'Ethical boundaries': CNN reporter details refusal to pay $250k for Melania Trump interview
In contrast to Vice President Kamala Harris' husband Doug Emhoff, former First Lady Melania Trump has kept a relatively low profile during the United States' 2024 presidential race.
CNN, according to journalists Hadas Gold and Pamela Brown, has spent months trying to get an interview with her. And in an article published by CNN on October 3, they report that Melania Trump's book publisher, Skyhorse Publishing, sent CNN "an unusual demand last week" — a request for $250,000.
Skyhorse, according to Gold and Brown, sent CNN a document labeled "Confidentiality and Nondisclosure Agreement"; the publisher "laid out strict terms for an interview" and said that "CNN shall pay a licensing fee of two hundred fifty thousand dollars ($250,000)."
"CNN did not sign the agreement," Gold and Brown report. "Days later, after a separate CNN journalist asked Skyhorse Publishing about the exorbitant interview fee, the publisher said it had sent the payment demand by mistake."
Interviewed by Brown on CNN on October 3, Gold emphasized that the type of payment request that came from Skyhorse is one that most major news organizations — including CNN — would never agree to when it involves a political figure like Melania Trump.
Gold explained, "Yeah, it's pretty simple: most legitimate news organizations would never pay a public figure, especially the spouse of the Republican candidate for president, for an interview. Full stop. They just would not do that. Most news organizations have rules against any sort of payment to political organizations or to a candidate, so they would never pay for an interview with the spouse of the Republican candidate for president. And CNN has not and will not pay for such an interview."
Gold elaborated, "Now, in the past, media organizations have paid, especially when it comes to licensing photos or trying to get interviews with people who are involved in things like scandals or murders or the like. But paying for something related to politics, that in particular crosses essentially all of the media ethical boundaries."
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Gold went on to address Skyhorse's claim that the request for $250,000 was a "miscommunication."
"Let's be clear: the publisher now says after we reached out to them, that this was a miscommunication," Gold noted. "But it's very clear in the conversations with CNN and in the contract that we've seen, that they knew who they were dealing with, because the contract very clearly lays out that it's CNN that the contract is with, and that it is for an interview. And I would like to stress there were several backs-and-forths between the publisher's team and CNN before this contract was even sent."
Gold added, "So, I will say that in their statement, the publisher says that neither Melania nor anyone from her team knew anything about the NDA, and the document that was sent reflected an internal miscommunication. This is coming from the president and publisher of Skyhorse."
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