It’s somewhat of a dirty little secret.
As the old media landscape continues to crumble, both new and old establishments have abandoned one of the basic tenets of journalism: Thou Shall Not Pay Thy Sources.
A Washington Post article by Paul Farhi calls out the recent violators:
- Gawker.com paid an anonymous author about $4,000 for his story on Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s alleged drunken Halloween night three years ago in which she may or may not have hooked up with a 25-year-old man. The article came complete with pictures of O’Donnell in a ladybug costume. After coming under fire for publishing the anonymous account, Gawker wrote an article defending its decision.
- Deadspin.com (also in the Gawker media family) paid an anonymous source about $12,000 for voicemails and photos alleging that Brett Favre sent racy voicemails and lewd photos to an attractive young female employee of the New York Jets two years ago. By the way, Deadspin also posted an article on August 4 outing Jenn Sterger as the recipient of Favre’s messages. She had approached Deadspin in February with the information, and the site became impatient with her hsitancy to go on the record. So Deadspin took her on the record against her will.
- Gizmodo.com (also in the Gawker family) paid an anonymous source $5,000 for prototype of the new iPhone model in April, months before its official release. The site’s initial story was that an Apple engineer left the prototype in a bar near the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.
Nick Denton, the founder and owner of New York-based Gawker Media, is upfront about his company’s willingness to pay for stories.
“I’m content for the old journalists not to pay for information. It keeps the price down. So I’m a big supporter of that journalistic commandment—as it applies to other organizations.”
It’s not just newer media startups that pay for stories, though. Television journalists have long devised ways to put money in their interview subjects’ pockets for exclusive sitdowns. ABC and NBC acknowledged they paid the families of three rescued Chilean miners in exchange for interviews. ABC paid Casey Anthony, a Florida woman accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter in 2008, $200,000 for the right to cover her story. ABC shelled out another $200,000 to the Michael Jackson’s father, Joe, for an interview and footage of the Jackson family. An ABC spokesman said the payment was just for the footage and not the interview. Regardless, the Jackson family, the same one that received payment, was the subject of the interview.
It doesn’t seem like a smart business model for media companies bleeding money to be paying out extra money while selling their integrity at the same time.