This Sunday morning I watched Fox News Sunday. Laura Bush was peddling her new book. Newt Gingrich was peddling his new book. And on Meet the Press Jonathan Alter was peddling his new book. Anyone see a pattern here?
I see this over and over again. And it pisses me off. TV shows peddling books as if the contents of the books were news. Charlie Rose does it too. In other words, TV shows pass off as news what is fundamentally a sales promotion. Who is paying whom under such circumstances?
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Other questions I have are...how do these people get on TV? Do the book advertising agencies pay off the networks to get their authors on TV to promote their books? Or do the networks go after them once they've written a book? Do the TV networks get a kickback? Exactly what is the nature of this phenomenon?
How does this work? I don't have the answers. What I can do however is raise questions about the process and try to understand what is happening to American viewers as a result. Are the networks playing us for fools?
I could post links to all sorts of clips of book sales posed as news, but unfortunately I don't know how to do that. And it really wouldn't matter anyway. I'm sure anyone who watches the Sunday morning talk shows, and others, knows what I'm taking about if they are even half-way paying attention.
What is there to do about this, if anything? How can so-called news organizations get away with promoting on-air book peddling as news? Don't people care?
I'm not sure whether to call this a "rant" or an "expression of frustration" so I'll call it both. Any comments or ideas that might contribute to a "fix" for passing off book selling as news would be appreciated.
Thanks for your time.