While news organizations maintain that they do not pay for interviews, they routinely pay “licensing fees” for photos, videos or other materials. Often the people licensing the content will then give “exclusive” interviews to the news organization that bought them.

In the case of Friday’s “20/20″ special, ABC News licensed photos and text messages from Granadillo, and will feature them on-air. An ABC News spokesperson tells TVNewser it will disclose that it had licensed the material during the broadcast.

The exact amount of money that ABC News paid for the photos and texts is unclear.

In March, lawyers revealed that ABC News had paid the family of Caylee Anthony $200,000 for rights to use photos and home videos. While ABC News featured another interview with the Anthony family this week tied to the anniversary of Caylee’s disappearance, a network spokesperson tells us they did not license any new photos or video from the Anthonys this time.

In addition to licensing fees, news orgs will occasionally offer other perks, such as paying for hotel rooms or flights. We don’t know if Granadillo was extended those perks as well.

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She gives some more details about the behind-the-scenes of the interview, saying she conducted the interview after not sleeping for 36 hours. She also gives her take on the two possible explanations for why, after the interview, van der Sloot called and said he made the whole story up.

Meanwhile, as just about every media company is going through a series of cuts, Van Susteren has made an announcement on her blog. “Fox News Channel is NOT laying people off,” she writes this afternoon.

Click continued to see Van Susteren’s “The View” appearance…

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During Monday’s On the Record, van der Sloot had a new story about what happened to Natalee Holloway: he sold her to human traffickers and even produced a recording of phone conversations backing up the claim. Van Susteren went on to report that eight hours after the interview, which actually took place in July, van der Sloot called her and told her it was all a lie.

“You paid him for a tape that he made and wound up getting an hour interview with him,” said Tacopina. “Great TV, great ratings…If you offered Joran $10,000 tomorrow and asked him to tell you a fifth story, he’ll do it. Clearly, he’s a sick kid.”

Van Susteren said the network did pay a licensing fee for the tape, and said the reason they waited more than four months to air the interview was they were corroborating some of the names mentioned, and, “Then we went into, what you may have noticed was a presidential election, so we’ve been busy doing that.”

During TVNewser’s live chat with Van Susteren at the DNC in August, she said, “I have something coming up on Natalee Holloway and don’t ask me anymore since I won’t tell you.”

The van der Sloot interview has gotten a lot of reaction on Gretawire, from commenters and the host herself.

Click continued to see the interview…

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Beginning Monday morning on Fox & Friends and during various other FNC programs, and on HLN’s Nancy Grace and Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, Natalee Holloway returned to the cable news rotation. (CNN and MSNBC have yet to touch the subject, according to TV Eyes, but it’s only Wednesday).

This time the story is less about Holloway and more about Joran van der Sloot, and his connections to a sex worker ring in Thailand. Grace even has the exclusive sting operation video.

For those who didn’t watch cable TV at all in 2005, here’s the backstory.

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