Josh Trevino has a new blog, his 12/17/05 post is about ethics in political commentary. Trevino uses Markos as his example of questionable practices.
Trevino implies Kos was paid for favorable blogging by Dean and that Kos is pushing Unembedded, a photojournalism book, because he is using the publisher of Unembedded for his own book.
Still, it's often possible to spot when a blogger's extracurricular interests influence his site and his work. Here's an example:
Markos Moulitsas, proprietor of the single most successful blog on the planet, has a book coming out. It's been known for some time that this book has been in the works.
On an apparently unrelated note, in November 2005, Moulitsas starts plugging Unembedded, a photojournalism book filled with (apparently quite good) images from Iraq. He plugs it and plugs it and plugs it and plugs it.
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Some readers wonder why, and some voice suspicions that this is a paid product placement, or an effort by Moulitsas to make money off of his Amazon affiliate status. Moulitsas plausibly points out that his Amazon income is quite small; and he insists that he has no ulterior motive beyond a sincere love of this remarkable book.
A few weeks later, Moulitsas announces pre-sales of his book. He reveals that the publisher -- chosen because "we wanted an environmentally responsible company in what is a hugely wasteful industry" -- is Chelsea Green, a small publisher specializing in "progressive" books.
By remarkable coincidence, Chelsea Green is the publisher of Unembedded.
Now, it's possible that Markos Moulitsas became enthused enough with an otherwise obscure photojournalism tome from an otherwise obscure publisher to devote a great deal of time and space on his blog to promoting its purchase wholly independent of his then-unannounced business affiliation with that same publisher. It's also possible that the Earth is 6,000 years old. Common sense suggests otherwise in both cases. How this affects his readers' trust in him and his forthrightness is for them to decide.
This isn't the first time that Moulitsas has been at the center of a possible cash-for-access story -- nor is it the first time he's decided he's exempt from the ethical and behavioral strictures of other self-appointed members of the media. Earlier this year, a controversy was sparked by Zephyr Teachout's assertion that Moulitsas (along with his book co-author Jerome Armstrong) was paid by the 2004 Howard Dean campaign in part to ensure favorable blogging for the candidate. (See Moulitsas' self-defense here.)
Trevino 12/17/05
UPDATE I noticed that Trevino posted this at
Tacitus as well. The thread has comments by Trevino.