I do not have the capacity to judge Jasper Schuringa’s alleged heroism in the way Stacey Woelfel does. I also do not necessarily believe that “if someone has an honest story to tell, they’ll do it for free,” thereby indirectly attacking Schuringa’s credibility. However, I agree with what Woelfel calls “checkbook journalism” and his description of it. It is not merely a news organization like CNN paying for exclusivity, it is the method in which they choose to do it that makes the practice seem underhanded.
Terms like licensing, picture exclusives, and video rights are ways for these organizations to have their cake and eat it while maintaining plausible deniability. CNN would never pay for a news story since it is a respectable news group, but it would pay thousands of dollars for access to pictures and videos. Same difference? What is more telling about our present state of affairs is how low these organizations seem to be willing to go to get access to a story that is not really “news” in the traditional sense. At least I can accept that Schuringa’s account is important because he played a role in what could have been a major terrorist attack.* On the other hand, when there are rumors that NBC gave $300,000+ to Octomom for an interview and confirmation that ABC did pay a substantial fee for “rights” to an exclusive interview with Octograndma (money given to Radar Online, a gossip website), then checkbook journalism should be seen as a symptom of a larger problem in media today.
* I found it odd that right after a later rebroadcast of the interview the anchors warned that CNN could not “independently verify Mr. Schuringa’s account” at the time. The fact that they are willing to jump the gun to get first dibs on Schuringa’s account is probably a bigger problem than checkbook journalism in this case.
