Business Side of WAPO Offers to Rent its Reporters to Health-Care Lobbyists --NewsRoom Quickly Withdraws Offer
Politco.Com’s Mike Allen broke the story yesterday: “For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists . . . off-the-record, non-confrontational access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24441.html
“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."
The event was billed as a “Washington Post Salon,” an intimate" off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.”
Before the news cycle ended yesterday, the planned series of dinners had been cancelled. Today, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz quoted Weymouth “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."