Could It Happen Here? p. 10

By: Dorothy Giobbe

LONDON'S COMPETING NEWSPAPERS are in an uproar about the cash-for-kids contract the News of the World brokered with a woman expecting octuplets.
In the United States, while the so-called "supermarket tabs" freely admit to paying for "news," the big-city, mainstream tabloids unequivocally repudiate the practice.
And an editor at one supermarket tab said he is "uncomfortable" with the contract the News of the World has with the pregnant woman.
"I'm flabbergasted at the implication that the Daily News would pay for anything," said Sandra Shea, assistant managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News. "Would we pay? Absolutely not."
Shea said that as daily newspapers discuss the various issues confronting the industry at the edge of the millennium, cash for news "isn't even on the table."
Robert Burdick, editor of the Rocky Mountain News, echoed Shea. "It would never happen here," he empathically stated, "and I'm always a little sensitive when people use the word 'tabloid.' We're the more responsible paper in town."
Drawing a distinction between American tabloids and their overseas counterparts, Boston Herald managing editor Andrew Gully said, "The British tabs are kind of wild and woolly ? I don't think anything like that could happen here, not in the near future anyway." However, Gully added, "That day may come. Who knows?"
The Star, a New York-based supermarket tab, ran a feature about the Allwood pregnancy in its Aug. 27 edition, based largely on the News of the World story.
But Star managing editor Phil Bunton said he isn't sure that the Star would ever try to negotiate a similar contract to this one.
"Theoretically, yes, I would," he said. "But in practice, I think the contract is dependant on her going to full term, which seems to put her at risk."
Bunton recalled that a few years ago the Star had an exclusive contract with an American woman expecting sextuplets, some of whom died shortly after birth.
He said the health risk aspect of Allwood's contract made him "uncomfortable," and, he added, "I'd wait until after the babies were born."