The Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics committee has once again condemned the growing trend of “checkbook journalism” at the broadcast networks.
As we reported last week, during a pretrial hearing in the Casey Anthony case, it was revealed that ABC News paid Anthony’s family $200,000, which went to her legal defense.
ABC News has furthered explained their position in the matter, telling the SPJ, “We should have disclosed it to our audience.” The network has also made it a policy to disclose payments such as this as part of its reporting.
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The issue came up on “The O’Reilly Factor” the other night as O’Reilly talked with Bernard Goldberg. (About 4 minutes in to the clip below:)