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WashPost Peddling Access to Health Care Reporters?
According to a flier obtained by Politico from a health care lobbyist, the Washington Post is selling access to its top employees. Literally.
"Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate," says the one-page flier. "Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth ... Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders ...
"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No. The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it. What is guaranteed is a collegial evening, with Obama Administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds typically on the guest list of 20 or less. ...
"Offered at $25,000 per sponsor, per Salon. Maximum of two sponsors per Salon. Underwriters' CEO or Executive Director participates in the discussion. Underwriters appreciatively acknowledged in printed invitations and at the dinner. Annual series sponsorship of 11 Salons offered at $250,000 ... Hosts and Discussion Leaders ... Health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post ... An exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done. ... A Washington Post Salon ... July 21, 2009 6:30 p.m."
This is actually shocking, from a Journalism Ethics point of view (the paper is offering you the chance to pay money to "alter the debate" on health care at an "off-the-record dinner" with its own "health-care reporting and editorial staff members," and I just don't see any way to pretty up that concept). I'll be curious to see whether the story is confirmed.
Link via Drudge.
UPDATE: Confirmed, and cancelled.
Xeones|7.2.09 @ 9:09AM|#
If this is true, then dinosaur media can't die off fast enough. Yo, fuck the Washington Post.
|7.2.09 @ 9:13AM|#
So, it's 25k to get into this discussion? If you all pool your resources and get me in there, I'll go, I'll alter the debate, and then I'll take on Chuck Schumer for his senate seat next year.
|7.2.09 @ 9:26AM|#
This is actually shocking, from a Journalism Ethics point of
view
It is. But not in the way you think. Journalism has never been an
ethical profession. What's shocking is that they seem to be
publicly acknowledging themselves as the whores that they are.
|7.2.09 @ 9:32AM|#
NPR this morning had a piece about former investigative print journalists who decided to go into "other areas of public service" in reaction to the industry's decline.
|7.2.09 @ 9:55AM|#
Hey Corporatist!
We are no longer willing to reprint your press releases out of
laziness to pad our advertisement pages. As ad revenue has
decreased we need to get more revenue from the so-called "News" we
print.
We are also willing to defame your enemies and certain other
'intimate' services for the rich and powerful.
Call us.
|7.2.09 @ 10:02AM|#
What's really interesting here is that this get-together only
works if the White House shows up. Essentially, what the White
House is doing is joint venturing with the WaPo. The WaPo gets
money, the White House gets, what, exactly? They don't need the
WaPo to arrange meetings with industry big shots - those guys are
begging, even paying, for access.
The only thing the WaPo has that the White House wants is favorable
reporting.
Think that won't effect what WaPo reports on, and how?
|7.2.09 @ 10:23AM|#
What's the difference between a newspaper and a talking head or a blogger? In theory--according to the journalists--it's the paper's attempt to be objective and to avoid conflicts of interest. Openly flouting that principle, in my mind, means that everything printed by the paper in connection with this administration is suspect. Given DC politics is what the Post does, they shouldn't complain when people stop buying the paper because what's left of its credibility was shoved under some couch in Katharine Weymouth's living room.
|7.2.09 @ 11:12AM|#
Walpo is committing suicide. R.C. is right in saying that the
Whitehouse is trading access for favorable coverage. But the only
reason that coverage means anything is WALPO's pretension at being
a neutral arbriter of truth. Without that, hiring the WALPO is no
different than hiring a PR firm.
By even making the offer WALPO is admitting that there is nothing
objective about its reporting. If WALPO is an objective abriter of
facts, how could meeting their reporters do any good? It only is
effective if WALPO has no pretense of being objective and will
slant the facts toward whichever side pays up or does the best song
and dance routine. At this point how are they anything but a paid
PR firm?
|7.2.09 @ 11:27AM|#
WaPo sounds like a derogatory term. Walpo is more accurate, merging the paper with the dog food. Or with Waldo, suggesting that, like Waldo, the paper's integrity is difficult to find.
Invisible Finger|7.2.09 @ 11:41AM|#
The WaPo gets money, the White House gets, what,
exactly?
The White House gets control of the content.
Spartacus|7.2.09 @ 11:41AM|#
I like cmace's idea. I'm in for ten bucks. But only if he will bring a video camera and post the responses to his questions on YouTube.
|7.2.09 @ 11:47AM|#
(way) off topic- but can it be argued that Katharine Graham was among the few adult women who actually looked good in seventies fashions?
|7.2.09 @ 11:47AM|#
It would have to be a hidden camera, since the discussions are
supposed to be "off-the-record". Ooh! Maybe they'll strip search
him!
I'm in for ten bucks, too :)
Spartacus|7.2.09 @ 11:52AM|#
Not etc.-
Having been a teenager in the seventies, I would submit that there
were lots of adult women who looked very good in seventies
fashions. Very very good.
|7.2.09 @ 11:53AM|#
Maybe they'll strip search him!
To their horror they realized that what they thought was a fetid
coverall was not clothing at all.
|7.2.09 @ 11:59AM|#
what they thought was a fetid coverall
I knew it was tanned human flesh, but I had assumed it was at least
someone else's tanned human flesh.
Warty|7.2.09 @ 12:06PM|#
I thought it was his natural pelt, matted by years of sleeping in his own ordure.
Zeb|7.2.09 @ 12:07PM|#
If they had any balls they would take the money, then run a big story about how the Whitehouse is trying to buy favorable coverage.
|7.2.09 @ 12:33PM|#
An evening with the right people can alter the
debate
True. If they came to *my* house, they might actually learn
something.
|7.2.09 @ 12:44PM|#
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html
If we had a state run media like civilized countries do, such as
the BBC, then these poor MSM organizations wouldn't be FORCED to
sell access by the free market and would have the freedom to be
ethical.
Joe, how did I do?
alan|7.2.09 @ 1:36PM|#
Having been a teenager in the seventies, I would submit that
there were lots of adult women who looked very good in seventies
fashions. Very very good.
The Persian girls that run the coffee shop I like to go to from
time to time when in town dress like they stepped out of a
seventies time machine, and if you ask me they look really hot. You
can never go wrong with silk paisley prints if you got the bod for
it.
Other Matt|7.2.09 @ 2:23PM|#
means that everything printed by the paper in connection
with this administration is suspect.
This is some new leap of logic for you? It's been suspect for a
while.
tekende|7.2.09 @ 2:24PM|#
Zeb | July 2, 2009, 12:07pm | #
If they had any balls they would take the money, then run a big
story about how the Whitehouse is trying to buy favorable
coverage.
Threadwinner!
|7.2.09 @ 2:57PM|#
Other Matt,
I wasn't referring so much to me as to the general public.
Zeb,
That's what I'd do. Honestly, the media spends so much time kissing
ass to preserve "access" that they are useless in covering anything
important.
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