BlogHer - The Washington Post Nixes Pay-to-Play Salons with Lobbyists - Comments

Sad

Kim Pearson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:40:31 -0500

This whole episode seems like something made up by Stephen Colbert.

By the way, Weymouth issued a statement this afternoon saying that she had not seen the flyer and would not have approved it. But her explanation is a bit odd:

"We are always looking for new revenue streams," she said, "but we will pursue only avenues that uphold our high standards of journalism. We were planning to do a series of dinners and had requested newsroom participation but with parameters such that we did not in any way compromise our integrity. Sponsorship of events, like advertising in the newspaper, must be at arm's length and cannot imply control over the content or access to our journalists."

So it sounds as if they were planning to have the soirees and charge for them, but now they just won't involve reporters and editors?

Somewhere, Katherine Graham is screaming right now.

KimBlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Clever

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:51:23 -0500

That made me chuckle, but also kind of sad. :-)

If we want to keep up with the swift pace of news today, we'd better take more vitamins. LOL.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Either spelling

Maria Niles — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:10:23 -0500

Technically either spelling is correct, Nordette though some guidelines suggest flier for handouts and flyer for Radio Flyer wagons.

Also, amazingly, there is already a parody video up on YouTube.

BlogHer Contributing Editor
PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Yeah, a Post-mortem on this

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:50:09 -0500

Yeah, a Post-mortem on this one would be good and so apropos for bones, dinosaurs trying to figure out what the hell happend to us, and bone-headed ideas. :-) I smell desperation in the air. And this is the paper of Woodward & Bernstein. It's supposed to break political corruption scandals not pimp power.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Maybe old-school hard print

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:38:02 -0500

Maybe old-school hard print is a the new way today to hide your strange doings. :-)

Some of the jokes on Twitter about this are amusing.

I usually go with "flyer" for circulars but I keep seeing "flier," and so I've figured this is another word morph in our society.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411.

Talk About Bone Headed

Megan Smith — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:32:31 -0500

What a bone headed idea. I mean I know the news business, especially the print business is suffering, but come on...does credibility mean nothing anymore?

Maybe what WaPo should be doing is setting up some salons to figure out why this dumb idea got as far as it did.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute

I love that they used a flyer to advertise the program

Morra Aarons Mele — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:18:18 -0500

What's more old fashioned than a flyer?

Morra Aarons-Mele
www.womenandwork.org

The Washington Post Nixes Pay-to-Play Salons with Lobbyists

Nordette — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:53:17 -0500

Within an hour of its editorial staff posting its side of the story on an influence-peddling mini-scandal, the Washington Post has added an update saying its publisher, Katharine Weymouth, has canceled plans for "off-the record salons." Earlier this morning The Post responded to a story from Politico on a flier circulated Wednesday by the newspaper's business arm to lobbyists and association leaders that seems to announce a pay-to-play model for meetings with Obama administration officials, Capitol Hill legislators, and the paper's editorial gatekeepers.

According to Politico, a lobbyist from the healthcare industry gave a reporter the "astonishing flier" that markets "off-the-record, nonconfrontational access" for $25,000 to $250,000.

... 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." (Politico)

The website also quotes part of the flier:

"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." (source)

In its own story, WaPo said the newspaper's editorial staff would not participate in the July 21st salon hosted by Weymouth.

The Washington Post's executive editor said this morning that the newsroom will not participate in a plan by the paper's publisher to charge lobbyists as much as $250,000 for off-the-record gatherings with Obama administration officials, members of Congress and the paper's reporters and editors.

Marcus Brauchli knocked down the idea after fliers were circulated by the paper's parent company ... "We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning," Brauchli told the staff in an e-mail. "Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable. ... There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values." (WaPo)

The Post's article concluded with a brief discussion of the potential hypocrisy of such an editorial model, a paper that reports on the questionable ethics of influence peddling in the nation's capital while dabbling in such exchanges itself.

Political and media analysts suggest the flier indicates a move by The Post's business side to generate revenue and it's actions are another sign of how the newspaper industry is scrambling to remain financially viable. Indeed WaPo staff writer Howard Kurtz's final words on the first flier response story are "The Post Co. lost $19.5 million in the first quarter and just completed its fourth round of early-retirement buyouts in several years, prompting Weymouth to look for new sources of revenue."

BlogHer CE Kim Pearson has chronicled the changing face of news and its impact on newspapers, asking "What if We Lose the Boston Globe," and reporting on the Christian Science Monitor abandoning print, and Clay Shirky's "thinking the unthinkable" about the future of the news industry." In addition, in March the nation watched the end of another major newspaper hard copy editions, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

From The Post's update on the salon's cancellation:

"Absolutely, I'm disappointed," Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. "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."

Twitter has been flapping on this story all morning with tweets such as "WaPo cancels embarassing plans for paid-access "salons." How many other elite media outlets are selling access?" (RTM) and the hash tag #WapoDeals.

And finally, but probably not, this gem, a YouTube parody is already online.

Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE and the African-American Literature Examiner. Keep up with her writing at Her411.com