A lot of us were appalled by reports of ABC News paying for access to Casey Anthony and her family. ABC would follow that up by paying for an interview with kidnapping victim Jaycee Lee Dugard.
What is no less appalling, however, is the realization that there is a tradition for this sort of media manipulation.
A recent New York Times piece chronicled a brief history of this sordid practice. It included:
* Esquire magazine paying $20,000 in 1970 to Lt. William L. Calley Jr. of My Lai (Vietnam) massacre infamy.
* The Hearst Newspapers paying for a high-profile attorney for Bruno Hauptman, convicted in the 1935 Lindbergh kidnapping case. The arrangement bought them exclusive access.
* And to its credit, the NYT underscored its own role. In 1912 it paid the surviving operator of the Titanic’s wireless communications system $1,000 for his
harrowing accounting of escaping death.