Checkbook Journalism

ABC News is different from the National Enquirer how, exactly?

This is the latest revelation that ABC News has paid licensing fees for access to interviews, including $200,000 to Casey Anthony while she was under investigation but before she was charged with killing her daughter.

The $215,000 paid in licensing fees to Anthony and Kronk are all that was paid by the network related to that story, according to Jeffrey Schneider, senior vice president of ABC News.

I'm old enough to remember when this was supposedly the big difference between tabloids and 'real' news organizations.

Now?

Schneider points out that “the license fees are a miniscule part of a hundreds of millions of dollars news budget, and to describe our work in terms of those licenses is to miss the entire forest for a tree…"

I can gladly report I had no idea who Casey Anthony was when I chanced across this article. Hooray, Roku!