Tim Russert promotes his books on Meet the Press. Chris Matthews promoted his book as a Christmas present on Hardball. The other night Keith Olbermann put his book at #3 on one of his top-10 lists.
This is just wrong. These guys have a lot of public responsibility and are getting a ton of air already. In the old days there were rules in journalism about separating promotions, of any sort, from the news. The 4th estate had great public responsibility. Now we’ve blurred the line in a lot of ways. Let’s sharpen the line on this one. You’re an anchor and you write a book, advertise it on your own time, not the public’s.
