ON THE FRONT PAGE TODAY, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran an excerpt from a new book, Tasting Freedom. The book chronicles the life of Octavius Catto, a 19th century Philadelphia civil rights activist. It was written by Dan Biddle and Murray Dubin, two longtime Inquirer staffers (though Dubin recently retired). Is there anything wrong with the Inquirer hyping and publicizing a book written by two of their own (Biddle is the Pennsylvania Editor for the paper)?
The article includes information about how to purchase the book (via Temple University Press). Is that ethical?
8 comments:
I honestly see nothing wrong with this. These writers want to make money and want to sell their book fast. As taught in class, journalism is a business; advertising this book is a part of business.
I see nothing wrong with it myself. The Inquirer has ran articles on many other books from different authors. Running a newspaper is a business and advertising a book is one way of making money.
As I have always said, the media is a business. The Inquirer can run whatever stories they see fit. The real decision whether or not they should run this lays in the hands of the public. Are they still going to buy a newspaper that plugs itself? If they are, then the Inquirer can get away with it.
I think it's totally fine if a publication runs a story about one of their own, or if they plug something written by them. The fact that they get to run an exclusive (I'm assuming) excerpt will only help the magazine and the writers of the book. As far as the public is concerned, this exclusivity could be viewed as a positive aspect of reading the Inquirer. If someone has a problem with it, they can simply skip the article.
There's nothing wrong with it as long as they are up front about the fact that they were once employees. It'd be a different story if they never mentioned it though.
I don't see it as a problem either, although it can easily be taken as a publicity push for one of their own. Was it stated anywhere in the article that it was written by former employees? Its very much about who you know in the industry-why not use it to your advantage?
Seems like I'm in the same boat with everyone else. It's not unusual that the Inquirer (or any media outlet) would give a nod to a current and former employee,though I do wonder what the Inquirer is getting out of the deal...a profit from the book sales?
It reminds me of the discussion we had in class about the business of media and the importance of advertising. Boradcast companies like ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN, etc. use their own new channels and sister stations as personal endorsement campaigns for other shows, nothing new there.
Overall, good for these two for 1)having their work published, and 2) using their own employer to promote the book
I honestly don't see anything wrong with the publishing of the article about a book that two employees of the magazine wrote as long as it's a well written book. If the book is terrible and really doesnt deserve the mention in an article then no, I don't think they should have an article about it.
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