The deal behind CBS's Michael Jackson interview highlights how US broadcast journalism has been corrupted by the ratings wars, argues Tim Rutten
Michael Jackson is the biggest international star ever charged with a crime. CBS News and its flagship magazine show, 60 Minutes, were once the brightest lights in the firmament of US broadcast news.
Even if he is convicted of child molestation, Jackson will remain a celebrity of sorts. But by in effect paying him to sit for an interview on 60 Minutes last Sunday, CBS shredded whatever remained of its news division's ethical standards.
The reaction to all this says something instructive about the melancholy state of American broadcast journalism. While Jackson's televised defence of his predilection for sleeping with children caused huge controversy, CBS's shabby demise has passed without a whimper.
"It's the kind of thing that makes your stomach sink," says Jane Kirtley, professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. "CBS once was the gold standard among network news divisions and 60 Minutes was the gold standard among television news programmes. I am stunned that they've done this."
CBS, says Orville Schell, dean of the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, "has gone from one humiliating event to another in recent years. But it's particularly demeaning to compromise your integrity so fundamentally over something as worthless as Michael Jackson."
Like nearly every other broadcast entity in the whole wired world, CBS had sought a Jackson interview for most of the past year. The singer, in fact, stood up 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley last February after promising a chat. But unlike its competitors, CBS had an ace in the hole. When Jackson was arrested on seven counts of child molestation some weeks ago, the network had scheduled, and virtually completed, a musical special on which the singer performs songs from his new album. At the time, CBS said that, while it was "mindful that Mr Jackson is innocent until proven guilty", it was shelving the programme. The network said it would reconsider the broadcast "after the due process of the legal system had run its course".
The wheels of justice, however, do not grind at television's pace. Moreover, ratings are ratings and year-end profits are year-end profits. Last week, according to accounts by the New York Times, CBS chief executive Les Moonves began negotiating for an interview with Jackson's defence attorney, Mark Geragos, and a Jackson adviser named Louis Muhammad, who is a son-in-law of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam in the US. Jackson agreed to give Bradley the interview and, in return, Moonves said CBS would air Jackson's special in prime time and would pay him $5 million in connection with the production.
Bradley taped the interview with the singer in Los Angeles on Christmas Day, and it was aired last Sunday. Jackson's special was due to be broadcast last night. CBS, according to one of its executives, was delighted to have the opportunity to broadcast before the buzz generated by the interview abates.
Chequebook journalism is a pretty dirty term, but it somehow seems inadequate to describe the arrangement.
CBS, however, was unembarrassed. "We certainly would not have rescheduled the special if he had not addressed the charges against him on our air," said Chris Ender, a spokesman for CBS Entertainment.
Right. Who needs all that pokey old due-process stuff when you've had Ed Bradley look the defendant in the eye?
From CBS's perspective, this is both a win-win and a lose-lose situation, says Schell. "Bradley gets the Jackson interview and they score in a cryptic sort of way with this special. But, at the same time, they lose their credibility and their reputation as a news organisation by engaging in this sort of crass trade. What's fascinating is how much more vividly their executives can see the short-term win than they can the far more serious long-term loss."
Calls to CBS and 60 Minutes for comment on the payment issue were not returned at time of writing. But from the network's perspective, the winning numbers couldn't be clearer; with 18 million viewers last Sunday, 60 Minutes was the night's most-watched television programme, with an audience share 12 per cent larger than its weekly average. It was even No. 1 among the younger viewers advertisers most covet. If the musical special does similar business, it's an entertainment executive's notion of a double play.
- LA Times-Washington Post