Following in the footsteps of Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves are selling the rights to the first publish photos of their yet-to-be-born child. They even got the kid an agent, and they have been offered more than a million dollars.

Why? All newborn babies look the same. Want photos of Matthew McConaughey’s baby? Do a Google image search for newborn babies. Pick one. The baby will look a little like that.

This can’t be cost effective for the magazines bidding millions for photos of a crinkly, pissed off, squished up baby. As TheBestWho reported in February, the selling of celebrity babies is big business.

Lopez got a reported $6 million for photos of her twins. That’s $3 million a kid.

Aguilera got $1.5 million from People magazine, which didn’t get the increase in sales they hoped. First reports showed a decrease in sales that month. Money well spent!

Usher refuses to sell the rights to his baby’s pictures. Stupid, Usher. This kid will need money for his college, his future, his rehab. No one’s career lasts forever.

What will McConaughey do with the money? Who knows. Perhaps he’ll help out Charlie Sheen by taking one month of the payments he makes to Denise Richards. That’s only $1.4 million.

Sheen pays $60,000 a month for child support. Just for a comparison, the median annual household income in the U.S. was $48,201 in 2006. In other words, Sheen’s two kids need more each month than you make in a year just to get by. Being a famous kid isn’t cheap.

Checkbook journalism is a poor way of doing business. You pay the reporter, not the source. We, as a nation, should refuse to buy any publication that pays sources for news or photos. We’ll all be richer in the long run, except for McConaughey.