Washington Post Cancels Off The Record Salons Following Uproar Over Pay To Play Access

Update: The Washington Post has canceled its planned salon at Katharine Weymouth's home based on the uproar over the sale of access to government officials and members of the Washington Post staff. The publisher spoke to her own paper's Howard Kurtz:

"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."

Original Post: The Washington Post is responding swiftly to a Politico report that the paper is selling off the record access to administration officials and newspaper editors and reporters for $25,000 and up.

Politico reported Thursday morning on a flier being circulated offering an "underwriting opportunity" for "Washington Post salon," where, for $25,000 per sponsor, organizations and lobbyists can cozy up to administration officials:

"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 ...

Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli sent the following email to staffers at 10:33 AM Thursday distancing the newsroom from the event:

Colleagues,

A flyer was distributed this week offering an "underwriting opportunity" for a dinner on health-care reform, in which the news department had been asked to participate.

The language in the flyer and the description of the event preclude our participation.

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. 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.

The Washington Post made a similar statement to Politico, saying that the flier circulated was merely a draft and that, as presented, it would preclude participation from the Washington Post newsroom:

The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication. It went out before it was properly vetted, and this draft does not represent what the company's vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers.

As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this.

We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that The Post should be leading these conversations in Washington, big or small, while maintaining journalistic integrity. The newsroom will participate where appropriate.

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Comments

[jalowe1957]

Doesn't "pay for play" have the word "prostitution" written all over it?

To paraphrase Maureen Dowd, flesh peddling is flesh peddling, be it on K Street or in the WaPo's suites.

[doflywme]

pay for news.... not exactly a new idea. PR anyone ?

Why hate the Obama administration - they have a job to do and part of that job is to sell their idea for Health Care. It is OUR JOB to evaluate whatever "pitch" we are delivered and with some thoughtful reverence determine if it is worthy of our time and consideration OR if it should be rejected or invoke mad protest.

If you think the Washington Post is the first publication (of any caliber) to run a biased story - well you might want to come out from under your rock and join the real world - there is lots going on out here.

[StaggerLee]

Obama isn't "selling" anything. WaPo is selling access to it's journalist to industry types and saying they will hook them up with Obama officials. I would wait for the White House response (something I doubt WaPo did) before lumping them into this prostitution ring.

[GeorgeP922]

Yes, waiting for that press conference with baited breath.

The WaPo might be giving ammunition to the other side for decades, we need to cut them off quick.

With Milbank and Krauthammer on their payroll, they cannot be trusted.

[unfiltered]

we knew this was going on, but has it gotten so bad that they have to advertise pay-to-play?

[Samuel Perry]

Washington Post sold out? I think I'm sick to my stomach.

I mean, I know they've been slipping lately, and scrambling for stable ground in this new industry where print media is taking it on the chin. Questionable article? You expect to see this on the front page? Or you think the Times is gonna try and get a gotcha? Why? This is K street industry lobby candy, why would the conservatives over at the times have any issues with the way business is done?

Anything you see from this point on will be spin.

[JRsNana]

It's a bad headline. There are not nearly enough details. I think I'll withhold any judgement until some real facts come out. This story is weird.

[gypsy508]

The story is ridiculous. Newspapers separate business from editorial. Sometimes they cross for financial reasons but generally both divisions are ignorant about what is going on in the other.

[Samuel Perry]

Dirty business, dirty paper, right? To me it's as simple as that.

Or do you think that the business decisions and financial realities of a media establishment would have no effect on the output or process? none at all?

[temptxan]

Time for Nico Pitney to start live blogging the collapse of the once renown, WaPo. So who are the real dicks now?

[dems08]

This sounds like a karl rove planted story.

[mountainweb]

Get a grip people the paper admitted "The flier circulated this morning came out of a business division for conferences and events, and the newsroom was unaware of such communication." Scary that the business division of the paper would EVER float this kind of business. Not only is journalism dead they are doing their best to bury it deeper.... They are trying to sell their soul to their messiah...

[dems08]

HP loves nothing more than to get readers to react to some unsubstantiated crapola.

[Belisarius]

WTF? Is the Post that desperate for cash?

[rascalish]

Yup...

[6bd]

Doesn't sound like the whole story.

[apolloguide]

Just a silly hoax. Boys at play...

Happens all the time in their reporting of things that did not happen and in their "mistakes" and deliberate confusions of serious issues like the real meaning of single payer healthcare. They have a vested interest in lies being maintained in order to keep the bureaucrats in meat and confections. Look at Walter Pincus who strenuously lied to ruin Gary Webb and drive him to his death. Intelligence agents are everywhere now with PRISP now being fully funded and secular humanists being routed from the classroom.

When they are talking about access they are only referring to the conventional myth being sold to the jejunely credulous. We have to dissolve this government and make a new one.

[cavegal]

Dissolving this government although a great idea, will only happen if enough Americans are hungry enough to do something about it. I think we all feel too helpless to really care, and rather than fight we prefer to hide in our homes hoping that we are to be spared from the coming collapse.

I think there is a great fear out here among all of the middle class that is barely hanging on by their fingernails. We are all afraid our jobs are the next to go. Next we are going to see positions in the medical profession being outsourced to India. It has already started.

[apolloguide]

It is really humbling to contemplate how truly heroic serious political change is and how difficult to achieve and why it is often so agonizingly slow. I've waited for change in Israel for my entire life and nothing has changed for the better in 62 years.

[Bluesue]

I'm angry that the Obama administration would participate in this.

Interesting that it was a health care lobbyist that outed WaPo.

I wonder if other news organizations do this. I can understand a conference with a panel discussion of members from the health care industry, congress, the administration, and the public for example. But these "Salons" as they're calling them are just too intimate and sound too exclusive. It reminds me of backroom dealmaking.

[dems08]

why do you take this at face value?

[Bluesue]

What am I taking at face value? Evidently there is a plan to hold these Salons in an effort to make money because the WaPo management had to explain things to the newsroom staff. They didn't write a denial that there wasn't a plan to hold these.

[Bluesue]

Plus, have you been following WaPo's coverage of health reform? I have. It has been biased against reform and the public option even in the wording of the headlines.

[rascalish]

Read the article again.
This is in regards to the WaPo providing access via its resources. This doesnt involve the Obama admin enabling it.
Quite the contrary....this is a media outlet exploiting its access as a means to generate revenue. Quite the opposite of what a newspaper should be doing.

[GardenerNorCal]

There's a lot of private revenue going on lately. But no regulation or oversight. Business as usual.

Change and hope get less and less likely.

[Bluesue]

I didn't say they enabled it. According to the report participants would have access to members of the Obama administration at this Salon.

[1dogs2]

Where precisely does this piece say that "the Obama administration would participate in this"? Where does it say that the Obama administration even knew of the WaPo scheme?

[Bluesue]

Well, if you read the entire article and not just the snippet above, you would have read this:

Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama administration and congressional leaders."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html#ixzz0K7TuLCcd&D

[rascalish]

Exactly...

[tompoe]

The utter arrogance of the paper rivals anything the Bush administration concocted. The paper can respond until they're blue in the face. What's done is done. They can slather as much lipstick on this as they want. What needs to be done, is for the White House administration to publicly announce no officials will attend this outrage to the public.

[dems08]

why do you automatically believe this?