Monday, June 13, 2011

ABC and NBC Pay Newsmakers to Be Interviewed - NYTimes.com

Another good reason to not watch the TV “news”

The Poynter Institute, the journalism ethics group, said last week that the payments corrupted journalism. The group suggested that the trend could be reversed if networks would agree to pay license fees only to people not involved in the story, like eyewitnesses who happen to record a news event.

The practice of paying for interviews is common in Britain. In the United States, magazines like Us Weekly pay for wedding and baby photographs of celebrities and are often granted interviews at the same time, and tabloid shows like “TMZ” and “The Insider” pay for stories and interviews. But they are generally not held to the same standards as the network news divisions, all of which have ethics policies against paying for interviews.

ABC and NBC Pay Newsmakers to Be Interviewed - NYTimes.com

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