the 12-part 1973 PBS series ''An American Family'', which showed a nuclear family going through a divorce; unlike many later reality shows, it was more or less documentary in purpose and style. In 1974 a counterpart program, ''The Family'', was made in the UK, following the working class Wilkins family of Reading. Other forerunners of modern reality television were the 1970s productions of Chuck Barris: ''The Dating Game'', ''The Newlywed Game'', and ''The Gong Show'', all of which featured participants who were eager to sacrifice some of their privacy and dignity in a televised competition. ''One Man and His Dog'' was a British Television series which began in 1976 featuring the participants of sheepdog trials. In 1978, ''Living in the Past'' recreated life in an Iron Age English village.

1980s–1990s

Reality television as it is currently understood can be directly linked to several television shows that began in the late 1980s and early 1990s. ''COPS'', which first aired in the spring of 1989 and came about partly due to the need for new programming during the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, showed police officers on duty apprehending criminals; it introduced the camcorder look and cinéma vérité feel of much of later reality television. Canadian TV ran ''Thrill of a Lifetime'' a fantasies fulfilled reality show from 1982-88 which was revived in 2001-03.

The series ''Nummer 28'', which aired on Dutch television in 1991, originated the concept of putting strangers together in the same environment for an extended period of time and recording the drama that ensued. ''Nummer 28'' also pioneered many of the stylistic conventions that have since become standard in reality television shows, including a heavy use of soundtrack music and the interspersing of events on screen with after-the-fact "confessionals" recorded by cast members, that serve as narration. One year later, the same concept was used by MTV in their new series ''The Real World'' and ''Nummer 28'' creator Erik Latour has long claimed that ''The Real World'' was directly inspired by his show. However, the producers of ''The Real World'' have stated that their direct inspiration was ''An American Family''.

According to television commentator Charlie Brooker, this type of reality television was enabled by the advent of computer-based non-linear editing systems for video (such as those produced by Avid Technology) in 1989. These systems made it easy to quickly edit hours of video footage into a usable form, something that had been very difficult to do before. (Film, which was easy to edit, was too expensive to shoot enough hours of footage with on a regular basis).

The TV show ''Expedition Robinson'', created by TV producer Charlie Parsons, which first aired in 1997 in Sweden (and was later produced in a large number of other countries as ''Survivor''), added to the ''Nummer 28''/''Real World'' template the idea of competition and elimination, in which cast members/contestants battled against each other and were removed from the show until only one winner remained. (These shows are now sometimes called elimination shows).

''Changing Rooms'', a TV show that began in 1996, showed couples redecorating each others' houses, and was the first reality show with a self-improvement or makeover theme.

2000s

Reality television saw an explosion of global popularity starting in the summer of 2000, with the successes of ''Big Brother'' and ''Survivor'' (in the US).

In particular, ''Survivor'' and ''American Idol'' have topped the US season-average television ratings on several occasions. ''Survivor'' led the ratings in 2001–02, and ''Idol'' has topped the ratings six consecutive years (2004–05 through to 2009–10). The shows ''Survivor'', the ''Idol'' series, ''The Amazing Race'', the ''America's Next Top Model'' series, the ''Dancing With The Stars'' series, ''The Apprentice,'' ''Fear Factor'' and ''Big Brother'' have all had a global effect, having each been successfully syndicated in dozens of countries.

Reality television lost its viewers' appeal after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Low ratings weighed heavily on reality shows such as ''The Amazing Race'', ''Lost'' (unrelated to the better-known serial drama of the same name) and ''The Mole''. B. J. Sigesmund of Newsweek provides three reasons for the low ratings. The first reason was selecting the right time slot for the shows. He said that “Lost” and “The Amazing Race” debuted September 5, 2001 but they went off the air for three weeks in the events of the terrorist attacks. The second reason was that there was an oversaturation of reality shows coming out in one season. September 5 saw the debut of shows like ''Big Brother'', ''Pop Stars'', ''Temptation Island'', ''Boot Camp'', ''Survivor'' and ''The Mole'' in the same night on different networks. The third reason was the issue of quality. He said that, “A great show like ''Survivor'' will always do great numbers. The good shows only do good numbers. And the bad ones fall by the wayside.”

Less than 12 new reality television shows debuted during the 2002 summer season. One of them was ''Houston Medical'', a reality shows that goes behind the scenes with four doctors. The difference between reality television and other genres is that there are no writers, no scripts or actors involved. Reality television involves unknown stars in front of the camera. One reality show that debuted during the 2002 summer television was NBC’s ''Dog Eat Dog'', a game show that combined the elements of ''Fear Factor'' and ''Weakest Link''. Reality television has given the networks the ability to find creative and diverse shows that have led them to serious dramas and continue into the next season. Peyser concluded that television will continue to try reality programs, no matter what the season.

There have been at least three television channels devoted exclusively to reality television: Fox Reality in the United States, launched in 2005, Global Reality Channel in Canada in 2010, and Zone Reality in the United Kingdom, launched in 2002. (The Canadian and British channels still exist; Fox Reality ended in mid-2010). In addition, several other cable channels, such as MTV and Bravo, feature original reality programming as a mainstay. Mike Darnell, head of reality TV for the US Fox network, was quoted as saying that the broadcast networks (NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox) "might as well plan three or four [reality shows] each season because we're going to have them, anyway."

During the early part of the 2000s, network executives expressed concern that reality-television programming was limited in its appeal for DVD reissue and syndication. Despite these concerns, DVDs for reality shows have sold briskly; ''Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County'', ''The Amazing Race'', ''Project Runway'', and ''America's Next Top Model'' have all ranked in the top DVDs sold on Amazon.com, and DVDs of ''The Simple Life'' have outranked scripted shows like ''The O.C.'' and ''Desperate Housewives''. Syndication, however, has indeed proven problematic; shows such as ''Fear Factor'', ''COPS'' and ''Wife Swap'' in which each episode is self-contained can indeed be rerun fairly easily, but usually only on cable television and/or during the daytime (''COPS'' and ''America's Funniest Home Videos'' being exceptions). Season-long competitions such as ''The Amazing Race'', ''Survivor'', and ''America's Next Top Model'' generally perform more poorly and usually must be rerun in marathons to draw the necessary viewers to make it worthwhile. Another option is to create documentaries around series including extended interviews with the participants and outtakes not seen in the original airings; the syndicated series ''American Idol Rewind'' and the pay-per-view ''Jerry Springer Too Hot for TV'' series are examples of using this strategy.

''COPS'' has had huge success in syndication, direct response sales and DVD. A FOX staple since 1989, ''COPS'' is, as of 2010, in its 23rd season, having outlasted all competing scripted police shows. Another series that has seen wide success is "Cheaters", which has been running for 10 seasons in the US and is syndicated in over 100 countries worldwide. In 2007, according to the Learning and Skills Council, one in seven UK teenagers hopes to gain fame by appearing on reality television.

In 2001, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences added the reality genre to the Emmy Awards with the category of Outstanding Reality Program. In 2003, to better differentiate between competition and informational reality programs, a second category Outstanding Reality-Competition Program was added. In 2008, a third category, Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program was added.

In 2010, the Tester became the first reality television show ever aired over a videogame console. The show entered its second season in the same year.

Subgenres

The genre of reality television consists of various subgenres.

Documentary-style

In many reality TV programs, camera shooting and footage editing give the viewer the impression that they are passive observers following people going about their daily personal and professional activities; this style of filming is often referred to as fly on the wall or factual television. Story "plots" are often constructed via editing or planned situations, with the results resembling soap operas—hence the terms ''docusoap'' and ''docudrama''. In other shows, a cinéma vérité style is adopted, where the filmmaker is more than a passive observer—their presence and influence is greatly manifest.

Within documentary-style reality television are several subcategories or variants:

;Special living environment: Some documentary-style programs place cast members, who in most cases previously did not know each other, in artificial living environments; ''The Real World'' is the originator of this style. In almost every other such show, cast members are given a specific challenge or obstacle to overcome. ''Road Rules'', which started in 1995 as a spin-off of ''The Real World'', started this pattern: the cast traveled across the country guided by clues and performing tasks.

:''Big Brother'' is probably the best known program of this type in the world with different versions produced in many countries around the globe. Another example of a show in this category ''The 1900 House'', involves historical re-enactment with cast members hired to live and work as people of a specific time and place. 2001's ''Temptation Island'' achieved some notoriety by placing several couples on an island surrounded by single people in order to test the couples' commitment to each other. ''U8TV: The Lofters'' combined the "special living environment" format with the "professional activity" format noted below; in addition to living together in a loft, each member of the show's cast was hired to host a television program for a Canadian cable channel.

;Celebrities: Another subset of fly-on-the-wall-style shows involves celebrities. Often these show a celebrity going about their everyday life: notable examples include ''The Anna Nicole Show'', ''The Osbournes'', ''Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica'' and ''Hogan Knows Best''. In other shows, celebrities are put on location and given a specific task or tasks; these include ''Celebrity Big Brother'', ''The Simple Life'', ''Tommy Lee Goes to College'', ''The Surreal Life'', and ''I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!''. VH1 has created an entire block of shows dedicated to celebrity reality, known as "Celebreality".

;Professional activities: Some documentary-style shows portray professionals either going about day-to-day business or performing an entire project over the course of a series. No outside experts are brought in (at least, none appear on screen) to either provide help or to judge results. The earliest example (and the longest running reality show of any genre) is ''COPS'' which has been airing since 1989, preceding by many years the current reality show phenomenon.

:Other examples of this type of reality show include the American shows ''Miami Ink'', ''The First 48'', ''Dog the Bounty Hunter'', ''American Chopper'' and '' Deadliest Catch''; the British shows ''Airport'', ''Police Stop!'' and ''Traffic Cops''; the Australian shows ''Border Security'' and ''Bondi Rescue'', and the New Zealand show ''Motorway Patrol''. The US cable networks TLC and A&E in particular show a number of this type of reality show.

:VH1's 2001 show ''Bands on the Run'' was a notable early hybrid, in that the show featured four unsigned bands touring and making music as a professional activity, but also pitted the bands against one another in game show fashion to see which band could make the most money.

Competition/game shows

Another sub-genre of reality TV is "reality competition" or so-called "reality game shows," which follow the format of non-tournament elimination contests. Typically, participants are filmed competing to win a prize, often while living together in a confined environment. In many cases, participants are removed until only one person or team remains, who/which is then declared the winner. Usually this is done by eliminating participants one at a time, in balloon debate style, through either disapproval voting or by voting for the most popular choice to win. Voting is done by the viewing audience, the show's own participants, a panel of judges, or some combination of the three.

A well-known example of a reality-competition show is the globally syndicated ''Big Brother'', in which cast members live together in the same house, with participants removed at regular intervals by either the viewing audience or, in the case of the American version, by the participants themselves.

There remains some disagreement over whether talent-search shows such as the ''Idol'' series, ''America's Got Talent'', ''Dancing with the Stars'', and ''Celebrity Duets'' are truly reality television, or just newer incarnations of shows such as ''Star Search''. Although the shows involve a traditional talent search, the shows follow the reality-competition conventions of removing one or more contestants per episode and allowing the public to vote on who is removed; the ''Idol'' series also require the contestants to live together during the run of the show (though their daily life is never shown onscreen). Additionally, there is a good deal of interaction shown between contestants and judges. As a result, such shows are often considered reality television, and the American Primetime Emmy Awards have nominated both ''American Idol'' and ''Dancing with the Stars'' for the Outstanding Reality-Competition Program Emmy.

Modern game shows like ''Weakest Link'', ''Greed'', ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'', ''American Gladiators'', ''Dog Eat Dog'' and ''Deal or No Deal'' also lie in a gray area: like traditional game shows (e.g., ''The Price Is Right'', ''Jeopardy!''), the action takes place in an enclosed TV studio over a short period of time; however, they have higher production values, more dramatic background music, and higher stakes than traditional shows (done either through putting contestants into physical danger or offering large cash prizes). In addition, there is more interaction between contestants and hosts, and in some cases they feature reality-style contestant competition and/or elimination as well. These factors, as well as these shows' rise in global popularity at the same time as the arrival of the reality craze, lead many people to group them under the reality TV umbrella as well as the traditional game show one.

There are various hybrid reality-competition shows, like the worldwide-syndicated ''Star Academy'', which combines the ''Big Brother'' and ''Idol'' formats, ''The Biggest Loser'' and ''The Pick-up Artist'' which combine competition with the self-improvement format, and ''American Inventor'', which uses the ''Idol'' format for products instead of people. Some shows, such as ''Making the Band'' and ''Project Greenlight'', devote the first part of the season to selecting a winner, and the second part to showing that person or group of people working on a project.

Popular variants of the competition-based format include the following:

;Dating-based competition:Dating-based competition shows follow a contestant choosing one out of a group of suitors. Over the course of either a single episode or an entire season, suitors are eliminated until only the contestant and the final suitor remains. For a time, in 2001–2003, this type of reality show dominated the other genres on the major US networks. Shows that aired included ''The Bachelor'', its spin-off ''The Bachelorette'', as well as ''For Love or Money'', ''Paradise Hotel'', ''Temptation Island'', ''Average Joe'' and ''Farmer Wants a Wife'', among others. More recent such shows include ''Flavor of Love'' and its spin-offs ''I Love New York'', ''Rock of Love'', and ''The Cougar''. This is one of the older variants of the format; shows such as ''The Dating Game'' that date to the 1960s had similar premises (though each episode was self-contained, and not the serial format of more modern shows).

;Job search:In this category, the competition revolves around a skill that contestants were pre-screened for. Competitors perform a variety of tasks based on that skill, are judged, and are then kept or removed by a single expert or a panel of experts. The show is usually presented as a job search of some kind, in which the prize for the winner includes a contract to perform that kind of work. ''Popstars'', which debuted in 1999, may have been the first such show. The first job-search show which showed dramatic, unscripted situations may have been ''America's Next Top Model'', which premiered in May 2003. Other examples include ''The Apprentice'' (which judges business skills), ''Hell's Kitchen'' and ''Top Chef'' (for chefs), ''Shear Genius'' (for hair styling), ''Project Runway'' (for clothing design), ''Top Design'' (for interior design), ''Stylista'' (for fashion editors), ''Last Comic Standing'' (for comedians), ''The Starlet'' and ''Scream Queens'' (for actresses), ''I Know My Kid's a Star'' (for child performers), ''On the Lot'' (for filmmakers), ''The Shot'' (for photographers), ''So You Think You Can Dance'' (for dancers), ''MuchMusic VJ Search'' (for television hosts), ''Dream Job'' (for sportscasters), ''Face Off'' (for make-up artists), and ''The Tester'' (for game testers). Some shows use the same format with celebrities: in this case, there is no expectation that the winner will continue this line of work, and prize winnings often go to charity. Examples of celebrity competition programs include ''Deadline'', ''Celebracadabra'', and ''The Celebrity Apprentice''.

;Sports:Most of these programs create a sporting competition among athletes attempting to establish their name in that sport. ''The Club'', in 2002, was one of the first shows to immerse sport with reality TV, based on a fabricated club competing against real clubs in the sport of Australian rules football; the audience helped select which players played each week by voting for their favorites. Golf Channel's ''The Big Break'' is a reality show in which aspiring golfers compete against one another and are eliminated. ''The Contender'', a boxing show, unfortunately became the first American reality show in which a contestant committed suicide after being eliminated from the show. In ''The Ultimate Fighter'' participants have voluntarily withdrawn or expressed the desire to withdraw from the show due to competitive pressure.

:In sports shows, sometimes just appearing on the show, not necessarily winning, can get a contestant the job. The owner of UFC declared that the final match of the first season of ''Ultimate Fighter'' was so good, both contestants were offered a contract, and in addition, many non-winning "TUF Alumni" have prospered in the UFC. Many of the losers from World Wrestling Entertainment's ''Tough Enough'' and ''Diva Search'' shows have been picked up by the company.

:Not all sports programs, however, involve athletes trying to make a name in the sport. The 2006 US reality series ''Knight School'' focused on students at Texas Tech University vying for a walk-on (non-scholarship) roster position on the school's men's basketball team under legendary coach Bob Knight. In the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ One's ''Celebrity Bainisteoir'' involves eight non-sporting Irish celebrities becoming ''bainisteoiri'' (managers) of mid-level Gaelic football teams, leading their teams in an officially sanctioned tournament.

Self-improvement/makeover

Some reality television shows cover a person or group of people improving their lives. Sometimes the same group of people are covered over an entire season (as in ''The Swan'' and ''Celebrity Fit Club''), but usually there is a new target for improvement in each episode. Despite differences in the content, the format is usually the same: first the show introduces the subjects in their current, less-than-ideal environment. Then the subjects meet with a group of experts, who give the subjects instructions on how to improve things; they offer aid and encouragement along the way. Finally, the subjects are placed back in their environment and they, along with their friends and family and the experts, appraise the changes that have occurred. Other self-improvement or makeover shows include "How Do I Look?" (fashion makeover). ''The Biggest Loser'' and ''Fat March'', (which covers weight loss), ''Extreme Makeover'' (entire physical appearance), ''Queer Eye'' and ''What Not to Wear'' (style and grooming), ''Supernanny'' (child-rearing), ''Made'' (attaining difficult goals), ''Trinny & Susannah Undress'' (fashion makeover and marriage), ''Tool Academy'' (relationship building) and ''Charm School'' and ''From G's to Gents'' (self-improvement and manners).

Renovation

Some shows make over part or all of a person's living space, work space, or vehicle. The American show ''This Old House'' was the first such show, debuting in 1979. The British show ''Changing Rooms'', beginning in 1996 (later remade in the US as ''Trading Spaces'') was the first such renovation show that added a game show feel with different weekly contestants. Other shows in this category include ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition'', ''Debbie Travis' Facelift'', ''Designed to Sell'', ''While You Were Out'', and ''Holmes on Homes''. ''Pimp My Ride'' and ''Overhaulin''' show vehicles being rebuilt. Some shows, such as ''Restaurant Makeover'' and ''Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares'', show both the decor and the menu of a failing restaurant being remade. The issue of "making over" was taken to its social extreme with the British show ''Life Laundry'', in which people who had become hoarders, even living in squalor, were given professional assistance.

As with game shows, a gray area exists between such reality TV shows and more conventional formats. Some argue the key difference is the emphasis of the human story and conflicts of reality shows, versus the emphasis on process and information in more traditional format shows. The show ''This Old House'', which began in 1979, the start to finish renovation of different houses through a season; media critic Jeff Jarvis has speculated that it is "the original reality TV show."

Social experiment

Another type of reality program is the social experiment that produces drama, conflict, and sometimes transformation. ''Wife Swap'' which began in 2003 on Channel 4 and has aired for four seasons on ABC is a notable example. People with different values agreed to live by each other's social rules for a brief period of time and sometimes learn from the experience. Other shows in this category include ITV's ''Holiday Showdown,'' Oxygen's ''The Bad Girls Club'' (lifestyles and actions), and Channel 4's ''Secret Millionaire''. ''Faking It'' was a series where people had to learn a new skill and pass themselves off as experts in that skill. ''Shattered'' was a controversial 2004 UK series where contestants competed for how long they could go without sleep.

Dating shows

Unlike the aforementioned dating competition shows, some shows feature all new contestants each episode. This format was first used in the 1960s show ''The Dating Game''. Modern examples include ''Blind Date'', ''Matchmaker'', ''Room Raiders'', ''Elimidate'', ''Next'', and ''Parental Control''.

Talk shows

Though the traditional format of a talk show is that of a host interviewing a featured guest or discussing a chosen topic with a guest or panel of guests, the advent of trash TV shows has often made people group the entire category in with reality television. Programs like ''Ricki Lake'', ''The Jerry Springer Show'', ''Dr. Phil'', ''The Jeremy Kyle Show'' and many others have generally recruited guests by advertising a potential topic for a future program. Topics are frequently outrageous and are chosen in the interest of creating on-screen drama, tension or outrageous behaviour. Though not explicitly reality television by traditional standards, this sort of depiction of someone's life, even if only in a brief interview format, is frequently considered akin to broader-scale reality TV programming.

Hidden cameras

Another type of reality programming features hidden cameras rolling when random passers-by encounter a staged situation. ''Candid Camera'', which first aired on television in 1948, pioneered the format. Modern variants of this type of production include ''Punk'd'', ''Trigger Happy TV'', ''The Jamie Kennedy Experiment'' and ''Just For Laughs Gags''. The series ''Scare Tactics'' and ''Room 401'' are hidden-camera programs in which the goal is to frighten contestants rather than just befuddle or amuse them.

Not all hidden camera shows use strictly staged situations. For example, the syndicated show ''Cheaters'', purports to use hidden cameras to record suspected cheating partners, although the authenticity of the show has been questioned. Once the evidence has been gathered, the accuser confronts the cheating partner with the assistance of the host.

Supernatural and paranormal

Started by ''MTV's Fear'' in 2000, supernatural and paranormal reality shows place participants into frightening situations which ostensibly involve the paranormal. In series such as ''Celebrity Paranormal Project'', the stated aim is investigation, and some series like ''Scariest Places on Earth'' challenge participants to survive the investigation; whereas others such as ''Paranormal State'' and ''Ghost Hunters'' use a recurring crew of paranormal researchers. Shows such as ''Fear Factor'' and ''Scare Tactics'' dispense with supernatural overtones and aim solely at inciting fear or aversion in the cast. In general, the shows follow similar stylized patterns of night vision, surveillance, and hand held camera footage; odd angles; subtitles establishing place and time; desaturated imagery; rapid fire, MTV editing; and non-melodic soundtracks.

Noting the recent trend in reality shows that take the paranormal at face value, New York Times Culture editor Mike Hale characterized ghost hunting shows as "pure theater" and compared the genre to professional wrestling or soft core pornography for its formulaic, teasing approach.

Hoaxes

In hoax reality shows, a false premise is presented to some of the series participants. In truth, the premise of the series is completely different. The rest of the cast are actors who are in on the joke. These shows often served to parody the conventions of the reality TV genre.

The first such show was 2003's ''The Joe Schmo Show''. Other examples are ''My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss'' (modeled after ''The Apprentice''), ''My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance'', ''Hell Date'' (modeled after ''Blind Date''), ''Superstar USA'' (modeled after ''American Idol''), ''Space Cadets'' (which convinced the hoax targets that they were being flown into space), ''Punk'd'' (involving celebrities in staged crises), ''Invasion Iowa'' (in which a town was convinced that William Shatner was filming a movie there), and ''Reality Hell'' (different target and premise every episode).

Other shows, though not hoax shows per se, have offered misleading information to some cast members in order to add a wrinkle to the competition. Examples include ''Boy Meets Boy'' and ''Joe Millionaire''.

Analysis

Political impact

Reality television's global success has been, in the eyes of some analysts, an important political phenomenon. In some authoritarian countries, reality television voting has been the first time many citizens have voted in any free and fair wide-scale elections. In addition, the frankness of the settings on some reality shows present situations that are often taboo in certain orthodox cultures, like ''Star Academy Arab World'', which began airing in 2003, and which shows male and female contestants living together. In 2004, journalist Matt Labash, noting both of these issues, wrote that "the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East could be Arab-produced reality TV." In China, after the finale of the 2005 season of ''Super Girl'' (the local version of ''Pop Idol'') drew an audience of around 400 million people, and 8 million text message votes, the state-run English-language newspaper ''Beijing Today'' ran the front-page headline "Is Super Girl a Force for Democracy?" The Chinese government criticized the show, citing both its democratic nature and its excessive vulgarity, or "worldliness", and in 2006 banned it outright. Other attempts at introducing reality television have proved to be similarly controversial. A Pan-Arab version of ''Big Brother'' was cancelled in 2004 after less than two weeks on the air after a public outcry and street protests.

In 2007, Abu Dhabi TV begain airing ''Million's Poet'', a show featuring ''Pop Idol''-style voting and elimination, but for the writing and oration of Arabic poetry. The show became popular in Arab countries, with around 18 million viewers, partly because, according to analysts such as University of Pennsylvania professor Marwan Kraidy, it was able to combine the excitement of reality television with a traditional, culturally relevant topic. In April 2010, however, the show also become a subject of political controversy, when Hissa Hilal, a 43-year-old female Saudi competitor, read out a poem criticizing her country's Muslim clerics. Hilal received the highest scores from the judges throughout the competition, and came in third place overall.

Television critic James Poniewozik wrote that reality shows like ''Deadliest Catch'' and ''Ice Road Truckers'' showcase working-class people of the kind that "used to be routine" on scripted network television, but that became a rarity in the 2000s: "The better to woo upscale viewers, TV has evicted its mechanics and dockworkers to collect higher rents from yuppies in coffeehouses."

Criticism

Influenced by corporate profit motive

Writers for reality television do not receive union pay-scale compensation and union representation, which significantly decreases expenditures for producers and broadcasters. Many of the actors in reality television are compensated for their appearances.

Product placement

Product placement, whereby companies and corporations pay to have their products included in television programming for marketing purposes is highly prevalent in reality television.

The following is a list of television shows with the most instances of product placement (11/07–11/08; Nielsen Media Research). Eight out of the ten are reality television shows.

''The Biggest Loser'' 6,248

''American Idol'', 4,636

''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition''', 3,371

''America's Toughest Jobs'', 2,807

''Deal or No Deal'', 2,292

''America's Next Top Model'', 2,241

''Last Comic Standing'', 1,993

''Kitchen Nightmares'' 1,853

''Hell's Kitchen'', 1,807

"Reality" as misnomer

Some commentators have said that the name "reality television" is an inaccurate description for several styles of program included in the genre. Irene McGee, a castmember on the 1998 ''The Real World: Seattle'', has done public speaking tours about the negative and misleading aspects of reality TV.

Unreal environments

In competition-based programs such as ''Big Brother'' and ''Survivor'', and other special living environment shows like ''The Real World'', the producers design the format of the show and control the day-to-day activities and the environment, creating a completely fabricated world in which the competition plays out. Producers specifically select the participants and use carefully designed scenarios, challenges, events, and settings to encourage particular behaviors and conflicts. Mark Burnett, creator of ''Survivor'' and other reality shows, has agreed with this assessment, and avoids the word "reality" to describe his shows; he has said, "I tell good stories. It really is not reality TV. It really is unscripted drama."

Misleading editing

In 2004, VH1 aired a program called ''Reality TV Secrets Revealed'', which detailed various misleading tricks of reality TV producers. According to the show, various reality shows (notably ''Joe Millionaire'') combined audio and video from different times, or from different sets of footage, to create an artificial illusion of time chronology that did not occur, and a misportrayal of participant behaviors and actions.

In docusoap programming, which follows people in their daily life, producers may be highly deliberate in their editing strategies, able to portray certain participants as heroes or villains, and may guide the drama through altered chronology and selective presentation of events. A Season 3 episode of ''Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe'' included a segment on the ways in which selective editing can be used to this end.

Restaging

According to VH1's ''Reality TV Secrets Revealed'', the shows ''The Restaurant'' and ''Survivor'' had at times recreated incidents that had actually occurred, but were not properly recorded by cameras to the required technical standard, or had not been recorded at all. In order to get the footage, the event was restaged for the cameras.

Premeditated scripting and acting

Reality television shows have faced speculation that the participants themselves are involved in fakery, acting out storylines that have been planned in advance by producers. ''The Hills'' is one notable example; the show has long faced allegations that its plots are scripted ahead of time. During the second season of ''Hell's Kitchen'', it was speculated that the customers eating meals prepared by the contestants were in fact paid actors. Some participants of reality shows have also stated afterwards that they altered their behavior to appear more crazy or emotional in order to get more camera time.

Daniel Petrie Jr., former president of the Writers Guild of America, west, an organization that represents 9,000 Hollywood film and television writers, stated: "We look at reality TV, which is billed as unscripted, and we know it is scripted. We understand that shows don't want to call the writers writers because they want to maintain the illusion that it is reality, that stuff just happens."

Misleading premise

Even the premise of shows has been called into question. The winner of the first "cycle", in 2003, of ''America's Next Top Model'', Adrianne Curry, claimed that part of the grand prize she received, a modeling contract with Revlon, was for a much smaller amount of work than what was promised throughout the show. During the airing of the first season of ''A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila'', in which a group of both men and women vied for the heart of Tila Tequila, there were rumors that its star was not only heterosexual, but also had a boyfriend already. The show's winner, Bobby Banhart, claimed that he never saw Ms. Tequila again after the show finished taping, and that he was never even given her telephone number.

Instant celebrity

Reality television has the potential to turn its participants into national celebrities, at least for a short period. This is most notable in talent-search programs such as the ''Idol'' series, which has spawned music stars in many of the countries in which it has aired. Many other shows, however, such as ''Survivor'' and ''Big Brother'', have made at least temporary celebrities out of their participants; some participants have then been able to parlay this fame into media careers. For example, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a contestant on ''Survivor: The Australian Outback'', later became a host on morning talk show ''The View''; and Kristin Cavallari, who appeared on ''Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County'', has gone on to become a television host and actress. Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino, who appeared on MTV's ''Jersey Shore'', was able to parlay his fame into lucrative endorsement deals. Jamie Chung, a former contestant on ''The Real World'', went on to pursue an acting career, starring in films such as ''Sucker Punch''. Tiffany Pollard, originally a contestant on ''Flavor of Love'', was eventually given four additional reality series of her own on VH1: ''I Love New York'', ''I Love New York 2'', ''New York Goes to Hollywood'' and ''New York Goes to Work''. In Britain, Jade Goody became famous after appearing on ''Big Brother 3'' in 2002; she later appeared on other reality programs, wrote a bestselling autobiography and launched a top-selling perfume line. She later received extensive media coverage during her battle with cervical cancer, from which she died in 2009. Mike "The Miz" Mizanin, who has appeared on ''The Real World'' and various spin-offs, later became a professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment.

Some reality-television alumni take on the role of professional greeters at nightclubs, appear at automobile shows, and the like.

Reality TV contestants are sometimes derided as "Z-list celebrities" or "nonebrities" who have done nothing to warrant their newfound fame. The newspaper ''The Sun'' defined a "nonebrity" as "a pointless media figure who would love to rise up high enough to scrape on to the bottom end of the D-list."

As a spectacle of humiliation

Some have claimed that the success of reality television is due to its ability to provide ''schadenfreude'', by satisfying the desire of viewers to see others humiliated. American magazine ''Entertainment Weekly'' wrote, "Do we watch reality television for precious insight into the human condition? Please. We watch for those awkward scenes that make us feel a smidge better about our own little unfilmed lives." Media analyst Tom Alderman wrote, "There is a sub-set of Reality TV that can only be described as Shame TV because it uses humiliation as its core appeal."

Television critic James Poniewozik has disagreed with this assessment, writing, "for all the talk about 'humiliation TV,' what's striking about most reality shows is how good humored and resilient most of the participants are: the American Idol rejectees stubbornly convinced of their own talent, the Fear Factor players walking away from vats of insects like Olympic champions. What finally bothers their detractors is, perhaps, not that these people are humiliated but that they are not."

Participation of children

Jon & Kate Plus 8

The reality show ''Jon & Kate Plus 8'', which showed a family of two parents (Jon and Kate Gosselin) raising their eight children, caused controversy when, in June 2009, Jon and Kate began divorce proceedings, and it emerged that Jon had been involved with other women prior to the divorce. The episode announcing their separation became the most-watched of the series, with 10.6 million viewers.

TLC has announced that ''Jon & Kate Plus 8'' will continue under the new title ''Kate Plus Eight''. Criticism has been raised regarding Kate's intentions of continuing with the show, as well as whether or not the children are being exploited or may be under emotional distress. According to lawyer Gloria Allred:

In the case of the show, the children's workplace is their home. Currently there are no clear laws in Pennsylvania (where the Gosselins reside) regarding a child's appearance on a reality show. However, Pennsylvania law permits kids who are at least seven years old to work in the entertainment industry, as long as certain guidelines are followed and a permit is obtained. For example, children may not work after 11:30 pm under most circumstances, or perform in any location that serves alcohol.

Kate defended her position that the children are happy and healthy, and not in any danger. In addition, Jon has stated that they are "in talks" regarding ensuring the children's happiness, and that there is no truth to any reports that the children have been hurt by the series. TLC released a statement saying that the network "fully complies with all applicable laws and regulations" to produce the show. The statement also said that "for an extended period of time, we have been engaged in cooperative discussions and supplied all requested information to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry".

Other examples

In another much-publicized case, issues have been raised about the underlying motives that led to the balloon boy hoax, in which six-year-old Falcon Heene was reportedly coerced by his father to stage for a frantic, live-on-TV chase for an out-of-control helium balloon in which he was suspected to be. The police said that the father engineered the hoax with the hope of generating enough publicity in order to get the family back into the reality-show business, after two appearances on ABC's ''Wife Swap''. In an interview with the ''Denver Post'', child psychologist Alan Zimmerman said:

The same article quoted psychologist Jamie Huysman as saying, "It is exploitation [...] Nobody wants to watch normal behavior. Kids have to be co-conspirators to get the camera to stay on."

Counter Arguments

Despite arguments that realism cannot be achieved in reality shows because the outcomes may or may not have been scripted, Geoff King argues in his book, ''Spectacle of the Real: From Hollywood to Reality TV and Beyond'': even though the contestants are in a fabricated setting and the situation has been set up for a certain outcome, as in real love shows such as ''The Bachelor'' and ''The Bachelorette'', these contestants still harbor feelings that make their participation in the show real to them. King says: (1958), another Robert Sheckley story, was about a television show in which a contestant volunteers to be hunted for a week by trained killers, with a large cash prize if he survives. It was adapted in 1970 as the TV movie ''Das Millionenspiel'', and again in 1983 as the movie ''Le Prix du Danger''.

"It Could Be You" (1964), a short story by Australian Frank Roberts, features a day-in-day-out televised blood sport.

''Survivor'' (1965), a science fiction story by Walter F. Moudy, depicted the 2050 "Olympic War Games" between Russia and the United States. The games are fought to show the world the futility of war and thus deter further conflict. Each side has one hundred soldiers who fight with rifles, mortars, and machine guns in a large natural arena. The goal is for one side to wipe out the other; the few who survive the battle become heroes. The games are televised, complete with color commentary discussing tactics, soldiers' personal backgrounds, and slow-motion replays of their deaths.

''Bread and Circuses'' (1968) was an episode of the TV show ''Star Trek'' in which the crew visits a planet resembling the Roman Empire, but with 20th century technology. The planet's "Empire TV" features regular gladiatorial games, with the announcer urging viewers at home to vote for their favorites, stating, "This is your program. You pick the winner." The show included several jabs at real-world television, such as a praetorian threatening, "You bring this network's ratings down, Flavius, and we'll do a special on you!"

''The Year of the Sex Olympics'' (1968) was a BBC television play in which a dissident in a dictatorship is forced onto a secluded island and taped for a reality show in order to keep the masses entertained.

''The Unsleeping Eye'' (1973), a novel by D.G. Compton (also published as ''The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe''), was about a woman dying of cancer whose last days are recorded without her knowledge for a television show. It was later adapted as the 1980 movie ''Death Watch''.

"Ladies And Gentlemen, This Is Your Crisis" (1976) was a short story by science fiction author Kate Wilhelm about a television show in which contestants (including a B-list actress who is hoping to revitalize her career) attempt to make their way to a checkpoint after being dropped off in the Alaskan wilderness, while being filmed and broadcast around the clock through an entire weekend. The story focuses primarily on the show's effect on a couple whose domestic tensions and eventual reconciliation parallel the dangers faced by the contestants.

''Network'' (1976) was a film predictive of a number of trends in broadcast television, including reality programming. One subplot featured network executives negotiating with an urban terrorist group for the production of a weekly series, each episode of which was to feature an act of terrorism.

''Real Life'' (1979) where a pushy, narcissistic filmmaker persuades a Phoenix family to let him and his crew film their everyday lives. A parody of the ground-breaking PBS series ''An American Family''.

''The Running Man'' (1982) was a book by Stephen King depicting a game show in which a contestant flees around the world from "hunters" trying to chase him down and kill him; it has been speculated that the book was inspired by Robert Sheckley's ''The Prize of Peril''. The book was loosely adapted as a 1987 movie of the same name. The movie removed most of the reality-TV element of the book: its competition now took place entirely within a large TV studio, and more closely resembled an athletic competition (though a deadly one).

The film ''20 Minutes into the Future'' (1985), and the spin-off TV show ''Max Headroom'', revolved around television mainly based on live, often candid, broadcasts. In one episode of ''Max Headroom'', "Academy", the character Blank Reg fights for his life on a courtroom game show, with the audience deciding his fate.

''Vengeance on Varos'' (1985) was an episode of the TV show ''Doctor Who'' in which the population of a planet watches live TV broadcasts of the torture and executions of those who oppose the government. The planet's political system is based on the leaders themselves facing disintegration if the population votes 'no' to their propositions. This episode is often credited as the origins of "voting someone off".

Pop culture references

Some scripted and written works have used reality television as a plot device:

Films

''American Dreamz'' (2006) is a film set partially on an ''American Idol''-like show.

''EDtv'' (1999) was a remake of ''Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves''.

''Louis the 19th, King of the Airwaves'' (1994) is a Québécois film about a man who signs up to star in a 24-hour-a-day reality TV show.

''Real Life'' (1979) is a comedic film about the creation of a show similar to ''An American Family'' gone horribly wrong.

''Series 7: The Contenders'' (2001) is a film about a reality show in which contestants have to kill each other to win.

In the film ''She's All That'' (1999), the girlfriend of one of the main characters is stolen by a former castmember of ''The Real World'' (played by Matthew Lillard)

''Tomb of the Werewolf'' (2004) is a film about a man searching for treasure while being followed by a reality show film crew, who encounters a werewolf and a vampire instead.

''The Truman Show'' (1998) is a film about a man (Jim Carrey) who discovers that his entire life is being staged and filmed for a 24-hour-a-day reality TV show.

Television

"Bad Wolf" (2005) is an episode of the TV show ''Doctor Who'' in which the characters find themselves trapped in various real-life reality television shows.

''The Comeback'' (2005) satirizes the indignity of reality TV by presenting itself as "raw footage" of a new reality show documenting the attempted comeback of has-been star Valerie Cherish.

"Helter Shelter" (2002) is an episode of ''The Simpsons'' in which the family become contestants in "The 1895 Challenge," living for several weeks in a Victorian style house with antique furniture and no electricity. To boost the ratings, they soon find themselves being abused and humiliated by the show's director, who states that he created the show "by watching Dutch television and tweaking the title." ''The Simpsons'' has also repeatedly spoofed reality TV and made reference to fictitious reality shows, with such titles as "Tied To A Bear," "Sucker Punch," "Mystery Injection," "Animal Survivor,", "No-Pants Island" and "Fart Date."

''Rock Rivals'' (2008) is a British television show about two judges on a televised singing contest whose marriage is falling apart.

"Special Service" (1989) was an episode of the remade TV series ''The Twilight Zone'', in which a man discovers that his life has secretly been videotaped and is a huge hit on a network television show.

'':Total Drama Island'' (2007) is a Canadian animated series about teenagers on a ''Survivor''-like show. It was subsequently followed by Total Drama Action (2009) and Total Drama World Tour (2010).

Web

"Realistically Speaking 1&2" (2007) is a two-part web-episode of ''Hero Envy'' in which one of the main characters allows a reality-TV film crew to document his and his friends' lives in an elimination-style game in exchange for money.

Music

"Celebrity," a 2003 song by Brad Paisley from the album ''Mud on the Tires'', makes fun of both reality television contestants and their ability to become famous without any real talent, as well as celebrity antics in general. The song reached #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the Hot Country Singles chart.

"Reality Show" is a song by T-Pain, from the 2008 album ''Thr33 Ringz'', in which he sings to his lover, "Let's make a reality show", to "show 'em how much we in love".

"Real" is a song by James Wesley from his 2010 album ''Real''. The song mocks various reality shows popular in the United States as unreal (he specifically mentions ''The Bachelor'', ''Survivor'', ''The Amazing Race'' and ''The Real Housewives''), comparing them unfavorably with real-life hardships. The song peaked at #22 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles charts.

Books

''Chart Throb'' (2006) is a comic novel by Ben Elton that parodies ''The X Factor'' and ''The Osbournes'', among other reality shows.

''Dead Famous'' (2001) is a comedy/whodunit novel, also by Ben Elton, in which a contestant is murdered while on a ''Big Brother''-like show.

''Oryx and Crake'' (2003), a speculative fiction novel by ''Margaret Atwood'', occasionally makes mentions of the protagonist and his friend entertaining themselves by watching reality TV shows of live executions, ''Noodie News'', frog squashing, graphic surgery, and child pornography.

Other influences on popular culture

A number of scripted television shows have taken the form of documentary-type reality TV shows, in "mockumentary" style. The first such show was the BBC series ''Operation Good Guys'', which premiered in 1997. Other examples include ''People Like Us'', ''Trailer Park Boys'', ''The Office'', ''Modern Family'', ''Drawn Together'', ''Summer Heights High'', ''Total Drama Island'', ''Parks and Recreation'', ''Reno 911!'' and Come Fly With Me.

Some feature films have been produced that use some of the conventions of reality television; such films are sometimes referred to as reality films, and sometimes simply as documentaries. Allen Funt's 1970 hidden camera movie ''What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?'' was based on his reality-television show ''Candid Camera''. The TV show ''Jackass'' spawned four films: ''Jackass: The Movie'' in 2001, ''Jackass: Number Two'' in 2006, ''Jackass 2.5'' in late 2007, and ''Jackass 3D'' in 2010. A similar show, ''Extreme Duudsonit'', was adapted for the film ''The Dudesons Movie'' in 2006. The producers of ''The Real World'' created ''The Real Cancun'' in 2003. ''Games People Play: New York'' was released in 2004.

The mumblecore film genre, which began in the mid-2000s, and uses video cameras and relies heavily on improvisation and non-professional actors, has been described as influenced in part by what one critic called "the spring-break psychodrama of MTV's ''The Real World''". Mumblecore director Joe Swanberg has said, "As annoying as reality TV is, it's been really good for filmmakers because it got mainstream audiences used to watching shaky camerawork and different kinds of situations."

See also

:Broadcast media

Bunim/Murray Productions

Endemol

Factual television

Great Reality TV Swindle

Matt Kunitz

John Langley

List of reality television programs

List of television show franchises

Media manipulation

Prolefeed

References

Further reading

''Big Brother - Why Bother?'' - Graham Barnfield's Spiked commentary

Caudle, Melissa (2011). ''The Reality of Reality TV: Reality Show Business Plans''. CreateSpace. ISBN 1460916980. A step-by-step approach to writing business plans for reality shows.

DeVolld, Troy (2011). ''Reality TV: An Insiders Guide to Reality Television''. Michael Wiese Productions. ISBN 1932907998. A working producer provides information about how reality shows are made and how to develop a lasting career in the genre.

Hill, Annette (2005). ''Reality TV: Audiences and Popular Factual Television''. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26152-X.

Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette, eds. (2004). ''Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture''. New York University Press. ISBN 0-8147-5688-3

Nichols, Bill (1994). ''Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture''. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34064-0.

''Lord of the fly-on-the-walls'' - Observer article: Paul Watson's UK & Australian docusoaps

Zeven werklozen samen op zoek naar een baan by Raymond van den Boogaard, NRC Handelsblad, September 28, 1996 (Dutch) - about ''Nummer 28'' being the inspiration for ''The Real World''

Reality TV continues its downward spiral of morality

External links

Truth or Dare: The Reality of British Television, a panel of experts discuss Reality TV, BAFTA Webcast, January 2008

The Reality of Reality Television, Mark Greif's assessment of Reality TV from n+1

Category:Article Feedback Pilot Category:Reality television series Category:Game shows Category:Television genres

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Coordinates	40°42′15.0″N73°55′4.0″N
name	Glenn Beck
birth name	Glenn Edward Lee Beck
birth date	February 10, 1964
birth place	Everett, Washington, U.S.
education	Sehome High School
nationality	American
occupation	Political commentator, author, media proprietor, entertainer
spouse	Claire (1983–1994)Tania (m. 1999); 4 children total
website	Glenn Beck's Official Website
religion	The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
Residence	Manhattan, New York City
Home town	Mount Vernon, Washington, U.S. }}

Glenn Edward Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative radio host, vlogger, author, entrepreneur, political commentator and former television host. He hosts the ''Glenn Beck Program'', a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. He formerly hosted the ''Glenn Beck'' television program, which ran from January 2006 to October 2008 on HLN and from January 2009 to June 2011 on the Fox News Channel. Beck has authored six ''New York Times''-bestselling books. Beck is the founder and CEO of Mercury Radio Arts, a multimedia production company through which he produces content for radio, television, publishing, the stage, and the Internet. It was announced on April 6, 2011, that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News later in the year but would team with Fox to "produce a slate of projects for FOX News Channel and FOX News' digital properties". Beck's last daily show on the network was June 30, 2011.

Beck's supporters praise him as a constitutional stalwart defending their traditional American values, while his critics contend he promotes conspiracy theories and employs incendiary rhetoric for ratings.

Personal life

Early years

Glenn Edward Lee Beck was born in Everett, Washington, to William and Mary Beck, who lived in Mountlake Terrace, Washington at the time of their son's birth. The family later moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, where they owned and operated City Bakery in the downtown area. He is descended from German immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s. Beck was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Mount Vernon.

Glenn and his older sister moved with their mother to Sumner, Washington, attending a Jesuit school in Puyallup. On May 15, 1979, while out on a small boat with a male companion, Beck's mother drowned just west of Tacoma, Washington in Puget Sound. The man who had taken her out in the boat also drowned. A Tacoma police report stated that Mary Beck "appeared to be a classic drowning victim", but a Coast Guard investigator speculated that she could have intentionally jumped overboard. Beck has described his mother's death as a suicide in interviews during television and radio broadcasts.

After their mother's death, Beck and his older sister moved to their father's home in Bellingham, Washington, where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in June 1982. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of his stepbrother, Beck has said he used "Dr. Jack Daniel's" to cope. At 18, following his high school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah, and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he "didn't fit in", Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington D.C.'s WPGC in February 1983.

Adulthood

While working at WPGC, Beck met his first wife, Claire. In 1983, the couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah. Mary developed cerebral palsy as a result of a series of strokes at birth in 1988. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck's struggles with substance abuse. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

By 1994, Beck was suicidal, and imagined shooting himself to the music of Kurt Cobain. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) with helping him achieve sobriety. He said he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis in November 1994, the same month he attended his first AA meeting. Beck later said that he had gotten high every day for the previous 15 years, since the age of 16.

In 1996, while working for a New Haven area radio station, Beck took a theology class at Yale University, with a written recommendation from Senator Joe Lieberman, a Yale alumnus who was a fan of Beck's show at the time. Beck enrolled in an "Early Christology" course, but soon withdrew, marking the extent of his post-secondary education.

Beck's then began a "spiritual quest" in which he "sought out answers in churches and bookstores". As he later recounted in his books and stage performances, Beck's first attempt at self-education involved six wide-ranging authors, comprising what Beck jokingly calls "the library of a serial killer": Alan Dershowitz, Pope John Paul II, Adolf Hitler, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Friedrich Nietzsche. During this time, Beck's Mormon friend and former radio partner Pat Gray argued in favor of the "comprehensive worldview" offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an offer that Beck rejected until a few years later.

In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. After they went looking for a faith on a church tour together, they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. Beck was baptized by his old friend, and current-day co-worker Pat Gray. Beck and his current wife have had two children together, Raphe (who is adopted) and Cheyenne. Until April 2011, the couple live in New Canaan, Connecticut, with the four children.

Beck announced in July 2010 that he had been diagnosed with macular dystrophy, saying "A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of my eyes, I can't focus my eyes. He did all kinds of tests and he said, 'you have macular dystrophy ... you could go blind in the next year. Or, you might not. The disorder can make it difficult to read, drive or recognize faces.

In July 2011, Beck leased a house in the Dallas–Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.

Career

In 2002 Beck created the media platform Mercury Radio Arts as the umbrella over various broadcast, publishing, Internet, and live show entities.

Radio

In 1983 he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM. In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called ''Captain Beck and the A-Team''. Beck had a reputation as a "young up-and-comer". The show was not political and included the usual off-color antics of the genre: juvenile jokes, pranks, and impersonations. The show slipped to third in the market and Beck left abruptly in 1987 amid a dispute with WRKA management.

Months later, Beck was hired by Phoenix Top-40 station KOY-FM, then known as Y-95. Beck was partnered with Arizona native Tim Hattrick to co-host a local "morning zoo" program. During his time at Y-95, Beck cultivated a rivalry with local pop radio station KZZP and that station's morning host Bruce Kelly. Through practical jokes and publicity stunts, Beck drew criticism from the staff at Y-95 when the rivalry culminated in Beck telephoning Kelly's wife on-the-air, mocking her recent miscarriage. In 1989, Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston at KRBE, known as Power 104. Beck was subsequently fired in 1990 due to poor ratings.

Beck then moved on to Baltimore, Maryland and the city's leading Top-40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There, he partnered with Pat Gray, a morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested and jailed for speeding in his DeLorean. According to a former associate, Beck was "completely out of it" when a station manager went to bail him out. When Gray, then Beck were fired, the two men spent six months in Baltimore, planning their next move. In early 1992, Beck and Gray both moved to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top-40 radio station in Hamden, Connecticut. In 1995, WKCI apologized after Beck and Gray mocked a Chinese-American caller on air who felt offended by a comedy segment by playing a gong sound effect and having executive producer Alf Gagineau mock a Chinese accent. That incident led to protests by activist groups. When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was informed that his contract would not be renewed at the end of 1999.

The ''Glenn Beck Program'' first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in Tampa, Florida, and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on 47 stations. The show then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, ''The New York Times'' reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners. Glenn Beck is number three in the ratings behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

Television

In January 2006, CNN's ''Headline News'' announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block ''Headline Prime''. The show, simply called ''Glenn Beck'', aired weeknights. ''CNN Headline News'' described the show as "an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective". At the end of his tenure at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.

In October 2008, it was announced that Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving CNN Headline News. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck hosted ''Glenn Beck'', beginning in January 2009, as well as a weekend version. One of his first guests was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program ''The O'Reilly Factor'' titled "At Your Beck and Call". Beck's program drew more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows combined on CNN, MSNBC and HLN.

His show's high ratings have not come without controversy. ''The Washington Post''s Howard Kurtz reported that Beck's use of "distorted or inflammatory rhetoric" has complicated the channel's and their journalist's efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization. Television analyst Andrew Tyndall echoed these sentiments, saying that Beck's incendiary style had created "a real crossroads for Fox News", stating "they're right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization."

In April 2011, Fox News and Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's production company, announced that Beck would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News in 2011. His last day at Fox was later announced as June 30. FNC and Beck announced that he would be teaming with Fox to produce a slate of projects for Fox News and its digital properties. Fox News head Roger Ailes later referenced Beck's entrepreneurialism and political movement activism, saying, "His [Beck's] goals were different from our goals ... I need people focused on a daily television show." Beck hosted his last daily show on Fox on June 30, 2011, where he recounted the accomplishments of the show and said, "This show has become a movement. It's not a TV show, and that's why it doesn’t belong on television anymore. It belongs in your homes. It belongs in your neighborhoods." In response to critics who said he was fired, Beck pointed out that his final show was airing live. Immediately after the show he did an interview on his new GBTV internet channel.

GBTV

On June 7, 2011, Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, announced the new subscription-based internet TV network, GBTV. Glenn Beck's Fox News one-hour show ended June 30, 2011, and his new two-hour show will begin on GBTV.com starting September 12, 2011.

Books

Beck has reached #1 on the ''New York Times'' Bestseller List in four separate categories : Hardcover Non-Fiction, Paperback Non-Fiction, Hardcover Fiction, and Children's Picture Books.

''The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland'', Simon & Schuster 2003. ISBN 978-0-7434-9696-4

''An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems'', Simon & Schuster 2007. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''The Christmas Sweater'', Simon & Schuster 2008. ISBN 978-1-4165-9485-7

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', 2008 (Audiobook) ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck'', Deseret Book 2008 (Audiobook). ISBN 978-1-59038-944-7

''The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book'', Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing 2009. ISBN 978-1-4169-9543-2

''America's March to Socialism: Why We're One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades'', Simon & Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD). ISBN 978-0-7435-9854-5

''Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4391-6857-8

''Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government'', Simon & Schuster 2009. ISBN 978-1-4165-9501-4

''Idiots Unplugged'', Simon & Schuster 2010 (Audio CD). ISBN 1-4423-3396-0

''The Overton Window'', Threshold Editions 2010. ISBN 1-4391-8430-5 ''Idiots Unplugged'', 2010 (Audiobook) ''Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure'', Simon & Schuster 2010. ISBN 1-4423-3457-6.

''The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life'', Keith Ablow, co-author; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451625516.

''The Original Argument: The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century'', with Joshua Charles; Threshold Editions, 2011; ISBN 978-1451650617.

Beck also authorized a comic book: ''Political Power: Glenn Beck'', by Jerome Maida, Mark Sparacio (illus.); Bluewater Productions, 2011; ISN B004VGB4FO

Stage shows and speeches

Since 2005, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. In a critique of his live act, ''Salon Magazine's'' Steve Almond describes Beck as a "wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist". A show from the ''Beck `08 Unelectable Tour'' was shown in around 350 movie theaters around the country. The finale of 2009's ''Common Sense Comedy Tour'' was simulcast in over 440 theaters. The events have drawn 200,000 fans in recent years.

In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies, which he called Glenn Beck's Rally for America, in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra "Stadium of Fire" in Provo, Utah. The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation. In May 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

In late August 2009, the mayor of Beck's hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he would award Beck the Key to the City, designating September 26, 2009 as "Glenn Beck Day". Due to local opposition, the city council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The key presentation ceremony sold-out the 850 seat McIntyre Hall and an estimated 800 detractors and supporters demonstrated outside the building. Earlier that day, approximately 7,000 people attended the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's "Take the Field with Glenn Beck" at Seattle's Safeco Field.

In December 2009, Beck produced a one-night special film titled "The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption". In January and February 2010, Beck teamed with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly to tour several cities in a live stage show called "The Bold and Fresh Tour 2010". The January 29 show was recorded and broadcast to movie theaters throughout the country.

Projects and rallies

9-12 Project and Tea Party protests

In March 2009 Beck put together a campaign, the 9-12 Project, that is named for nine principles and twelve values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. The Colorado 9-12 Project hosted a "Patriot Camp" for kids in grades 1–5, featuring programs on "our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation".

Restoring Honor rally

The Restoring Honor rally was promoted by Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 2010. The rally — which purported to embrace religious faith and patriotism — was co-sponsored by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, promoted by FreedomWorks, and supported by the Tea Party movement.

''America's First Christmas''

In December 2010, Beck went to Wilmington, Ohio, a town devastated by the late-2000s recession, to host live events to encourage his fans to go to the town to boost the local economy in a project called "America's First Christmas". He hosted an event and his radio and television shows from the local theater.

2011 international tour

Beck headlined his "Restoring Courage" events in Jerusalem, Israel, in August 2011 in a campaign Beck said was designed to encourage people worldwide "to stand with the Jewish people". After Jerusalem, Beck visited Cape Town, South Africa, and was scheduled to visit Venezuela.

Political views

Beck has described himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, the right to life, freedom of religion, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society. Beck believes in low national debt, and has said "A conservative believes that debt creates unhealthy relationships. Everyone, from the government on down, should live within their means and strive for financial independence." He supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation.

Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming. He holds that there is a legitimate case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind, and has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design. He also views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

Opposition to progressivism

During his 2010 keynote speech to Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Beck wrote the word "progressivism" on a chalkboard and declared, "This is the disease. This is the disease in America", adding "progressivism is the cancer in America and it is eating our Constitution!" According to Beck, the progressive ideas of men such as John Dewey, Herbert Croly, and Walter Lippmann, influenced the Presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson; eventually becoming the foundation for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Beck has said that such progressivism infects both main political parties and threatens to "destroy America as it was originally conceived". In Beck’s book ''Common Sense'', he argues that "progressivism has less to do with the parties and more to do with individuals who seek to redefine, reshape, and rebuild America into a country where individual liberties and personal property mean nothing if they conflict with the plans and goals of the State."

A collection of progressives, whom Beck has referred to as "Crime Inc.", comprise what Beck contends is a clandestine conspiracy to take over and transform America. Some of these individuals include Cass Sunstein, Van Jones, Andy Stern, John Podesta, Wade Rathke, Joel Rogers and Francis Fox Piven. Other figures tied to Beck's "Crime Inc." accusation include Al Gore, Franklin Raines, Maurice Strong, George Soros, John Holdren and President Barack Obama. According to Wilentz, Beck's "version of history" places him in a long line of figures who have challenged mainstream political historians and presented an inaccurate opposing view as the truth, stating:

Conservative David Frum, the former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, has also alleged Beck's propensity for negationism, remarking that "Beck offers a story about the American past for people who are feeling right now very angry and alienated. It is different enough from the usual story in that he makes them feel like they’ve got access to secret knowledge."

Ideological influences

Political and historical

An author with ideological influence on Beck is W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006), a prolific conservative political writer, American Constitutionalist and faith-based political theorist. As an anti-communist supporter of the John Birch Society, and limited-government activist, Skousen, who was Mormon, wrote on a wide range of subjects: the Six-Day War, Mormon eschatology, New World Order conspiracies, even parenting. Skousen believed that American political, social, and economic elites were working with Communists to foist a world government on the United States. Beck praised Skousen's "words of wisdom" as "divinely inspired", referencing Skousen's ''The Naked Communist'' and especially ''The 5,000 Year Leap'' (originally published in 1981), which Beck said in 2007 had "changed his life". According to Skousen's nephew, Mark Skousen, ''Leap'' reflects Skousen's "passion for the United States Constitution", which he "felt was inspired by God and the reason behind America's success as a nation". The book is touted by Beck as "required reading" to understand the current American political landscape and become a "September twelfth person". Beck authored a foreword for the 2008 edition of ''Leap'' and Beck's on-air recommendations in 2009 propelled the book to number one in the government category on Amazon for several months. In 2010, Matthew Continetti of the conservative ''Weekly Standard'' criticized Beck's conspiratorial bent, terming him "a Skousenite". Additionally, Alexander Zaitchik, author of the 2010 book ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', which features an entire chapter on "The Ghost of Cleon Skousen", refers to Skousen as "Beck's favorite author and biggest influence", while noting that he authored four of the 10 books on Beck's 9-12 Project required-reading list.

In his discussion of Beck and Skousen, Continetti said that one of Skousen's works "draws on Carroll Quigley’s ''Tragedy and Hope'' (1966), which argues that the history of the 20th century is the product of secret societies in conflict", noting that in Beck's novel ''The Overton Window'', which Beck describes as "faction" (fiction based on fact), one of his characters states "Carroll Quigley laid open the plan in ''Tragedy and Hope'', the only hope to avoid the tragedy of war was to bind together the economies of the world to foster global stability and peace."

Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says that alongside Skousen, Robert W. Welch, Jr., founder of the John Birch Society, is a key ideological foundation of Beck's worldview. According to Wilentz: "[Beck] has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of."

Other books that Beck regularly cites on his programs are Amity Shlaes's ''The Forgotten Man'', Jonah Goldberg's ''Liberal Fascism'', Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen's ''A Patriot's History of the United States'', and Burton W. Folsom, Jr.'s ''New Deal or Raw Deal''. Beck has also urged his listeners to read ''The Coming Insurrection'', a book by a French Marxist group discussing what they see as the imminent collapse of capitalist culture, and ''The Creature from Jekyll Island'', which argues that aspects of the U.S. Federal Reserve system assault economic civil liberties, by G. Edward Griffin.

On June 4, 2010, Beck endorsed Elizabeth Dilling's 1936 work ''The Red Network: A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots'', remarking "this is a book, ''The Red Network'', this came in from 1936. People — [Joseph] McCarthy was absolutely right ... This is, who were the communists in America." Beck was criticized by an array of people, including Menachem Z. Rosensaft and Joe Conason, who stated that Dilling was an outspoken anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer.

Religious

Beck has credited God for saving him from drug and alcohol abuse, professional obscurity and friendlessness. In 2006, Beck performed a short inspirational monologue in Salt Lake City, Utah, detailing how he was transformed by the "healing power of Jesus Christ", which was released as a CD two years later by Deseret Book, a publishing company owned by the LDS Church, entitled ''An Unlikely Mormon: The Conversion Story of Glenn Beck''.

Religious scholar Joanna Brooks contends that Beck developed his "amalgation of anti-communism" and "connect-the-dots conspiracy theorizing" only after his entry into the "deeply insular world of Mormon thought and culture". Brooks theorizes that Beck's calls to fasting and prayer are rooted in Mormon collective fasts to address spiritual challenges, while Beck's "overt sentimentality" and penchant for weeping represent the hallmark of a "distinctly Mormon mode of masculinity" where "appropriately-timed displays of tender emotion are displays of power" and spirituality. Philip Barlow, the Arrington chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, has said that Beck's belief that the U.S. Constitution was an "inspired document", his calls for limited government and for not exiling God from the public sphere, "have considerable sympathy in Mormonism". Beck has acknowledged that the Mormon "doctrine is different" from traditional Christianity, but said that this was what attracted him to it, stating that "for me some of the things in traditional doctrine just doesn't work."

Particularly as a consequence of Beck's Restoring Honor rally in 2010, the fact that Beck is Mormon caused concern amongst some politically sympathetic Christian Evangelicals on theological grounds. Tom Tradup, vice president at Salem Radio Network, which serves more than 2,000 Christian-themed stations, expressed this sentiment after the rally, stating "Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?" Subsequently, a September 2010 survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and Religion News Service (RNS) found that of those Americans who hold a favorable opinion of Beck, only 45% believe he is the right person to lead a religious movement, with that number further declining to 37% when people are informed he is Mormon. Daniel Cox, Director of Research for PRRI, summed up this position by stating:

Pete Peterson of Pepperdine's Davenport Institute said that Beck's speech at the rally belonged to an American tradition of calls to personal renewal. Peterson wrote: "A Mormon surrounded onstage by priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams, Beck [gave] one of the more ecumenical jeremiads in history." Evangelical pastor Tony Campolo said in 2010 that conservative evangelicals respond to Beck's framing of conservative economic principles, saying that Beck's and ideological fellow travelers' "marriage between evangelicalism and patriotic nationalism is so strong that anybody who is raising questions about loyalty to the old, lassez-faire capitalist system is ex post facto unpatriotic, un-American, and by association non-Christian.” ''Newsweek'' religion reporter Lisa Miller, after quoting Campolo, opined, "It's ironic that Beck, a Mormon, would gain acceptance as a leader of a new Christian coalition. ... Beck's gift ... is to articulate God's special plan for America in such broad strokes that they trample no single creed or doctrine while they move millions with their message."

After attempting unsuccessfully for a year to arrange a meeting with Protestant evangelist Billy Graham, Beck was invited to meet with Graham on February 19, 2011. Days later, Beck described the circumstances, writing: "Two weeks ago, as I have been struggling with some ideas and some things that I am working on for the future and I am trying to get clarity again, I thought of Billy Graham. When the phone rang and they said the Reverend feels it’s time to meet, I met with him. We had an hour scheduled. It lasted three hours." Earlier, in a January 2011 interview with ''Christianity Today'', Graham had said he regretted instances where he had strayed into politics in the past.

Public reception

In 2009, the Glenn Beck show was one of the highest rated news commentary programs on cable TV. For a Barbara Walters ABC special, Beck was selected as one of America’s "Top 10 Most Fascinating People" of 2009. In 2010, Beck was selected for the Times top 100 most influential people under the "Leaders" category.

Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, and a "rodeo clown".

thumb|Beck at the [[Time 100|''Time'' 100 Gala, 2010]]''Time Magazine'' described Beck as "[t]he new populist superstar of Fox News" saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracy theories about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program. (Paul Krugman and Mark Potok, on the other hand, have been among those asserting that Beck helps spread "hate" by covering issues that stir up extremists.) What seems to unite Beck's disparate themes, ''Time'' argued, is a sense of siege. One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the "fear chamber", with Beck countering that he preferred the term "doom room".

Republican South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham criticized Beck as a "cynic" whose show was antithetical to "American values" at ''The Atlantic'''s 2009 First Draft of History conference, remarking "Only in America can you make that much money crying." The progressive watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Activism Director Peter Hart argues that Beck red-baits political adversaries as well as promotes a paranoid view of progressive politics. Howard Kurtz of ''The Washington Post'' has remarked that "Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style."

Glenn Beck was honored by Liberty University during their 2010 Commencement exercises with an honorary Doctoral Degree. During his keynote address to the students, he stated "As a man who was never able to go to college — I’m the first in my family that went; I went for one semester; I couldn’t afford more than that — I am humbly honored." In June 2011, Beck announced he was to be the honored with the Zionist Organization of America's 2011 Defender of Israel Award.

Laura Miller writes in Salon.com that Beck is a contemporary example of "the paranoid style in American politics" described by historian Richard Hofstader:

"The Paranoid Style in American Politics" reads like a playbook for the career of Glenn Beck, right down to the paranoid's "quality of pedantry" and "heroic strivings for 'evidence, embodied in Beck's chalkboard and piles of books. But Beck lacks an archenemy commensurate with his stratospheric ambitions, which makes him appear even more absurd to outsiders.

Critical biographies

In June 2010, investigative reporter Alexander Zaitchik released a critical biography titled ''Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance'', with a title mocking Beck's work, ''Common Sense''. In an interview about the book, Zaitchik theorized that "Beck’s politics and his insatiable hunger for money and fame are not mutually exclusive", while stating: "Beck’s true religion is not Patriotism, Mormonism, or Conservatism. His true religion is cross-platform self-marketing ... According to Beck’s worldview, there’s no inherent contradiction between his sophisticated instinct for self-promotion, his propagandist rodeo clown act, his self-image as a media mogul, and his professed belief system. I think he actually believes that God wants him to make a ton of money and become this huge celebrity by fear mongering and generally doing whatever it takes in the media to promote right-wing causes."

In September 2010, ''Philadelphia Daily News'' reporter Will Bunch released ''The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama''. One of Bunch's theses is that Beck is nothing more than a morning zoo deejay playing a fictional character as a money-making stunt. Writer Bob Cesca, in a review of Bunch's book, compares Beck to Steve Martin's faith-healer character in the 1992 film ''Leap of Faith'', before describing the "derivative grab bag of other tried and tested personalities" that Bunch contends comprises Beck's persona: In October 2010 a polemical biography by Dana Milbank was released: ''Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America''.

Satire, spoof and parody

Beck has been the subject of mockery and ridicule by a number of humorists. In response to Beck's animated delivery and views, he was parodied in an impersonation by Jason Sudeikis on ''Saturday Night Live''. ''The Daily Show''s Jon Stewart has spoofed Beck's 9-12 project with his own "11-3 project", consisting of "11 principles and 3 herbs and spices", impersonated Beck's chalk board-related presentation style for an entire show, and quipped about Beck "finally, a guy who says what people who aren't thinking are thinking". Stephen Colbert of ''The Colbert Report'' satirized Beck's "war room" by creating his own "doom bunker". Through the character Eric Cartman, ''South Park'' parodied Beck's television program and his commentary style in the episode "Dances with Smurfs". ''The Onion'', a satirical periodical and faux news site, ran an ''Onion News Network'' video "special report" where it lamented that the "victim in a fatal car accident was tragically not Glenn Beck". Meanwhile, the ''Current TV'' cartoon ''SuperNews!'' ran an animated cartoon feature titled "The Glenn Beck Apocalypse", where Beck is confronted by Jesus Christ who rebukes him as the equivalent of "Sarah Palin farting into a balloon". Political comedian and satirist Bill Maher has mocked Beck's followers as an "army of diabetic mallwalkers", while ''The Buffalo Beast'', named Beck the most loathsome person in America in 2010, declaring "It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show." The October 31 Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, hosted by Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was conceived as a parody of Beck's earlier Rally to Restore Honor, even though Stewart and Colbert said that they came up with the idea of holding a rally in March and Stewart had put down the deposit for the National Mall before Beck announced his rally.

Public disputes

Obama

Several incidents involving Beck and President Barack Obama have resulted in notable public controversy. In response to Obama's remarks on the Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that Obama has repeatedly shown "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture", saying "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist." These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change. In 2009, the boycott resulted in at least 57 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. He later apologized for the remarks, telling Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black liberation theology.

Van Jones

In July 2009, Beck began to focus what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows on Van Jones, Special Advisor for Green Jobs at Obama's White House Council on Environmental Quality. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in STORM, a left wing non-governmental group, and his support for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Beck spotlighted video of Jones referring to Republicans as "assholes", and a petition Jones signed suggesting that George W. Bush knowingly let the 9/11 attacks happen. In a move attributed by ''The New York Times'' to criticism of his earlier statements by conservatives and Republicans, Jones resigned his position in September 2009. ''Time'' magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones. Jones characterized the attacks from his opponents as a "vicious smear campaign" and an effort to use "lies and distortions to distract and divide".

ACORN

In 2009, Beck and other conservative commentators were critical of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) for various reasons, including claims of voter registration fraud in the 2008 presidential election. In September 2009, he broadcast a series of heavily edited undercover videos by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which seemed to portray ACORN community organizers offering inappropriate tax advice to people who said they were engaged in illegal activities. Following the videos' release, the U.S. Census Bureau severed ties with the group while the U.S. House and Senate voted to cut all of its federal funding.

Satire website

In 2009, lawyers for Beck brought a case (''Beck v. Eiland-Hall'') against the owner of a satirical website named ''GlennBeckRapedAndMurderedAYoungGirlIn1990.com'' with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The claim that the domain name of the website is itself defamatory was described as a first in cyberlaw. Beck's lawyers argued that the site infringed on his trademarked name and that the domain name should be turned over to Beck. The WIPO ruled against Beck, but Eiland-Hall voluntarily transferred the domain to Beck anyway, saying that the First Amendment had been upheld and that he no longer had a use for the domain name.

Jewish Funds for Justice

In January 2011, in protest at what they saw as inappropriate references to the Holocaust and to Nazis by Beck (and by Roger Ailes of Fox News), four hundred rabbis signed an open letter in paid advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. The ad was paid for by Jewish Funds for Justice which had previously called for Beck's firing. The JFFJ have claimed on their website that Beck seems "to draw his material straight from the anti-Semitic forgery, the ''Protocols of the Elders of Zion''". The letter states that Beck and Fox had "...diminish[ed] the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks." In response, a Fox News executive said to Reuters that the letter was from a "George Soros-backed leftwing political organization".

Reform Judaism

On February 22, 2011, during a discussion on his radio show about the controversy surrounding his earlier comments about Soros, Beck said "Reform Rabbis are generally political in nature. It's almost like radicalized Islam in a way where it's less about religion than it is about politics." He was quickly criticized by other conservatives, Jewish rabbis, and others. The Anti-Defamation League labeled Beck's remarks as "bigoted ignorance". On February 24, Beck apologized on air, agreeing that his comments were "ignorant".

2011 Norway attacks

In the wake of the 2011 Norway attacks, Beck received condemnation for his comparison of murdered and surviving members of the Norwegian Workers' Youth League to the Hitler Youth: "There was a shooting at a political camp which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever, you know what I mean. Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." The statement was ill-received in Norway, leading senior political commentator Frank Aarebrot to label Beck as a "vulgar propagandist" and a "fascist", and Torbjørn Eriksen, former press secretary to Norway's prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, to describe Beck's comment as "a new low", adding that "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful". Commentators pointed out that groups affiliated with the Tea Party movement and the Beck-founded 9-12 Project also sponsor politically oriented camp programs for children. Beck condemned the attack in spite of his statements about its victims.

See also

Beck University

Conservative talk

List of most-listened-to radio programs

References

External links

Glenn Beck's Radio Program

Glenn Beck – The 912 Project

Official Site at Fox News

Multimedia

A Day in the Life of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Time magazine''

Katie Couric Interview of Glenn Beck - video by ''CBS News''

"Brand it like Beck" - video interview by ''Forbes magazine''

John Stossel: "Glenn Beck, Conservative Narcissist?" - video by ''ABC News''

Glenn Beck Discusses his Mormonism - video testimonial at ''The Week''

In the Words of Glenn Beck - slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Category:1964 births Category:American anti-communists Category:American Latter Day Saints Category:American magazine editors Category:American magazine founders Category:American non-fiction environmental writers Category:American people of German descent Category:American political pundits Category:American political writers Category:American talk radio hosts Category:American television talk show hosts Category:Anti-globalist activists Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:Converts to Mormonism from Roman Catholicism Category:Environmental skepticism Category:Fox News Channel people Category:Living people Category:People from Bellingham, Washington Category:People from Everett, Washington Category:People from Fairfield County, Connecticut Category:People from Mount Vernon, Washington Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Tea Party movement Category:Writers from Washington (state) Category:Writers from Connecticut

ar:غلين بيك cs:Glenn Beck da:Glenn Beck de:Glenn Beck et:Glenn Beck es:Glenn Beck fa:گلن بک fr:Glenn Beck is:Glenn Beck he:גלן בק la:Glenn Beck nl:Glenn Beck no:Glenn Beck ru:Гленн Бек simple:Glenn Beck sk:Glenn Beck sh:Glenn Beck fi:Glenn Beck sv:Glenn Beck uk:Гленн Бек yi:גלען בעק

Coordinates	40°42′15.0″N73°55′4.0″N
name	Peter Schiff
school tradition	Austrian School
color	firebrick
birth date	March 23, 1963
nationality	United States
field	Financial Economics
religion	Jewish
alma mater	U.C. Berkeley (B.B.A.), 1987
influences	Irwin Schiff, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard
opposed	John Maynard Keynes, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama,
signature	}}

Peter David Schiff (; born March 23, 1963) is an American businessman, author and financial commentator. Schiff is CEO and chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a broker-dealer based in Westport, Connecticut and CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals, LLC, a gold and silver dealer based in New York City.

Schiff frequently appears as a guest on CNBC, Fox News, and Bloomberg Television and is often quoted in major financial publications and is a frequent guest on internet radio as well as the host of the former podcast ''Wall Street Unspun'', which is now broadcast on terrestrial radio and known as ''The Peter Schiff Show''. In 2010 Schiff ran as a candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat from Connecticut.

Schiff is known for his bearish views on the dollar and dollar denominated assets, while bullish on investment in tangible assets as well as foreign stocks and currencies.

Early life and education

The son of Irwin Schiff, a prominent figure in the United States tax protester movement, Peter Schiff was born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. Schiff graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 with a Bachelor's degree in finance and accounting.

Financial career

Schiff began his career as a financial consultant at a Shearson Lehman Brothers brokerage. In 1996 Schiff and a partner acquired a small brokerage firm that had been founded in 1980, reincorporated it in California and renamed it Euro Pacific Capital. The company today has more than 15,000 clients and six offices nationwide, with its headquarters in Westport, Connecticut.

According to a 2005 article in ''The Advocate'' of Stamford, Connecticut Schiff relocated the firm to Darien, Connecticut to find brokers "who think like him". The New York Metropolitan Area, Schiff says, has the biggest concentration of brokers in the country, making it easier to recruit employees. The company has offices in Newport Beach, California as well as in Scottsdale, Arizona, Palm Beach, Florida, Los Angeles and New York. Euro Pacific Capital also holds the exclusive rights to broker some Perth Mint gold products in the United States.

Economic forecasting

Peter Schiff specializes in the understanding of the Austrian School, a school of economic thought generally categorized as heterodox (or non-mainstream). Schiff voices strong support for the Austrian School, and says it was first introduced to him by his father, Irwin Schiff..

U.S. bear market

In his 2007 book, ''Crash Proof'', Schiff writes that the current United States economic policies are fundamentally unsound, and predicts that in the future the United States dollar will lose much of its value.

Schiff believes that the imbalance between the amount of goods the U.S. consumes and what it produces will eventually lead to problems for the U.S. economy. As a remedy Schiff favors increased personal savings and production which he says will stimulate economic growth. Schiff cites the U.S.'s low personal savings rate as one of the causes of its transformation from the world's largest creditor nation in the 1970s to the largest debtor nation in the year 2000. Schiff attributes the low savings rate to higher inflation and the artificially low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

In a 2002 interview with ''Southland Today'', Schiff predicted that the economic downturn triggered by the bursting of the stock market bubble would lead to a bear market likely to last "another 5 to 10 years." In November 2002, US stocks began a bull market uptrend which held steady for at least five years, until reversing course in 2008, when the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 began a decline to less than half of their peak 2008 values, followed in 2009 by the Dow climbing 61% from its low point over the following year. After interviewing Schiff in 2009, journalist and finance author Eric Tyson, referenced various Schiff predictions during the 2000s and stated that "On all of these counts, Schiff wasn't just wrong but ended up being hugely wrong." Schiff later released a video stating that, "When I gave that interview in 2002, I had no way of knowing how irresponsible the Fed was going to be ... But I recognized that early: back in 2003 and 2004 I changed my forecast ... if you look at what happened to the Dow in terms of gold [and not U.S. dollars], my forecast was extremely accurate."

In an August 2006 interview he said: "The United States economy is like the Titanic and I am here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship... I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States." On December 31, 2006 in debate on Fox News, Schiff forecast that "what's going to happen in 2007" is that "real estate prices are going to come crashing back down to Earth".

As part of these exchanges on Fox News and his repeated appearances on financial news network CNBC, Schiff had mentioned factors such as speculators and "the absence of lending standards" which are now seen by many to indeed be contributing factors to the housing crisis which began in 2007. On December 13, 2007 in a Bloomberg interview on the show ''Open Exchange'', Schiff further added that he felt that the crisis would extend to the credit card lending industry. Following this observation, it was soon reported on December 23, 2007 by the Associated Press that "The value of credit card accounts at least 30 days late jumped 26 percent to $17.3 billion in October from a year earlier at 17 large credit card trusts examined by the AP... At the same time, defaults -- when lenders essentially give up hope of ever being repaid and write off the debt -- rose 18 percent to almost $961 million in October, according to filings made by the trusts with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Since 2007, Schiff has stated many times that if the government doesn't change course there will be hyperinflation in the US. Schiff is one of a minority of economists credited with accurately predicting the financial crisis of 2007–2010 while "nearly all [macroeconomists] failed to foresee the recession despite plenty of warning signs". In his book ''Crash Proof'', he described several aspects of the U.S. economy that would lead to a recession.

Online videos

Schiff's notoriety for financial predictions increased when a You Tube video entitled "Peter Schiff was right" became popular in late 2008 and 2009. The video consists of a compilation of clips of his many appearances on various financial news programs from networks including CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC and Bloomberg, most of which took place from 2005 to 2007. In the segments Schiff explains specifically the fundamental problems he saw with the United States economy at that time. Schiff's warnings of a coming economic collapse earned him the moniker "Dr. Doom."

In late 2006, Schiff predicted the housing bubble and resulting subprime mortgage crisis, and in late 2008, he predicted the automotive industry crisis and the crisis in the banking and financial markets.

Investment advice

Despite predictions regarding the housing bubble and automotive industry difficulties coming to fruition, as early as 2009 Schiff was receiving criticism due to the performance of some of his client's accounts in 2008, as well as controversies over the predictions themselves. In January 2009, economic blogger and investment adviser Michael Shedlock reported, "I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008." Other criticisms followed, including the aforementioned Eric Tyson post as well as an article for the investment news site Seeking Alpha, published on the site two days after Shedlock's blog post. Later that week an article appeared in the ''Wall Street Journal'' reporting that Schiff's broker-dealer firm, Euro Pacific Capital Inc., "advised its clients to bet that the dollar would weaken significantly and that foreign stocks would outpace their U.S. peers" and that instead, the dollar advanced against most currencies, "magnifying the losses from foreign stocks Mr. Schiff steered his investors into."

The Director of Communications at Schiff's investment firm responded to the original Shedlock piece by saying, "While it is true, that our accounts have suffered badly in 2008, a fact that we have never disputed or ran from, [Shedlock's] estimates for the size of our typical client losses are exaggerated and unfair." Schiff personally responded to Shedlock's criticism by saying, "to examine the effectiveness of my investment strategy immediately following a major correction by looking only at those accounts who adopted the strategy at the previous peak is unfair and distortive" and called Shedlock's blog entry "nothing more than an overt advertisement (and a highly deceptive one at that) to use my popularity to advance his career," adding that losses were felt mostly by recent clients and not by others.

Schiff responded similarly to criticisms made by Wade Slome of Sidoxia Capital Management, LLC. in a September 2009 blog entry entitled, "The Emperor Schiff Has No Clothes." Schiff stated not only were the losses suffered by his clients in 2008 highly exaggerated, but also that most of those losses have already been recouped, stating that many who where down then are now up, and most long-term clients were never down at all, but merely temporarily lost some of the profits they had earned over the years.

The January 2009 ''Wall Street Journal'' article discussed the value of Schiff's predictions, and stated how deficiencies "made mincemeat of investors who took his advice in 2008." In an interview the following week Schiff likened himself to billionaire investor Warren Buffett saying they were both "buy and hold" long-term investors. Contrasting his negative press he compared claims about accounts managed under Schiff's firm to the stock market value of Warren Buffett's company, saying: "His approach is you buy stocks and you never sell them—you hope to never sell them—and Berkshire Hathaway is down 40% in the last thirteen months; I don't see the Wall Street Journal saying 'Warren Buffett made mincemeat out of his clients.'" The ''Wall Street Journal'' also published a letter written by Schiff in response to his critics saying: "My central investing premise, a weakening dollar and safety in gold, commodities and foreign stocks, didn't materialize in 2008. But all the ingredients were (and remain) present for those movements to occur. Over the past year, market reactions that I didn't foresee—massive global deleveraging, a knee-jerk 'flight to quality' into U.S. Treasuries and a sharp counter trend rally in the U.S. dollar—have kept the scenario from playing out."

In a November 2009 videoblog, Schiff said that five stocks he picked for ''Fortune Magazine'' in January 2009 had gained a total of 360%.

In a March 2009 speech Schiff said that it would be impossible for the U.S. debt to China to be repaid unless the U.S. dollar's value is substantially diluted through inflation.

In September 2009 Schiff said that "I would not be surprised to see [gold] at $5,000 over the next several years" and that the 2009 stock market rally was a "bear market rally".

Political career

Schiff was an economic adviser to Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign. In support of Paul's economic revitalization plan, he said: "We need a plan that stimulates savings and production, not more of the reckless borrowing and consumption that got us into this mess in the first place. Ron Paul's plan is the only one that amounts to a step in the right direction. If you want meaningful change—for the better that is—Ron Paul is the only candidate capable of delivering it."

In 2008, Schiff also endorsed Murray Sabrin for the U.S. Senate seat in New Jersey.

In an interview in February 2009, Schiff's position was summarized as a nonpartisan critique of American policymakers, comparing former presidents George W. Bush to Herbert Hoover and President Barack Obama to former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, with neither of the more recent incumbents comparing favorably to the earlier ones.

Schiff supports the reduction of government economic regulation, and is concerned that President Obama's administration may increase such regulation.

Schiff says that the current economic crisis provides an opportunity to transition from borrowing and spending, to saving and producing. Schiff is critical of the U.S. government's efforts to "ease the pain" with economic stimulus packages and bailouts. According to Schiff, the U.S. government's approach of replacing "legitimate savings with a printing press" could result in hyperinflation.

2010 U.S. Senate campaign

In December 2008, Connecticut citizens created a website encouraging Schiff to campaign against the incumbent Senator Christopher Dodd. Approximately 5,000 people made campaign contributions using the web site. On February 21, 2009, a moneybomb raised over $20,000 for Schiff's campaign. In a May 2009 video blog, Schiff said that he was seriously considering a run for the senate and when questioned by a ''Washington Post'' reporter, he said the chance of him entering politics was "better than 50-50". In June 2009 Schiff commissioned a poll of likely voters which indicated that he trailed Dodd in popularity by four percentage points. On July 9, 2009, Schiff launched an exploratory committee and an official campaign website. He began accepting donations in an attempt to see if "people who really believe in freedom, liberty, sound money and the constitution are prepared to support that with an actual political contribution or to volunteer their services and work on this campaign." He received over 10,000 donations and many e-mails from around the world.

After giving some hints on ''The Daily Show'' Schiff officially announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination on September 17, 2009, during the MSNBC ''Morning Joe'' show. By October 2009 Schiff had received more than 10,000 telephone calls and letters and raised over $1,960,000 (USD) in campaign contributions.

At the May 2010 Republican convention, Linda McMahon received the most delegate votes but not enough to prevent an August primary election. U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons received more than the required 15 percent of the total votes necessary to force the primary. Schiff then collected the signatures necessary to earn a position on the August 2010 GOP primary ballot, submitting at least 400 signatures over the state requirement.

In July 2010, Schiff's campaign received endorsements from Steve Forbes and Ron Paul.

In the Republican primary, held on August 10, 2010, Schiff lost the nomination to Linda McMahon.

The results were:

49% Linda McMahon

28% Rob Simmons

23% Peter Schiff

Ultimately, the election was won by the Democratic Party primary winner, Richard Blumenthal.

Recognition

In 2011 Peter Schiff was listed as one of the Who's Who of Wall Street

Books

Peter Schiff is the author of five books published by John Wiley & Sons. His book, ''Crash Proof 2.0'', appeared on both the ''New York Times'' and ''Wall Street Journal'' bestseller lists.

''Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse'', February 2007, ISBN 978-0-470-04360-8 1

''The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets: How to Keep your Portfolio Up When the Market is Down'', 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-38378-0 2

''Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit From the Economic Collapse, 2nd Edition'', September 2009, ISBN 978-0-470-47453-2 3

''The Little Book of Bull Moves, Updated and Expanded: How to Keep Your Portfolio Up When the Market Is Up, Down, Or Sideways'', 2010, ISBN 0470643994 4

''How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes'', 2010, ISBN 978-0-470-52670-5 5

Notes

References

External links

Euro Pacific Capital US Brokerage Firm Website

Euro Pacific Precious Metals Coin Company Website

Schiff for Senate Official Campaign Website

Peter Schiff Online, Official book site for Peter Schiff

Peter Schiff radio, Schiff's daily radio show

Peter Schiff blog

The Peter Schiff Blog

Social media

Peter Schiff's Official YouTube channel

Category:American economics writers Category:American economists Category:American finance and investment writers Category:American Jews Category:American libertarians Category:American money managers Category:Austrian School economists Category:Classical liberals Category:Connecticut Republicans Category:Financial analysts Category:Libertarian economists Category:Microeconomists Category:People from New Haven, Connecticut Category:People from New York City Category:Stock and commodity market managers Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Writers from Connecticut Category:1964 births Category:Living people

cs:Peter Schiff da:Peter Schiff de:Peter Schiff (Ökonom) es:Peter Schiff fr:Peter Schiff nl:Peter D. Schiff (econoom) ja:ピーター・シフ pl:Peter Schiff pt:Peter Schiff fi:Peter Schiff uk:Пітер Шифф

Coordinates	40°42′15.0″N73°55′4.0″N
Name	Paul Craig Roberts
Smallimage	Paul craig roberts.jpg
Office	United States Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy
Term start	1981
Term end	1982
President	Ronald Reagan
Birth date
Birth place	Atlanta, Georgia
Nationality	American
Occupation	economist }}

Paul Craig Roberts (born April 3, 1939) is an American economist and a columnist for Creators Syndicate. He served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics." He is a former editor and columnist for the ''Wall Street Journal, Business Week'', and Scripps Howard News Service. Roberts has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. He has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy. His writings frequently appear on OpEdNews, Prisonplanet.com, Antiwar.com, ''VDARE.com''. LewRockwell.com, ''CounterPunch'', and the American Free Press. Roberts has been featured as a guest on the ''Political Cesspool'' radio show.

Biography

Roberts is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He was a post-graduate at the University of California, Berkeley and at Merton College, Oxford University. His first scholarly article (Classica et Mediaevalia) was a reformulation of "The Pirenne Thesis."

In ''Alienation and the Soviet Economy'' (1971), Roberts explained the Soviet economy as the outcome of a struggle between inordinate aspirations and a refractory reality. He argued that the Soviet economy was not centrally planned, but that its institutions, such as material supply, reflected the original Marxist aspirations to establish a non-market mode of production. In ''Marx's Theory of Exchange'' (1973), Roberts argued that Marx was an organizational theorist whose materialist conception of history ruled out good will as an effective force for change.

From 1975 to 1978, Roberts served on the congressional staff. As economic counsel to Congressman Jack Kemp he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill (which became the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981) and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. His influential 1978 article for ''Harper's'', while economic counsel to Senator Orrin Hatch, had ''Wall Street Journal'' editor Robert L. Bartley give him an editorial slot, which he had until 1980. He was a senior fellow in political economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University.

From early 1981 to January 1982 he served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Ronald Reagan and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service Award for "outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy." Roberts resigned in January 1982 to become the first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, then part of Georgetown University. He held this position until 1993. He went on to write ''The Supply-Side Revolution'' (1984), in which he explained the reformulation of macroeconomic theory and policy that he had helped to create.

He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

In ''The New Color Line'' (1995), Roberts argued that the Civil Rights Act was subverted by the bureaucrats who applied it and, by being used to create status-based privileges, became a threat to the Fourteenth Amendment in whose name it was passed. In ''The Tyranny of Good Intentions'' (2000), Roberts documented what he saw as the erosion of the Blackstonian legal principles that ensure that law is a shield of the innocent and not a weapon in the hands of government.

Recognition

In 1987 the French government recognized him as "the artisan of a renewal in economic science and policy after half a century of state interventionism" and inducted him into the Legion of Honor on March 20, 1987. The French Minister of Economics and Finance, Edouard Balladur, came from France to present the medal to Roberts at a ceremony at the French Ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. President Reagan sent OMB Director Jim Miller to the ceremony with a letter of congratulation.

In 1992 he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Legislative Exchange Council. In 1993 the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.

Views

Criticism of Bush

Roberts opposed the Iraq War and writes frequently on the subject. On May 18, 2005, in response to the publication of the "Downing Street memo," Roberts wrote an article calling for Bush's impeachment for lying to Congress about the case for war.

Roberts was also a critic of a potential Bush administration attack on Iran. In an August 15, 2005 article, he states "Bush...dismisses all facts and assurances and is willing to attack Iran based on nothing but Israel's paranoia."

Although his criticisms of Bush often seem to align him with the political left, Roberts continues to praise Ronald Reagan and to endorse many of Reagan's policies, arguing that "true conservatives" were the "first victims" of the neoconized Bush administration. He has said that supporters of George W. Bush "are brownshirts with the same low intelligence and morals as Hitler's enthusiastic supporters."

Israel

In an article for Counterpunch magazine titled "Pirates of the Mediterranean", Roberts wrote that for 60 years, Israel has replicated "the 17th, 18th, and 19th century theft of American Indian lands by US settlers." Roberts repeated charges that Gaza is "the world largest concentration camp" populated by people who were "driven out of Palestine so that Israel could steal their land." He called the U.S. State Department a "puppet" of the Israelis and the U.S. itself a "puppet state" of the Israelis. He concludes the article by claiming that "there’s no money for California, or for Americans’ health care, or for the several million Americans who have lost their homes and are homeless, because Israel needs it."

Neoconservatives and the South Ossetia War

In an interview on August 27, 2008, on a broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Roberts stated that he believed that influential neoconservatives affiliated with the Bush administration were leading the United States into a nuclear confrontation with Russia over the situation in Georgia and South Ossetia. Roberts gave the conflict “almost total certainty if John McCain gets in office" and stated that the conflict would be in a timeframe of about two or three years.

September 11, 2001 attacks

Of the 9/11 Commission Report he wrote in 2006, "One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations." (see Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report). He has reported what he says are findings by experts that conclude there is a large energy deficit in the official account of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, and says that this deficit remains unexplained.

Roberts comments on the "scientific impossibility" of the official explanation for the events on 9/11 and says those engineers and physicists who accept this theory are wrong. On August 18, 2006, he wrote:

I will begin by stating what we know to be a solid incontrovertible scientific fact. We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false... Since the damning incontrovertible fact has not been investigated, speculation and “conspiracy theories” have filled the void.

On the (back) cover of Debunking 9/11 Debunking (2007) he is quoted:

Professor Griffin is the nemesis of the 9/11 cover-up. This new book destroys the credibility of the NIST and Popular Mechanics reports and annihilates his critics.Book Cover Quote

Roberts adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party. "The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists ... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."

US media

"Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda." "The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media. Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives—not by journalists—whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers. Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."

Society

"If I had time to research my writings over the past 30 years, I could find examples of partisan articles in behalf of Republicans and against Democrats. However, political partisanship is not the corpus of my writings. I had a 16-year stint as Business Week's first outside columnist, despite hostility within the magazine and from the editor's New York social set, because the editor regarded me as the most trenchant critic of the George H.W. Bush administration in the business. The White House felt the same way and lobbied to have me removed from the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies... In their hatred of "the rich," the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history."

Outsourcing jobs

Roberts has testified before the US–China Commission and written many articles pointing out that the offshoring of high productivity, high value-added jobs in manufacturing and professional services is dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that made the U.S. an opportunity society. Consequently, he is an opponent of Global Labor Arbitrage.

War on Drugs

Though Roberts worked for the Reagan administration, which implemented a "zero tolerance" and "Just Say No" policy on illegal drugs and increased spending to combat drugs, in 2007, he penned an article criticizing the excess of the War on Drugs which he termed the "militarization of local police".

Republican Party

Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution.

American democracy and oligarchy

Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

Cessation and resumption of journalistic activism

On March 26, 2010, in a farewell column titled, "Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It," Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins: "There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest." It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization. He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future. He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off."

Shortly thereafter, however, he resumed writing articles.

Published works

Books

''Alienation and the Soviet Economy'' (1971, 1990) ISBN 0-8419-1247-5

''Marx's Theory of Exchange, Alienation, and Crisis'' (1973, 1983) ISBN 0-03-069791-3

''The Supply Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington'' (1984) ISBN 0-674-85620-1

''Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy'' (1990) ISBN 0-932790-80-1

''The Capitalist Revolution in Latin America'' (1997) ISBN 0-19-511176-1

''The New Color Line: How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy'' (1995) ISBN 0-89526-423-4

''The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice'' (2008) ISBN 0-7615-2553-X

''How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds'' (2009) ISBN 978-1-84935-007-5

Articles

''CounterPunch''

Creators Syndicate

''LewRockwell.com''

''Antiwar.com''

''VDARE''

''World News Daily Information Clearing House''

References

External links

Column archive (2003-2009) at ''Antiwar.com''

Column archive (2006-2010) at Creators Syndicate

Column archive (1995-present) at ''LewRockwell.com''

Column archive (1995-2009) at ''Vdare.com''

Profile at SourceWatch

Nomination of Paul Craig Roberts To Be an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, President Ronald Reagan, January 30, 1981

;Interviews and articles

Paul Craig Roberts interviewed on Alex Jones Show regarding active nuclear threat within next 2-3 years

Paul Craig Roberts interviewed by Webster Tarpley

Roberts' first article calling for Bush's impeachment

Chuck Harder Interviews Paul Craig Roberts

A Brief Interview with Paul Craig Roberts

Downloadable audio interview with Scott Horton

Category:1939 births Category:American columnists Category:American economists Category:Georgia Institute of Technology alumni Category:Living people Category:Reagan Administration personnel Category:United States Department of the Treasury officials Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:University of Virginia alumni

fr:Paul Craig Roberts ru:Робертс, Пол Крейг

Paul Craig (born 27 September 1951) is currently Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St John's College. Craig is a specialist in Administrative and EU Law.

He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he took his BA, MA and BCL. He stayed at Worcester, and was made a Fellow in 1976. He remained a Fellow until his move to St John's in 1998.

He is the author of a number of legal textbooks the most well known of which (EU Law: Text, Cases and Materials) is about to be published in its 4th edition by Oxford University Press in August 2011.

He currently teaches 5 week courses in Administrative Law and European Union Law at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.

External links

Paul Craig at Oxford Law.

Paul Craig at St John's College.

Notes

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Fellows of Worcester College, Oxford Category:Fellows of St John's College, Oxford Category:Alumni of Worcester College, Oxford