TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

Peter Epstein is president of Merit Financial Services and Merit sells gold to the rubes and advertises on wingnut radio and TV shows. He's also surprsingly honest about what Merit is paying the hosts to do and who Merit is trying to reach. From POLITICO:

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.”

“I could care less what people think of him,” Merit’s Epstein said of Beck. “We advertise on Fox because it makes the phone ring.”

Though Epstein’s firm has advertised on CNN, he said gold resonates more with Fox’s viewers “because it’s the angry white man audience - it’s the conservative audience. … They are distrustful of the government, of the regime.”