Hugh Hewitt and His Conflict-of-Interest Conflicts

Meet Shine Like Stars, an Irvine-based Christian-rock band that jams the Divine fantastic at Irvine Presbyterian Church, specifically in its Veritas form of service. They're playing this Wednesday at San Clemente Presbyterian Church in anticipation of a small Pacific Coast tour. Good for them, seriously.

But here's the rub: Recently, Shine Likes Stars received major promotion gracias to OC's own Hugh Hewitt, blogger extraordinaire, nationally syndicated radio host and successful author. Hewitt has devoted two mini-posts to Shine Like Stars and played the group's music on his radio show. Nowhere in the posts did Hewitt disclose that his "pals" are worshippers at Irvine Presbyterian, where Hewitt is an elder. In the interest of fairness, I can't say the same about the radio plug, as I didn't hear it—if Hugh mentioned the connection, good for him; if not, shame!

This isn't the first time (see the Tuesday item) Hewitt has plugged the efforts of pals while failing to disclose his friendships (in that instance, Hewitt later spilled the beans while taking a swipe at us). Will he come clean again? Will conservative bloggers froth at the mouth again about another instance of non-disclosures amongst media giants? Stay tuned . . .