Washington Post cancels ’salon’ after pay-for-access report
Published: July 2, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
(Update: White House spokesman mocks paper)
That didn’t take long.
“Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000,” Howard Kurtz reports for the Washington Post.
The salon was first revealed by former Washington Post reporter Mike Allen.
Allen’s Politico article received widespread exposure this morning since it was published, topping sites such as Huffington Post, Yahoo News, and Raw Story.
“The Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to ‘those powerful few’: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors,” Allen reported.
Allen adds,
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”
With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli both said they were not aware of the flier.
“Absolutely, I’m disappointed,” Weymouth told Kurtz. “This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren’t vetted. They didn’t represent at all what we were attempting to do. We’re not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom.”
More from Kurtz:
Moments earlier, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a separate interview that he was “appalled” by the plan, and he insisted before the cancellation that the newsroom would not participate.
“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli said. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”
The fliers, circulated by the paper’s parent company, offering an “intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.” The fliers, which said participants would be charged $25,000 to sponsor a single salon and $250,000 to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions, were reported this morning by Politico.
“We do not offer access to the newsroom for money,” Brauchli said. “We just are not in that business.” He told the staff in an e-mail that the newsroom would have no part of this plan, writing: “Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable.”
Media Bistro has a copy of Brauchli’s statement at their website.
NPR’s Mark Memmott observes, “So, it would appear the Post’s journalists, at least, are in line with the majority of Two-Way voters.”
AFP notes:
Like other newspapers, the Post has been looking for new sources of revenue as it grapples with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.
The Post lost 19.5 million dollars in the first quarter of the year.
White House spokesman mocks paper
At Thursday’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs took a jab at the Washington Post regarding the controversy over their now-canceled salon.
Gibbs joked that the White House Counsel advised him to ask how much each question from the Washington Post will cost him. Then the press secretary mocked checking his shirt pockets before quipping, “I seem to have forgotten my AmEx.”
In response to a question from a New York Times reporter, Gibbs said that some might have been invited, but that, as far as he knew, no one at the White House had accepted any invitation to attend any of the paper’s salons.
This video is from C-SPAN, broadcast July 2, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
23 comments
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I personally do not believe their denials. They’ve fired one of the most popular’liberal’ staffers and have given space to neo con war criminals. Why shouldn’t one accept that they were selling access? Seems plausible to me.
Post thinks we should be forced to hear the conservative view. Someone tell them they need our readership, we dont need their views.. We hear conservative views all over the media ..Your causing your own demise..
“…Brauchli said. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning..”
I am very surprised to read that the WaPo engages in skepitical questioning. I must of missed that edition.
And Glibbs thinks this is funny. It’s amazing how the liars in the WH are so detached from the actual people they screw.
I want to know who are the “those powerful few”.
Can some reporters do a little MORE reporting and find out who these people are? I REFUSE to believe they weren’t aware.
Who needs this money so badly? Where was it going?
If there are any real reporters out there, this should not be the end of the story. But, maybe there aren’t any anymore.
Dear tropicgirl: People who have reading and comprehension problems SHOULD NOT comment.
Please READ the article, find someone to explain to you who was sponsoring the dinner, the try again.
Good luck.
WaPo’s 9/11 Propaganda:
A big hit with AIPAC & the FED ~
Un-fucking-believable.
And they wonder why more people are seeking their news online, than in-print.
Dammit Kathy, make your mind! I just left my bunny suit at the cleaners!
As if the Washington Post wasn’t already the establishments mouthpiece. As if the Washington Post actually published hard-hitting investigative journalism or valid criticism of the powers-that-be.
LOL! The Right-Wing establishment’s mouthpiece. It ranks right out there with the Washington Times for being an outright advocate of any and every Con talking point that Luntz puts together for them.
I see the only think that has changed in D.C. is the administration and method of graft. Can’t wait for managed healthcare.
Dear robertsgt40: Are you really tropicgirl posing as someone named robertsgt40?
Same suggestion: People who have reading and comprehension problems SHOULD NOT comment.
Please READ the article, find someone to explain to you who was sponsoring the dinner, the try again.
Good luck.
And to think, people wonder why they’re going broke and getting ass pwned right and left by a bunch of two bit bloggers…
the good name of The Washington Post.
Say what!? The WaPo hasn’t had a good name since Mrs. Graham died and it has been steadily going downhill ever since. When your top pundits are Krauthammer, Will, and Broder and you fire one of the few functioning columnists because you don’t like it when he calls it right and you screwed up big time, there is no way that you have a good name.
This is the paper that helped lead the charge into Iraq and has tried to get us into Iran. This is the paper that hides Bush administration misdeeds and gives the neocons full access to their op-ed page, but refuses to allow any rebuttals of their nincompoopery.
No, WaPo. Don’t try to deny what you’ve done. It is the exact same thing that your heroes did when they ran the K St. project, selling access, prostituting themselves.
This country is over. The system has already failed, it is just running around now like a chicken whose head was just cut off. Soon it will fall to the ground and twitch a few times before lying still dead in the dirt.
This country is over. The system has already failed. It is now just running around like a chicken whose head was just cut off. Soon it will fall to the ground and twitch a few times before lying still dead in the dirt of history.
Special thanks to the greedy motherfuckers on Wall Street, at the Fed, and in the US government who brought us this outcome. I would relish the opportunity to thank you properly.
It is laughable to see the WaPo tut-tut about being caught with its hand in the cookie jar of playing the game the Chicago Way. Pay to Play. Plain and simple. Obama, Burris, Blago, Daley, Jarret, Axelrove…all know the way of the “pay to play”. Politics, corruption, extortion, “Pay to Play”, quid pro quo…it is all the same thing. And the WaPo couldn’t see the elephant sitting in the middle of the room. And if they did they wouldn’t write about it. And they would fire the first columnist who mentioned it.
Someone else with reading and compresion problems.
What has happened to our educational system?
Really sad.
You betcha! Home schoolin’ and vouchers are the way to go!
I guess the WaPo masthead decided to put the invitation in writing this time. Oopsy. After all these years of whoring for the plutocrats, it seems the WaPo’s getting jaded and sloppy.
Wonder how many of them still have direct ties to the CIA’s “Mighty Wurlitzer.”
My parrot who uses the “post” for lining in his cage is now trying to charge me for listening to his readings of this fish wrap.
If Wa-Po is having some serious cash issues, I can provide a list of Op-Ed / Columnists they can kick of the payroll. Krauthammer, Kristol, and Will are at the top of the list, closely followed by Parker, Kagan, and Broder. They list THIRTY “Opinion Writers”. Whittle that number by at least 60%!!!
Washington, D.C. is like Wall Street without the stock exchange. Everyone, and everything in it has a price.