The Press: Junketing Journalists

The televised scene is both vivid and startling. Registering at a Manhattan hotel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV Critic Win Fanning is handed an envelope. He opens it and finds two $10 bills. The money—for "taxis and miscellaneous" —comes from CBS, which regularly flies TV reporters to New York to screen new network shows, paying their expenses and tossing in some mad money besides. Even more startling, the scene was broadcast this week by CBS on 60 Minutes, as part of a critical story about press junkets financed by corporations in hopes of favorable coverage.

Networks—not to mention other news...

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