(Tom) DeLay appearance cost Fox $14,000

[sabra]

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/01/27delayfox.html

DeLay appearance cost Fox $14,000
Chartered jet ferried just-indicted politician to Washington studio last fall.

Four days after U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay's stunning indictment last September in Travis County, the political talk show "Fox News Sunday" trumpeted an exclusive interview with the combative Texas Republican.

Unsaid, but revealed in documents DeLay later filed in the U.S. House, was that DeLay's Oct. 2 appearance cost Fox News $14,000.

...

Large travel payments, a legal gift under congressional rules, nonetheless raise ethical questions.

"There's an obvious potential for a conflict of interest here, and that is we might appear to the public to be paying for access," said Al Tompkins, a teacher at the Poynter Institute school for journalists and author of "Newsroom Ethics" for the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

The size of the Fox News payment, and the program's failure to disclose the $13,998.55 cost on the air, also troubled Tompkins.

[Ilsa]

1. They paid him to allow him to have face time on tv to make

his case? Geez-louise, why don't they just offer to pay all of his fines and send someone to prison for him?

[truthisfreedom]

2. i would happily have charged them less than $250. and i would have been

a hell of a lot funnier than any exterminator other than the late WS Burroughs.

[UpInArms]

3. wasn't Martha Stewart imprisoned for just saying she was not guilty?

and this POS was paid for his face-time to make his political statement about his guilt?

hmmmm....

[EST]

4. Kinda makes ya' feel "desperately powerless."

[progressivebydesign]

5. "desperately powerless". god.. that's depressing. and true. n/t

[KoKo]

6. More from the article about the Sunday Pudit shows paying, etc....

Amid mounting interest in when and why corporations pay for congressional travel, one small slice of Washington's ways has escaped notice — media companies themselves sometimes foot the bill.

The Sunday morning news shows routinely pay travel costs, from car fare to airfare, to get politicians into their studios, a review of congressional disclosure forms shows.

But chartering expensive jets to amuse a few million political junkies is rare.

NBC's "Meet the Press" occasionally digs deep, paying $9,550 in travel costs to interview Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., in 2000 and $9,000 to question Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., in person in 2001. "Face the Nation" and "This Week" also have chartered flights, spokeswomen said.

Large travel payments, a legal gift under congressional rules, nonetheless raise ethical questions.

"There's an obvious potential for a conflict of interest here, and that is we might appear to the public to be paying for access," said Al Tompkins, a teacher at the Poynter Institute school for journalists and author of "Newsroom Ethics" for the Radio-Television News Directors Association.

The size of the Fox News payment, and the program's failure to disclose the $13,998.55 cost on the air, also troubled Tompkins.

"I do not think that it would be an obvious violation of any code of ethics if they paid a usual or customary cost — for example, if they even paid a first-class airfare," he said.

Paul Schur, a Fox News spokesman, said it was important to have DeLay in the studio with Wallace.

"Because DeLay was an exclusive and a sole guest, conducting the interview via satellite would've undercut the quality of production," Schur said. "The other choice was to fly an entire crew to Sugar Land, and it would've cost double."

Schur recalled only one other chartered flight for a member of Congress — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., in 1996.