While Keith Olbermann touched upon this back in November, this story was largely ignored by the larger media. And then of course Keith was attacked by right-winger bloggers for daring to point out Beck's massive conflict of interest in repeatedly telling his audience to buy gold, while also being a spokesman for Goldline International. The L.A. Examiner's Robbin Swad also joined in, whining about who really cared about this conflict of interest, anyway?, and also bashed MediaMatters for daring to even write about it.
(BTW, major h/t to ThinkProgress, which was on this story way back in October.)
Now enter Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Videos after the fold.
I should note the NYT did mention this two weeks ago on their media blog, but look at the statement from the Fox News spokesman.
One of the channel’s hosts, Glenn Beck, has been accused this week of pushing viewers to invest in gold even though he is a paid spokesman for a gold sales company, one that is also an advertiser on his Fox television show as well as his syndicated radio show.
The senior vice president for development for Fox News, Joel Cheatwood, issued a statement saying, "In every mention of gold on the TV or radio program Beck is very clear that gold is an option for some and may not be for others."
Mr. Cheatwood did not address the question of whether it was appropriate for Mr. Beck to advocate for a business that is one of his advertisers.
Conflict of interest? What conflict of interest? What, me worry? Politico got a pretty damning quote from one of Beck's advertisers about this.
Peter Epstein, president of Merit Financial Services, which advertises on Beck’s show, says gold retailers expect favorable coverage from commentators on whose shows they pay to advertise. "You pay anybody on any network and they say what you pay them to say," said Epstein. "They’re bought and sold."
Beck, who through a publicist declined to comment for this story, addressed the Media Matters allegation on his Thursday show, saying "So, I shouldn’t make money?" And he made the point that he touted gold before he became a Goldline endorser, and urges viewers to study and pray before investing in it.
So as of two weeks ago, Beck and Fox News were brushing this off as if it were no big deal at all. Except... behind the scenes, Fox News's legal department got involved.
But the exemption is meant only to apply to live reads, not to the kind of broader spokesmanship Beck, to all appearances, provides Goldline. In particular, Beck's ubiquity on the Goldline website is not in keeping with Fox's rules. A Fox spokeswoman said the network's legal department is taking up the matter with Beck's agent, George Hiltzik.
And what of the substance (if any) of what Beck is saying about buying gold coins so the government can't confiscate them?
A couple of experts told me that Beck muddies those imperatives by implying that buying collectible gold coins is the soundest way to invest. Such coins are a smart option, a video on GlennBeck.com suggests, because they're not likely to be subject to the sort of confiscation program that the government enacted during the Great Depression.
Jon Nadler, a senior analyst at Kitco Metals Inc. in Montreal, called that pitch "absurd." Nadler told me that, first, the U.S. had little success in recovering gold back in the 1930s. Second, a 21st century government would have many better options -- including simply raising the valuation of the U.S. gold reserve, now set at a paltry $42.20 an ounce.
"This idea of a confiscation is a scare tactic," Nadler said. "The problem I have with this whole campaign is it really removes the idea of safe and sane in gold investing. These pitches go for the gut as opposed to the intellect."
So Beck isn't just pitching a product without proper disclosure, he's even making shit up about what can happen to their gold after they buy it, in order to drum up even more fear in his viewers' minds.
Now enter Jon Stewart. Jon touched upon Beck's conflict of interest last Thursday, December 10, in this hilarious takedown.
The next day, Glenn Beck made a sarcastic video "apologizing" for endorsing Goldline, and saying it's because he believes in their product, and mocks liberals for thinking he has that much power to influence the price of gold. I think he actually may be stupid enough not to even understand how this is considered a conflict of interest, since he doesn't disclose on his show that he's a paid spokesman for Goldline.
With the increased attention after Jon did his piece, the NYT did a follow-up in their print edition (and not just on their blog), where now it seems Fox News claims Beck was NOT a paid spokesman for Goldline. As if he did those commercials for them out of the goodness of his heart.
Joel Cheatwood, the senior vice president of development for Fox News, said the network’s legal department had recently sent a letter to Mr. Beck’s representatives "seeking clarification" about his work for Goldline.
"They sent back word that he is not a paid spokesman," Mr. Cheatwood said, adding that it would be "problematic without question" if Mr. Beck did have a position as a paid spokesman for a product.
Hmm... does something smell fishy to you, too? Well it should, because...
Fox News stressed that it was not aware that Mr. Beck was listed on the Internet as a paid spokesman. But he definitely was, until very recently. On cached editions of the Goldline Web site over the last week to 10 days, a photograph of Mr. Beck was accompanied by an asterisk which led to a line at the bottom of the site that read: "paid spokesman."
That ad (which is also linked to from Mr. Beck’s personal site, glennbeck.com) was changed, so that the words "paid spokesman" were replaced with "radio sponsor."
It may have been the letter from Fox News — or maybe a stinging piece last week about Mr. Beck’s gold associations on Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" — that led to the change in the "paid spokesman" designation.
Heh, when the New York Times cites Jon Stewart as possibly having influence on what transpired, you know he left a mark, even as Fox News denies it. CBS News picked up on the story, and even David Horowitz's right-wing version of MediaMatters blasted Beck for his conflict of interest. But this latest information is quite interesting. Was Glenn Beck ever a paid spokesman for Goldline or not? Was it really just a simple mistake that he was listed as a "paid spokesman" on Goldline's own website before they scrubbed it? What exactly differentiates a company just paying for airtime on a TV news show (where I'm guessing the host gets a portion of that money) to having that host be a "paid spokesman"?
Anyway, I'd like to think that Beck's insincere online "apology" was seen by Stephen, and that in defense of his friend Jon, he chimed in with his own segment taking it a step further, airing his own conflict of interest commercial involving gold, fear of the coming apocalypse, and... sheep.
Stephen does a great service showing the actual ads for gold that several other right-wing commentators like Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, and G. Gordon Liddy have also done. This is hardly just Beck, though he's the most prominent in promoting gold on his show as well.
It was nice to see the one-two punch of Jon and Stephen exposing to a much wider audience the conflict of interest Glenn Beck has when he drums up fear and then tries to get his audience to buy gold.