It Isn't Easy Being Dan Brown

Back on March 21, Lee Goldberg began a series of posts on his blog that pretty well dismissed Dan Brown's claims that he was allowed through airport security with no identification, just the author photo on one of his books. We could pretty well imagine the TSA inspector doing that being sentenced to biothreat inspections at a bird-flu-infested chicken farm.

But that example shows how the media have given Brown's statements a pampered free ride, a cushy, non-critical acceptance of anything that rolls out of his (or his publicist's) mouth.

Edward Wyatt, the NY Times person who wrote the book-jacket story is just one of many in the mainstream media who are blinded by Brown's celebrity and the awesome publicity machine that Random House has mustered for the occasion.

Fortunately, we have seen any number of occasions where blogs have picked up on the truth and broken stories that the mainstream media were too blind, too clueless, had too many conflicts of interest or spent too much in bed with those it should be covering.

As I mentioned above, this thread began at Lee Goldberg's Blog: A Writer's Life. It's well worth reading.