MinnPost
When KSTP re-hired Joe Schmit last week, the Pioneer Press’ Amy Gustafson noted Schmit would keep his gig as Sun Country Airlines ad spokesman.
It was a concession from a de-monetizing industry. “We could not offer Joe the same salary that he left with,” KSTP news director Lindsay Radford says.
Of the potential conflict-of-interest, she adds, “We tried to find a way to work through it. I don’t think the public will be as offended as they might have been in the past.”
Radford is probably right; though sports has long been dismissed as the “toy department,” there’s a fairly long history of local shilling that includes WCCO‘s Mark Rosen and Mike Max.
Schmit, however, is doing just a bit more than that. While he’s giving up a job as a Sun Country marketing and media consultant, he remains, in his words, an “icon” for the Mendota Heights-based airline. More…