Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck's crying fits, political rants, and demands that listeners "save this country from the radical leftists" made him one of the most popular radio and TV hosts between 2009 and 2011. Glenn Beck got into radio as a teen and spent a dozen years after high school working as a radio "shock jock." He has spoken openly of his addiction to alcohol and drugs in those years, but at age 30 he sobered up, remarried, and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons). When he landed a talk show at station WFLA-AM in Tampa, Florida in the year 2000, he had found his niche. In 2002 the show was picked up for national syndication, and by 2006 he was hosting his own TV show on CNN. Glenn Beck moved his TV show to the Fox News Channel in 2009, where he was a perfect match for the network's right-leaning viewers. Glenn Beck calls his shtick "the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment," a mix of emotional warnings against government tyranny with goofball humor and self-deprecating wisecracks. A specialist in "shock talk," Beck famously called President Barack Obama a "racist" and said Obama had "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." Beck makes regular public tours and has published books including An Inconvenient Book (2007), The Christmas Sweater (2008) and Common Sense: The Case Against Out-Of-Control Government (2009). Glenn Beck announced on 6 April 2011 that he would "transition off of his daily program" on Fox News sometime later in 2011, then said he would start an Internet channel called GBTV. His last daily show on Fox was June 30th, 2011.