David Letterman Show may be a liability for Seinfeld

Jessica Seinfeld has been cleared of plagiarism charges leveled against her by Missy Chase Lapine, a cookbook author. Turns out, Seinfeld didn't need anyone's help to figure out how to sneak carrots into spaghetti sauce, or whatever it is that she endorses in her cookbook, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.

So Jessica Seinfeld has been vindicated, but her husband, the inimitable Jerry ("Master of the Domain") Seinfeld, sort of wrecked everything by making a comment about Lapine (he figured out how to compare her to Lee Harvey Oswald, apparently) on the Letterman show. Now the family Seinfeld could be in for another lawsuit -- this one, because Jerry turned what could have been a book promotion (for his wife's book, but still) on David Letterman's show into an opportunity to further ruffle the feathers of Ms. Lapine.

Those of us who followed Jerry's sitcom knows how this story is likely to end: four old friends, sitting in a jail cell, bickering with one another while simultaneously figuring out how to sneak some veggies into the prison food.

Ah, Jerry. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Leave it to you to turn a book promotion opportunity into a potential fiasco. What are we going to do with you, my friend?

Jon Keller, Part Two.

In the event that you were waiting at the edge of your seat to learn what Jon Keller's editor had to say about Jon Keller's book, here's part two of the Jon Keller saga. Jon Keller, as you'll recall from yesterday's blog entry, is the Boston-area media personality whose new book, The Bluest State, contains a multitude of quotations that, apparently, are unattributed to the sources from which they were originally appropriated. The Boston Herald broke the story yesterday and followed up on it today.

The Boston Herald (to which Keller frequently contributes, by the way), touched base with Michael Flamini who edited The Bluest State for St. Martin's Press. Flamini is quoted as saying (I'm psraphrasing here) that, since Keller's book is for the trade rather than the academic press, it doesn't need footnotes or a meticulous bibliography.

Well, then.

Equally frightening to this book publicist is the fact that Jeff Kiernan, the news director at WBZ-TV -- one of the two Boston-area television stations for which Jon Keller is a political analyst -- says (and here I'm quoting the Boston Herald article) that he has "full confidence in Jon’s integrity and in the excellent work he does.”

Unfortunately for those of us who receive at least some of our information on a daily basis from Boston-area media outlets, Kiernan doesn't explain why he has full confidence in Jon Keller or what, exactly, he means by the word "integrity." Perhaps the Boston Herald truncated Kiernan's comments. If so, then I would appreciate hearing the rest of what Kiernan had to say, and I trust other media consumers would be interested as well.

For the entire Boston Herald article, click here.

Oh, and to conclude the tale about the middle schooler I mentioned yesterday who failed to footnote that encyclopedia entry in her seventh grade homework assignment.... She was given a consequence. She was asked to pen an admission of guilt (for committing the p-word offense) along with an apology to both her classroom teacher and the principal of her school. And she did, and as a result, that young woman will remember to include footnotes in all of her future homework assignments for a long time to come.

This youngster was in middle school. She now knows better than to leave herself open to the charge of plagarism.

How interesting it is to me that some professional journalists out there haven't learned that lesson yet.