Maybe News Outlets Should Be Paying For Interviews

(CBS/AP)

NBC News is disputing a report that the network is paying Paris Hilton for her first interview after she is released from jail. There are conflicting reports in the press, with the New York Times reporting that NBC outbid ABC's $100,000 offer and the Washington Post suggesting that "a mega-payment [from NBC to Hilton] might go toward personal video and images of the celebrity party girl." That would be one method for getting around the criticism that you're "paying" for the interview that still allows you to, you know, pay for it. There are plenty more.

Newspapers today are filled with tales of network tactics for convincing interviewees to speak to them that don't involve showing up at their door with a bag of cash emblazoned with a dollar sign. From the Post:

"Today" aired a Matt Lauer interview this week with Britain's Princes Harry and William that happened to take place after NBC's entertainment division agreed to pay more than $2 million for a July tribute concert marking the 10th anniversary of the death of their mother, Princess Diana.

In 2003, CBS's "60 Minutes" scored an interview with Michael Jackson right after the network's entertainment division agreed to air a music special featuring the singer, who was then charged with child molestation. CBS also dangled the possibility of movie and book deals when its news division was pursuing an interview with Jessica Lynch, the soldier who was rescued in Iraq.

The Los Angeles Times, calling checkbook journalism a "badly kept secret in the industry," notes that networks can offer "free hotel rooms and entertainment while interview subjects are in New York, payment for the 'licensing' of home videos and photos to illustrate the story, and other incentives, according to industry veterans. If the costs are too egregious, often the project is shifted to a network's entertainment division, which can pay subjects through production contracts."

In light of all this, it seems to me that the time has come for networks to simply end the charade. Why don't they just pay for these interviews and then disclose that they've done so to their audience? Wouldn't that ultimately be more journalistically honest – and even, on this skewed scale, more ethical? I'm not suggesting this approach for interviews with serious newsmakers, where there should never be payment made, de facto or otherwise. But when you're dealing with a subject like Paris Hilton – who isn't exactly Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – perhaps the time has come to start leveling with the audience.

[joycewest]

Mahmoud who? Just kidding. So you decide to pay interviewees who are NOT serious newsmakers. Who gets to be part of this privileged class of folk who get paid for national TV interviews? Most likely they will be celebrity entertainers, already among the wealthiest people in the nation. The idea of journalists paying people who are already wealthy just to talk is decadent and morally suspect.
How can I trust corporations that throw big money away on celebrity news to spend significant time reporting about issues of poverty or disability or injustice? Where are their priorities? And doesn't the money networks earn through a celebrity interview corrupt even the most well-meaning journalist? Having stars in your eyes leads to nearsightedness.
To dismiss celebrities as lower-level newsmakers while paying them a small fortune makes no sense. The press would do better to take entertainers as seriously as any other newsmakers, and refuse cash payments of any kind for any reason.

[phoenixandy]

Anyone who makes excuses for news outlets when they do unethical things (like checkbook journalism) is an idiot and should not be allowed to dictate what direction journalism may take.

Although Katie Couric really laid an egg by making Paris Hilton's crying the top story on the evening newscast, I'm glad CBS News is the only outlet not interested in pursuing an interview with Paris Hilton. I don't give a *** what Paris Hilton has to say. I will not watch the Larry King CNN interview scheduled for Wednesday. I'll bet CNN has paid Paris a tidy sum for the interview and Larry King the dirty old man celebrity butt-kisser will do a positive interview with Paris and ask her easy but irrelevant questions and that the both will kiss each other when the interview is over.

If Larry King wasn't a TV interviewer, he would be a pedophile instead.

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[brianbwb-2009]

The mainstream news media pays in many ways, and has done so for a long time. They trumpet the inane and insane utterings of politicians, disguised and posited as truth, (WMDs, for one example, anti Islam stereotypes for another) no matter how ridiculous, and no matter what the consequence, in exchange for "access", thusly selling their credibility for names that will please the ad sponsors, who bribed the politicians to lie on their behalf.

[ronmwanga]

It would be stylistically honest, yes, but wouldn't the fact that the interviewee was paid influence the course of his/her answers? It is an interesting question, and Newsoftheworld does it, and other news outlets end up carrying some of their more outrageous stories. I am not a fan of paying directly for interviews, especially when it is to someone -- and who else would demand payment for an interview? -- who is more to be jeered than cheered (Paris). I'm not sure I'd want to pay someone like Abudinejad for an interview, to be honest. It taints the news division.