Something's gone terribly wrong at Fox News—they keep responding to criticism as if it's valid! Someone at the network sent a letter to Glenn Beck wondering why he's always constantly shilling for gold.

Recently, Fox has begun actually acknowledging mistakes, responding to satirical criticism, apologizing for errors,, and even promising to stop lying all the time. It's weird! We're a little worried about them!

Beck's gold scam—he constantly tells his audience to invest in gold because America is going to collapse and he is also coincidentally a paid spokesman for a company that sells gold at massively inflated prices— was revealed in a surprisingly journalismy story in Politico that led to a Daily Show segment (and, yes, a Gawker post; that was most likely the difference-maker here).

Then the network's legal department sent Beck a letter asking him just what he does for Goldline, exactly. Because technically, on-air talent at Fox is prohibited from "endorsing products or serving as a product spokesperson."

But don't worry! If it sounds like Fox is going to crack down on an obvious violation of their own crippled ethics policies, they are actually just covering their asses and then telling the Times that they'd covered their asses. Because while Beck was named as a "paid spokesman" of Goldline on their website just last week, which would violate Fox's policy, they hastily renamed Beck a "radio sponsor" instead, so everything is fine.

"They sent back word that he is not a paid spokesman," [Fox exec Joel] Cheatwood said, adding that it would be "problematic without question" if Mr. Beck did have a position as a paid spokesman for a product.

So they are aware of his unethical behavior, and they sent him a letter about it, but no one is asking anyone to do anything differently, the end.