Watching the ethical standards of the major network news department crumble away is like watching a sand castle on the beach disintegrate with each new wave. There really is no resistance, or hope. It is just a matter of time.
Thus the announcement that ABC News paid $200,000 to Casey Anthony, the Florida woman who is accused of killing her two-year-old daughter, Caylee, comes as not so much of a surprise as just a further peak at the inevitable. Critics are pointing with outrage to the fact that ABC announced that it is cutting hundreds of jobs, as if this is somehow hypocritical. In truth, they are two sides of the same coin. Journalistic ethics have always been the most fragile of professional ethics systems, more dependent on success than principle. When there was limited competition, the networks could burnish their images by conforming to ethical standards and making sure everyone knew it. Now, however, web-based news, blogs and cable news networks are carving up their pie. Most of the consumers of news don’t care about ethics, and the National Enquirer, which has always practiced checkbook journalism, is up for a Pulitzer.
When the going gets tough, the unethical get cheating. Big TV news was only ethical until the going got tough. Ask Dan Rather.
ABC’s check was written to Anthony, right before she was indicted for murder by a grand jury, in August of 2008 to give the network exclusive rights to reproduce family photographs and videos of Caylee. ABC showed its quarry on “Good Morning America” on Sept. 5, 2008, and later that evening in a full feature about the case on ABC’s newsmagazine “20/20”. It didn’t inform viewers about the payment, and presumably never would have revealed it at all, had a judge this week not forced the accused woman’s attorney to explain how she had managed to make bail but now couldn’t pay her legal bills. “Well, your honor, ABC News…” And that was that.
Minmal journalistic ethics would have required ABC to reveal the payment, because it potentially compromised its objectivity, and the public had a right to know. It also kept useful reporting information away from competitors. But the media really only cares about objectivity, integrity and what the public has a right to when it is profitable—-just watch CNN change its previous fawning coverage of the Obama Administration as the President’s approval ratings fall. “OOPS! Looks like it’s going to pay to be critical now! Send out a memo!”
The sand castle is coming down faster now. The amazing thing is that so few people recognized that it was sand.
Ethics Alarms 
Thanks for an outstanding article and helping to set the record straight.
Ms Anthony, not ABC, instructed her lawyers to go into the backroom and negotiate the sale of Caylee’s likeness and the video memorializing her last day on earth. ABC was putting together a story with words and pictures. ABC paid the licensing fees for the video and pictures and from all accounts this is not illegal or unethical. This is what they do.
What I think bothers me the most about this ethical and legal negotiation is the total absence of a moral compass. We know Ms Anthony’s simply goes round and round and it’s pretty clear she is lost-she cannot extracate herself from the metaphorical swamp her brain sits in. Can her parents?
They went on these programs and defended their daughter and while they spoke, images of the victim were prominantly displayed and we heard “You Are My Sunshine” over and over again. They joined Casey but not ABC in perpetrating lies. They had an outlet for their frustration and an opportunity to deflect the blame and punishment onto someone else. George and Cindy could have put a stop to it all. They could have said, ‘No more Casey’.
At the end of the day Caylees little arms and legs and almost all of her teeth were lifted out of that swamp. She paid with her life and she likeness.
It is certainly not illegal, but it is unethical because ABC is putting money into the hands of someone it is reporting about. That creates an appearance of impropriety and a possible conflict of interest, and at very least, ABC had a duty to disclose it. They didn’t, and I think they didn’t because they knew it looked bad. Now it looks worse, because they didn’t disclose it.
Great post
Thank you. But what can we do about this? Baez was clearly ashamed to admit where the money came from, but he still managed to tap dance around until he mumbled out an answer.
I’m not sure he had anything to be ashamed of, except that I’m betting ABC made confidentiality a condition of the sale. It is hard to get the media to be honest about media ethics, and without well-publicized self-scrutiny and policing, there isn’t very much we can do except to make ethical practice a criterion for watching at all. Even then, we are talking about a small sub-set who really care. I don’t have a good answer for you, but I’m looking for one…
Boston you wrote,
Ms Anthony, not ABC, instructed her lawyers to go into the backroom and negotiate the sale of Caylee’s likeness and the video memorializing her last day on earth.
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She did? O be to differ and doubt that seriously. Baez all the way!
John-I agree “it looks bad” but it was not unethical at the time. Ms Anthony was not charged with Felony Murder but everyone who negotiated these monies knew intuitively, and by way of all the circumstantial evidence, that Ms Anthony’s initial police report relative to her “missing” child was a fabrication. Did anyone know with a fair degree of certainty that she acted alone and with malice aforethought kill her child? No.
He had every legal and eithical responsibility to tell his client that if she asked him to negotiate the sale of the victims’ pictures and videos, she should do so only if she had no involvement in the disappearance. If she was ever to face a felony murder charge and convicted the penalty phase may be void of mercy. He never did that.
This case was always about the right to life. When you take away life the state has the ability to make you pay with your own. Mr Baez never had the seriousness of purpose or the emotional maturity to reason out why selling the victims pictures and videos would come back to haunt him and more than likely turn jurors against his client.
At the end of the day ABC was only looking for a story and Caylee was looking forward to reading one.
You’ll have to explain to me how Baez figures into any ethical judgment regarding ABC’s decision to break with the ethics condemning checkbook journalism. I don’t feel he was unethical at all; he was acting under the directions of his client. Who knows how he counseled her? Sure, ABC was looking for a story…and paying to get it, which taints the reporting, or at least its credibility.
This isn’t about Mr Baez being unethical in his dealings with ABC. I state above, “it looks bad but it is not unethical”. I am not even remotely interested in “checkbook jounalism’ but clearly state that ABC and countless other media outlets buy pictures and videos to accompany a story. They know a good story when they see one and paid the licensing fees. They knew this story was not going to end soon and more than likely would result in either finding the child or charging someone with murder.
Mr Baez needed to THINK about the ETHICS of how HE would structure his retainer and fees for services. All Ms Anthony could offer for payment were the funds she would receive from the sale of videos and pictures of her missing child.
Do you think Mr Baez had the responsibility to tell his client that if she was involved in the disappearance or murder of her child, that it would be best not to sell the pictures and to find another way to pay him? If she could not pay him there was always the public defenders office.
At the end of the day what’s more important-defending, with all your heart and soul, your clients right to a fair trial before an impartial jury OR
jeopardizing her appeals for mercy once she is convicted?