Caylee Anthony and the fee issue: ABC’s Chris Cuomo says, ‘There’s almost always a price tag attached’

Caylee Anthony and the fee issue: ABC’s Chris Cuomo says, ‘There’s almost always a price tag attached’

posted by halboedeker on June, 27 2010 3:10 PM

BC’s Chris Cuomo had an eye-opening interview this morning with CNN’s Howard Kurtz on “Reliable Sources.” Cuomo asked about paying sources, and the topic of Caylee Anthony came up.

Kurtz started by asking about ABC News’ paying Melody Granadillo, the former girlfriend of Joran van der Sloot, for text messages and photos.

“I would like it if there were an agreement among all major media outlets, CNN included, that there will be no licensing fees paid, we will not do it,” Cuomo said.

Kurtz explained that networks pay “tens of thousands” to sources in these deals. Then he added, “ABC paid $200,000 to the family of Caylee Anthony in that toddler’s disappearance and murder. And it just seems to me that everybody talks a good game about, ‘Well, we don’t pay for interviews,’ but they find ways around it. I sense that you’re not that comfortable with it.”

Yet Cuomo made no apologies. “The business is what it is,” he said. “And to be competitive today, when something happens to someone who is considered a guest, there’s almost always a price tag attached.”

So how does that make you feel?

Cuomo said that if ABC had not paid, Granadillo is likely to have made her way on television another way.

But Cuomo added, evidently in reference to the Caylee Anthony case: “Some of the instances that you point out have definitely led to a change at ABC News now. There is not the kind of pocketbook reporting that was going on before in terms of how to get these bookings. I can tell you that.”


http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/06/caylee-anthony-and-the-fee-issue-abcs-chris-cuomo-says-theres-almost-always-a-price-tag-attached.html