People Love Barbara Walters -- And Her Big Bag Of Money

Barbara Walters was drolly ironic when she landed the big "get" interview with Steve Irwin's widow -- a story that every media outlet in the world wanted. I guess they'd heard of me, Walters joked with mock modesty when asked how she did it. Now we know the real truth: ABC also paid anywhere from $500,000 (the amount they admit to) up to $1 million for the right to use footage of Steve Irwin in their story. It's an old trick: no network would (gasp) ever pay an interview subject to land a scoop but they will of course offer six figure amounts for the right to use personal photographs and any other odds and ends that can cloak what they're really doing: checkbook journalism. Sad.