Payments of more than $200,000 to sources surrounding the Casey Anthony trial have renewed talk about the ethics and efficacy of news outlets trading cash for information.
In a recent statement, the Society of Professional journalists singled out ABC News for paying Casey Anthony’s family and Ray Kronk, the man who found her daughter Caylee’s body, a total of at least $215,000 for photographs. Kevin Smith, SPJ’s Ethics Committee Chair stated his concern that paying sources was becoming a “habit” for mainstream media outlets, which “calls into question the motives of the source and the news outlets.”