Amid an outcry from its own newsroom, The Washington Post on Thursday canceled plans to host events offering lobbyists access to US government officials, members of Congress and Post reporters.
The "policy dinners" were to have been held at the home of Post publisher Katharine Weymouth with participants paying 25,000 dollars to sponsor a single salon or 250,000 dollars to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions.
But Weymouth canceled the dinners Thursday after a news website, Politico, obtained a marketing flier for the events and published a story about them.
Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli told the newspaper he was "appalled" by the plan and had insisted before the cancellation that the newsroom would not participate.
"It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase," Brauchli said. "We do not offer access to the newsroom for money. We just are not in that business."
"Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable," he added in a memo to Post staffers.
Weymouth told the newspaper she was "disappointed."
"The fliers got out and weren't vetted," she said. "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."
The Post said the fliers offered an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth."
A flier for a July 21 session said it would involve "health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post."
The Post said the fliers appear to have been the product of "overzealous marketing executives."
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.
