From :Glenn Beck advertises gold and who really cares? published on December 9, 4:23 PM by
Glenn Beck ExaminerRobbin Swad in Examiner.com
Robbin Swad starts the article this way:
The Glenn Beck buzz the past few days has been the topic of … gold advertisements. Fueled mostly by … the Beck-bashing site Media Matters, the fact that Glenn Beck and his program endorse gold purchasing is now a controversy, sort of.
Yes, it is a real controversy, just not the one that people are considering. I do think that Glenn Beck believes what he is saying, as delusional as it may appear to be to any independent observer. I also think he is unethical about how he conveys what he believes. This is demonstrated by how he delivers his message. He presents what he believes in the manner of a carnival barker using whatever means necessary to hold the attention of his audience. By so doing he often helps create the situations that are the subject of his commentary. I am reminded of two Wormwood quotes from The Screwtape Letters, “Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind” and “Suspicion often creates what it suspects.” It is not so easy to take some good ideas and twist them to follow Dave Bartley’s Law: Be suspicious of anything that works perfectly — it’s probably because two errors are canceling each other out.
If I make myself the beneficiary of life insurance I have on my employees, crowd them in a theater with my competition, then cry fire in the theater, not only have I moved beyond the bounds of free speech, but I have moved beyond the bounds of commercial speech as well. In a like manner, Glenn Beck attracts sponsors which support his half baked millennial conspiracy message because it is “good for business.” By investing in, and until recently getting paid by, those that support the fear message and encouraging others to do likewise, he has a stake in continuing to exaggerate his message of fear whether or not it has any basis in reality. He endangers all concerned by his unethical fire cry. Maybe we should be looking for dead peasants?
… Monday … Glenn Beck began his exposé on … the “convicted felon”– the other White House gate-crasher. … Robert Creamer… author of “Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win.” … suggested … Obama … following Robert Creamer’s plan … “trying to stir up emotion, revulsion and fear to peddle this massive government takeover.”
I have said many times about Right wing commentators, that they have no insight into their unconscious biases which lead them to project onto the Left exactly what they are doing as they project it. Glenn Beck is clearly following Creamer’s advice with his every sentence. Sadly it often works for him with the help of many others. Just consider Goldline‘s bottom line. The sadder thing is that he is protected as a commentator like the psychic who puts up the sign “for entertainment only” and like the many Glenn Beck satires that mimic his form and method perfectly, but can freely add any random content they please. Gold will do quite nicely.
… one day following … report by Glenn Beck on Robert Creamer,…the internet … titles like “Glenn Beck’s Gold Gate problem” and “Glenn Beck’s Gold Endorsement Goes Too Far For Fox” … attacking Beck’s gold advertising…
Yes, and the articles go on and on from Salon.com to Businessinsider.com to bloggrunner.com to wikio.co.uk/news to CBS to ABC to MediaMatters to Mother Jones.
The issue here is not whether the man has the right to make money. The issue is whether he has the right to make money by any means possible. We can see he is not restricted to telling truth as an entertainer and commentator. The fact is that FOX NEWS has won it’s misinformation lawsuit and Glenn Beck could even be considered a reporter and legally lie like the rest of the Fox disinformation staff. So can he tell any lie to undercut his competitors and profit from the growth of his supporters with his lies or delusions? All of his accessories would tend to agree that he indeed can do this to their apparent mutual gain, but like any such scheme, politely called a bubble, it will grow until it bursts.
As for the propinquity of this gold issue coming up after the party-felon issue suggesting a causal relationship in this pissing contest, this is quite ludicrous. Correlation is not causation. Association is not proof. Maybe the Left wing blogs should have talked about all the Right wing felons working for the News Corporation the day after the event. Now that might have been causal. I have been blogging about the FOX geeks like Glenn Beck for some time, but many have been doing it since it’s inception.
… one finds that liberal/ progressive critics like News Hounds, Air-America and especially Media Matters are among the ones crying foul the loudest. [links added by me]
Obviously not loud enough for her to hear that she contradicted herself. Either the gold gate issue just came up after the the party-felon issue or it has been something that has been talked about right along. Whereas, the strong articles like the LA Times article cited by the Glenn Beck Examiner below clearly showed that his monetary advice to individuals may not be sound economic advice.
That is a pretty loud yell by the LA Times that Ms. Swad just sidesteps. Moreover, Robinn Swad seems to be miss the whole point here. Glenn Beck’s viewers are free to make their own decisions, but if he backs his advice with huckster tricks that he profits from, can we really say this is ethical? And does the disappearing ‘paid spokesman‘ from the Goldline website make it any more right or just more suspect?
Nonetheless, concerning Glenn Beck’s alleged conflict of interest, Politico conducted an in-depth look at Glenn Beck’s endorsement of gold… various … hosts … advertise gold-buying, such as Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Fred Thompson G. Gordon Liddy, and Dennis Miller,
From the “Right-wing talkers go for the gold” at Politico.com
“But Beck has recently come under fire from liberals alleging a conflict of interest. …The Democrat-aligned watchdog group Media Matters asserted the segment was a ‘reward’ to his gold advertisers, while liberal MSNBC host Keith Olbermann charged that Beck is ‘in it for the money. He keeps trying to sell people gold, largely because a disproportionate number of his advertisers sell people gold.’ “
The glaring statement here is that if you traffic in fear, then you traffic in gold. Also, by the way; diamonds, insurance, lawyers and sex seem to be a good bet too.
A look beyond the far-left attacks … seem to defuse the controversy– if ever there was one.
From the article entitled “Glenn Beck’s Gold Gate” on Yahoo news:
“However, Beck, who responded to the conflict of interest allegations on his show last Thursday by saying ‘So I shouldn’t make money?’, isn’t devoid of defenders on the matter. Business Insider called the controversy ‘nonsense,’ adding ‘there’s nothing wrong with a commentator advising viewers, listeners, or readers to take positions that he is taking himself. In fact, you might wonder about the motivations of someone giving financial advice he wouldn’t take himself.’ In Beck’s defense, some have also noted that the price of gold has spiked since he started at Fox News.”
Again this misses the point. The whole idea of the sarcastic statement of ‘So I shouldn’t make money’ is that it is value neutral. The meaning and its truth are in the ear of the listener. Yes, you should make money, but then so should the mafia don that just wants a taste. The objection is off whose back you are making it. If the Right is selectively attending only to what it sees as destroying their worldview, and advertisers that profit from that view flock to them, then we are left only with a self fulfilling prophecy which they are uniquely placed with insider information to manipulate and profit from the disinformation they promulgate.
Here’s more from the article at Business Insider entitled “Glenn Beck’s Gold Endorsement Goes Too Far For Fox”
“We’re not shocked that Beck’s role as an investor in gold himself and an advocate of others buying gold is drawning [sic] critiques from nattering nabobs of journalistic ‘ethics.’ …The presumption that taking money to endorse something corrupts the endorsement is basically a bias against commerce. Does anyone really think that Beck is secretly skeptical about gold going up and only advocating buying gold because Goldline is paying him? We didn’t think so. It’s far more likely that Beck is bullish on gold and found a way to make some extra money on that position.”
Another case of selective attention. Yes, the thrust of the Business Insider was to question the questioners of Glenn Beck’s ethics, but the idea that it was the ‘journalist ethic’ breach of not disclosing that you are invested in what you are reporting about is a red herring. Glenn Beck is not a journalist, nor is he a qualified financial adviser. To even attempt to give the appearance of being a financial adviser when you are unqualified to give that advice and to not disclose your financial holdings is unethical. Glenn Beck is a professional comedian, entertainer and commentator. For him to put on the guise of any other profession without a clear disclaimer and disclosure is unconscionable. Unfortunately, the FOX lawyers have made sure Glenn Beck “noncommercial” speech is not illegal. It is yet to be heard whether such commercial speech is illegal.
The article from The LA Times … also refers to Fox’s take on Glenn Beck advertising gold:
“Joel Cheatwood, senior vice president for development at Fox, told DailyFinance’s Jeff Bercovici that Fox had granted Beck an exception to its rule prohibiting news personalities from making paid product endorsements. Cheatwood said the gold pitches were allowed to continue because when Beck moved to the cable station this year, he already had an “established, burgeoning radio business” that Fox didn’t want to interrupt.”
The LA Times concluded … Beck’s audiences… will “judge” just how much they really care.
“Ultimately, the audience will decide whether Beck pushes gold out of real knowledge and commitment and not, at least in part, to pad his personal bank account.”
Glenn Beck Examiner wonders … [if Beck is] pursuing free-market capitalism and exercising one’s individual right to earn a profit?
I wonder if Robinn Swad really wants to go back to the days of the robber barons, where you were allowed to do just about anything to earn a buck? Maybe he should have Monsanto commercials? But more importantly she misses the point again, the real end of the LA Times article suggested that Glenn Beck should hope that he is not judged by the same standards he judges others. Judging from the early returns, I suspect the tide will turn on him soon.
If you see a Goldline ad under this article be sure to click on it and tell them what you think of the golden calf.
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