'Checkbook Journalism' Rears Its Head Again

This article, from the LA Times, is about a practice most journalists refer to scornfully as "checkbook journalism" -- paying interview subjects for access to them. Generally it is considered highly unethical, and really a low-life practice on the part of journalists. How do you react? What is the right thing for a reporter or news source to do here, if you have a willing subject who agrees to be paid?

Media offering thousands of dollars for tidbits on 18-year-old kidnapping
By Los Angeles Times

ANTIOCH, CALIF. - At week's end, the street where Jaycee Dugard lived after she was allegedly kidnapped as a child 18 years ago by Phillip and Nancy Garrido was swarming with media. Satellite trucks parked in driveways. Cameramen and photographers tromped on lawns and knocked on doors.

Damon Robinson was in his back yard, talking with reporters across a chain-link fence, while another group lined up in the side yard, waiting to interview him.

Robinson eventually spoke with reporters from CNN, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times about the years he'd lived next door to the Garridos.

Suddenly, a British reporter pushed to the front. He told Robinson that his deadline was approaching. He offered $2,000 if Robinson would give him "an exclusive." Robinson complied.

In the days since, locals who knew the Garridos said that they have repeatedly been approached by reporters -- American and foreign, print and television -- who have offered thousands of dollars for information and photographs of the Garridos, Dugard, now 29, and the two daughters she bore Phillip Garrido, ages 15 and 11.

Manuel Garrido, who lives in nearby Brentwood, at first spoke freely with reporters about his son's past. But now he says he wants to be paid. "No more free information," said Garrido, 88. "Other people are getting paid."

The elder Garrido said he had received $2,000 from one news outlet for an interview. "From now on, it's going to be more than $2,000," he said. "You're making big stories, and you are getting paid for it. Here I am suffering, so I should get some money out of it."

Concord resident Mark Lister, who knew Phillip Garrido and had some of his promotional business materials, said he sold one of Garrido's business cards, featuring a photo of Dugard, for $10,000.