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1/30/06 Fox News in the News Again, After Revelation that Network Paid $14,000 to Bring DeLay In Studio for Live Interview—Is This Ethical?Four days after Tom DeLay's stunning indictment last September, the political talk show "Fox News Sunday" trumpeted an exclusive interview with the combative Texas Republican, reports the Austin American-Statesman. 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. 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, reports the American-Statesman’s Chuck Lindell. "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. "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." A DeLay spokeswoman said the arrangement let DeLay make the interview and keep commitments in his district. "His tight schedule deemed these private travel arrangements necessary," Shannon Flaherty said. Officials with the Sunday morning news shows, which often compete for the same faces each week, would not discuss whether charter flights are offered as an inducement for guests, saying only they are an expensive option of last resort. But footing these kinds of bills can damage a shows' credibility, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "I also would feel confident saying that Mr. DeLay or any other member (of Congress) is surely more likely to grant an interview from somebody who is going to send a corporate jet than somebody who says, 'Get on a plane,' " Sloan said.
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