Writer Says Ex-Chief of HealthSouth Paid for Positive Coverage

Here's a fascinating glimpse into the underside of using communications during litigation. This appears to me to be the equiavalent of "walking around money" during a political campaign.

Can it be long before this sort of technique catches on -- manufacturing "grassroots" interest in a litigant the same way you would a political candidate or issue?
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the defense of the fired CEO.

Audry Lewis, the author of those stories in The Birmingham Times, the city's oldest black-owned paper, now says she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication.

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