| Wed Dec 31, 7:27 PM ET
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - CBS television and representatives of Michael Jackson both denied on Wednesday that the network had paid the beleaguered pop star for his highly rated "60 Minutes" interview.
But media experts say Sunday's telecast of the interview and the near simultaneous resurrection of a Jackson music special that CBS previously shelved renewed questions about the ethical walls supposedly separating entertainment from news at major broadcast networks.
Months earlier, CBS President Leslie Moonves, who oversees both wings of the Viacom Inc.-owned network, admitted that CBS probably went too far when it used a possible TV movie deal in trying to coax an interview from former U.S. Army private Jessica Lynch about her capture in Iraq.
In the case of "60 Minutes," the coincidence of an exclusive Jackson interview with the CBS decision to revive a special program celebrating his career struck some as looking like a quid pro quo.
CBS and two of Jackson's closest representatives said the terms of his entertainment special, slated to air on Jan. 2, and his interview with "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley about the child molestation charges pending against him were negotiated separately.
"This was not a package deal," said CBS spokesman Chris Ender, responding to a New York Times report on Wednesday that the network landed the Bradley interview by agreeing to pay $1 million extra to license the music special. "These were two parallel projects. They were being developed and worked on independently."
The Times based its story on an anonymous source described as a disgruntled former business associate of Jackson.
But Jackson's current business advisor, former EMI Music executive Charles Koppelman, agreed with CBS, saying the deal he and the network originally negotiated for the music special six months ago remained essentially unchanged.
Jackson's defense lawyer, Mark Geragos, conceded the prospect of reviving Jackson's music special likely weighed in his decision to go on "60 Minutes."
"I think that's a fair statement," he said when asked whether Jackson did the interview in order to get the special back on CBS.
And CBS's Ender said the two projects became "linked" in the aftermath of the allegations against Jackson "when we told Mr. Jackson's representatives that we couldn't broadcast the entertainment special if he wasn't addressing the situation on a CBS News program."
The hourlong retrospective on Jackson's career originally had been scheduled for broadcast on Nov. 26 in conjunction with the release of his new greatest-hits album, "Number Ones."
But CBS pulled the program a week before its air date, as authorities issued an arrest warrant for Jackson, citing the gravity of the charges pending against the entertainer.
Critics said the Jackson interview marked the latest example of commingling journalism and entertainment in an era of growing media consolidation.
"It's in the basic business plan of television networks," said Orville Schell, dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. "It doesn't matter if there was a payment. What's worth noting is the credibility of the news industry suffers by appearance."
Television news analyst Andrew Tyndall said the burden was on CBS News to explain "precisely how they weren't paying for this interview using the conduit of CBS entertainment."
"For them just to say that the two things were unconnected isn't enough," he said, adding: "On the other hand, I saw the interview, and I thought Bradley did a good job. There was nothing prima facia when you actually looked at the interview where you'd have to say '60 Minutes' pulled its punches." (Additional reporting by Kenneth Li in New York) | |
