Glenn Beck's Empire Expands with a Blaze

Ten years ago, nobody knew the name of Glenn Beck. Then he started a radio program. He then ventured into books. A few years ago, CNN Headline News gave him a show. Since he moved over to a more appropriate television station (Fox News), his ratings have taken off. This year, he has expanded once again - not his waistline, as he might comment on, but his media empire. Over the summer, he started his own university. On August 31, 2010, he started his own Internet newspaper, The Blaze.

The Blaze is named for the fire that burns but doesn't consume. Moses saw the blaze in a burning bush. George Whitefield talked about it. Today, Glenn Beck is hiring four journalists to try to give us the truth about what is going on in the world. The Blaze is a compliment to his radio show, books, and television program.

Contents of The Blaze

What will you see when you get to The Blaze? The web site is not as professionally polished as Fox News.com or even Glenn Beck.com. The site currently only has a small amount of content. However, the content that is up already is fairly interesting, and should be of interest to Glenn Beck's followers. Some of the articles on the site right now include a video of an Al Sharpton rally on 8/26/2000 where Malik Zulu Shabazz was invited to speak: "we have a vision ... a black dream when we see caskets rolling and funerals in the black community that we will see caskets and funerals in the community of our enemy as well." Another featured story is of a teenager that discovered that he broke a rule in a golf tournament and turned himself in, even though he had won. Ed Schultz thinks that he could attract a larger crowd than Glenn Beck. There's a sports story; last night there was a story about a cancer in the Tasmanian devil population; there's a story about how Moslems have released a Public Service Announcement promising not to take over the United States. There are several more stories, along with a rolling batch of stories coming in from AP News services.

Like many news outlets today, people are allowed to voice their opinions to many of the stories by posting their comments at the end of the story.

Web Site Bugs

The Blaze has had a few opening-day bugs. Many users, including myself, have had trouble getting their passwords mailed to them. I had to request a new password twice before the web site actually sent me one. The web site seems to spontaneously forget that you logged in, or will ask you to log in to comment even if it already recognizes that you have logged in. The Blaze has also had a bug where it listed another person's name in the box asking me to comment, instead of my user name. These are minor technical glitches that primarily revolve around the audience participation portion of the site. They are likely to be fixed in the days ahead. I haven't had any difficulty accessing any of the posted stories.

I expect that The Blaze will become a fairly popular web site among conservatives and among people that like to dig up dirt on them.