Glenn Beck and science fiction

Yes, Glenn Beck and science fiction. Despite the huge popularity of media celebrities like Beck, there has been relatively little attention paid in science fiction television and film to the possibilities of the Father Coughlins of the airwaves and broadband. Babylon 5's Dan Randall is probably as close as any of these shows have come to dealing with the cult of media worship that surrounded Beck, Limbaugh, Coughlin, etc. Making matters worse, these programs always show some safe CNN-like champion of bland liberalism replacing the conservative media of the right, a result that is both unlikely and seemingly not much better than the alternative. Partly, science fiction is cautious about its portrayal of the media because it is unsure what forms of mass media will be used to inflame the conservative masses of the future. Yet there is plenty of material to play with here. For instance, a talk radio host or a televangelist getting ahold of nanotechnology and using it to control his followers every thought and mood. Or a right wing rabble-rouser on the level of Tom Zarek, with or without the strong political critique that Zarek offers of centrist liberalism (preferably with a good right wing critique of liberalism, as oppossed to the cornball stuff Hollywood comes up with). So science fiction TV, you are on notice: We need some mass media personalities on our shows, if only to critique the mass media.