Lets Make a Deal Paying for Stories

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Lets Make a Deal ! ----Paying for Stories

• Lisa Shi

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What is Checkbook Journalism?

• It is journalism that involves the payment of
  money to an informant for the right to publish or
  broadcast a news story.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it! (STAR)

• Payment for interviews is wide-spread among the
  tabloids and talk shows
• (1) STAR magazine offer cash to sources to get
  the stories and photos they run and pay
  handsomely. Of the Star's 25 to 30 news stories
  in each issue, an average 50 percent are paid
  for.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it! (STAR)

• Phil Bunton, Editor in Chief of STAR, said
• "We're celebrity journalists. We're not out to
  educate our readers, simply to entertain them.
  But in providing entertainment, we often have to
  go through the same process of checks and
  balances as the mainstream press."

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• (2) National Enquirer (supermarket best-seller in
  US)
• In the Simpson case paid the witness who sold
  a knife to O.J. 12,500, and his wifes maid
  18,000. for her description of O.J.s abuse of
  his wife.
• Result The New York Times said that they were
  impressively accurate on the O.J.Simpson story.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• David Perel (editor in charge of the papers
  O.J.coverage) said
• Money is a very powerful tool that we use to
  get to the truth. Learning how to price a story
  is part of ones journalistic repertoire. You get
  a sense of what a story is worth when youve been
  here awhile.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• Mike Walker (Enquirers longtime gossip
  columnist) said
• When I get a call, once I decide they really
  have something, I ask, Why are you telling me
  this story? When they say money, I get a little
  warm glow. Greed is a very pervasive and very
  understandable part of human nature. It is much
  easier to deal with a greedy person than someone
  who is motivated by hate or revenge.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• Iain Calder (former Editor-in-Chief and President
  of National Enquirer) said
• We are happy to pay sources. In one way or
  other, all news organization pay sources. They
  dont necessarily give them checks, but if you go
  on The Today Show and youre selling a book, the
  plug yourre getting for that is worth a heck of
  a lot more than a hundred or two hundred or a
  thousand bucks from The National Enquirer.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• Iain Calder
• What were paying for isnt so much the news,
  its the exclusivity. For instance, if you come
  up with an exclusive story and give it to me, it
  takes a week to get it into the paper, get it
  printed, and sent out all over the country. If I
  dont pay you and four days later you go tell The
  Washington Post when I am on press, suddenly my
  news has gone blue cold. So instead I say, Ill
  give you a thousand dollars to keep quiet for
  another week, so that I can be first on the
  stands with it. I dont see anything wrong with
  that.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• Iain Calder
• So, we will buy exclusivity and so will 60
  Minutes. The networks make these things quid pro
  quo type things, where they say, If you come on
  our show, we guarantee that we will plug your
  book. So whether the payment is in cash or in
  kind, it isnt that unusual in journalism.

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Its a reality, you have to deal with it!
(National Enquirer)

• Iain Calder
• Its the final result thats important.
  Youre getting the correct story or not. Whether
  you pay of whether you dont pay, its your job
  as a journalist to make sure that the story is as
  accurate as you possibly can make it.

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How about the mainstream? (NYT)

• New York Times
• Seymour Hersh( investigative reporter of
  NYT), says We never did it at New York Times,
  we used to fly people in and put them at a good
  hotel and feed them, give them a free phone and
  all that. But just paying someone for information
  is a rational no-no.

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How about the mainstream? (NYT)

• John Tierney (a New York Times reporter) wrote
  in Times magazine
• I dont believe that paying sources is
  unethical, as long as its disclosed to the
  reader in some cases I think it makes for better
  journalism. It gives a fair share of the profits
  to sources who spend time and take risks. It
  might promote some fictional tales, but is would
  also elicit stories that otherwise wouldnt be
  told, from the many people who now see no good
  reason to talk to a reporter.

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How about the mainstream? (60 Minutes)

• (2) 60 Minutes
• It paid Nixon aide H.R.Haldeman 25,000 and
  Watergate burglar G.Gordon Liddy 15,000 for
  interviews.

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How about the mainstream? (CNN)

• (3)CNN
• Aug,2002 CNNs al-Qaida video didnt come
  for free. A CNN spokesman said the Atlanta-based
  network paid in the low five figures for the
  tapes.

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How about the mainstream? (SUN)

• (4) Sun (U.K.)
• March 11, 2003, The editor of The Sun told a
  parliamentary committee the newspaper had paid
  police officers for providing reporters with
  information. We have paid the police for
  information in the past.

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How about the mainstream? (networks)

• A media lawer, Paul Erickson, told The Washington
  Post about other ways network shows were skirting
  the rules paying for weekends in New York,
  first-class air travel, a new coat. They give you
  500 a day for food and they dont care what you
  do with the money.

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Tabloids vs Mainstream Media

• Is there a difference between paying a source in
  cash for a story and buying that source dinner /
  hotel / air flight / presents?

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• The media competition is so fierce, how can
  enterprising reporters who dont pay for news
  compete against those who do?

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Media make money from providing information, it
  is simply a commodity, why shouldnt we pay for
  it?

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• While reporters are push to cover stories in
  parts of world where access is limited, why
  should we pay in order to access the useful
  information?

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Sometimes an offer of money for information will
  make some people more likely to lie or at least
  embroider. But it also will make some people
  speak the truth who wouldnt otherwise speak at
  all.

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• When confronted with a person who will not come
  forward for free with a story that seems truly
  important, why shouldnt payment be an option?

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These people (editor/writer/professor) said

• Gregg Easterbrook (Newsweek contributing editor)
  says
• I dont see why professional reporters
  should be the only ones to profit from producing
  news. We in the press seem to think people should
  surrender their privacy and submit to our
  embarrassing questions so that we can make money
  of it.

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• Joseph Angotti (former senior vice president at
  NBC News,professor of Northwestern Universitys
  Medill School of Journalism) said
• Its a potential way to find out information
  that otherwise would not be available if more
  traditional journalistic methods had been used.

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Louise Mengelkoch (who teaches journalism at
  Bemidji State University ) said
• But for the powerless in our culture who
  knowingly open themselves up to very personal
  stories that should be told -- that have a real
  message for the public -- it seems only fair that
  they should be compensated for their willingness
  to go public.

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Peter Prichard (former USA Today Editor-in-Chief,
  now president of the Freedom Forum) said
• I dont think there is anything generically
  wrong with paying for materials that are
  newsworthy.

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Michael Massing ( formerly executive editor of
  Columbia Journalism Review, the author of The
  Fix,the book is about U.S. drug policy) said that
  some of the information was acquired by paying
  sources.
• He argued that it would have been unethical for
  him not to pay his sources

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Why shouldnt paying for a story be an option?

• Journalism is an inherently exploitative
  enterprise, with reporters sucking information
  out of people without providing much in return.
  Such a relationship becomes particularly
  uncomfortable when ones sources have few assets
  aside from the facts of their lives. As long as I
  felt my subjects were not embellishing their
  stories in order to enhance their value, I did
  not mind helping out in small ways.

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Cash for trash? Sometimes Not

• The stigma for paying sources should attach not
  to paying, but to failing to follow up.

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Cash for trash? Sometimes Not

• The key thing here is that, writing the check is
  not the end of the matter. It must be followed by
  the real work of checking out the information
  obtained.

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Cash for trash? Sometimes Not

• You may take two steps paying a little up front
  and promising more if the sources story checks
  out.