http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-news-merchant/8194/
The News Merchant
Interested in booking Joran van der Sloots ex-girlfriend for the morning news? Want an exclusive? Got a little cash to spend? Larry Garrisons the person to call, though most news networks wont admit they call him. The inside story of how tabloid TV news is made, bought, and paid forand its implications for the news industry and our society.
Its a very defined underworld of behavior that people really dont talk about, said the former booker. All the networks have policies not to pay. Indeed, most network news divisions are officially prohibited from paying sources for interviews, but they can get around that problem in any number of ways. In addition to paying a fee to a middleman, rather than to a subject, the network might conduct the interview in a lavish location, with all expenses paid and tickets to Broadway shows or Disney World thrown in. Or the network might pay for the use of a photo or video, with the interview coming along for free. Sometimes, a trashier evening tabloid show will license photos and get a coveted interview, and then both are recycled onto a more respectable morning or evening news program on the same network, which can broadcast them freely while leaving its own checkbook unsullied. In each instance, everyone knows whats happening except the viewers.
We dont pay for interviews, says ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider. If someone has photographs or video that we want to license, we will license it, and we will disclose on the air that we have licensed pictures or videotape. ABCs disclosure policy is a recent development, put in place after one of the most stomach-turning examples of network payments came to light: ABC News paid $200,000 to the family of Casey Anthony, who is on trial in Florida for murdering her 2-year-old daughter, to license videos and pictures in 2008. (Garrison was working with the Anthonys early in the case, but he did not broker that payment.) This March, it was revealed that the family used the money to help pay for Anthonys defense.