I can't say I have read every word the WaPo has spoken today - maybe others have. But I have yet to see a single admission that the entire **concept** was wrong, rather than just the "getting caught" part.

Has it been resolved yet whether Administration officials signed off to participate?

The word is out, WAPO reporters are going to get barraged with 'offers' and I doubt all will turn them down. Every article they print on health care is going to be suspect and not worth the paper it's printed on. Fliers, really, if I didn't know better I would say this has to be the work of the Turd Blossum.

This is exactly why the report of news should not be a for-profit business. The financial arm has very different motives then the journalism arm.

Sounds like this new guy in the WaPo "business operation" was hired straight from the McCain/Palin campaign. I hear Joe the Plastic Surgeon was going to be a featured speaker to give a "man in the golf course" perspective on healthcare reform.

I saw in the Politico article that the Post's healthcare reporter, Ceci Connelly admitted she was invited to the dinner, but she denied knowing about the "sponsorships". But what reporter with any ethics or smarts would even consider attending a private dinner party hosted by your boss for corporate lobbyists on your beat? That in and of itself is an idiotic act by a reporter.

Apparently, the employees of the Post are so debased, they don't even perceive how they appear to the rest of us.

I said it in the other thread and I'll repeat it here: Why is it that the phrases "Washington Post" and "journalistic ethics" so rarely appear in the same sentence without some form of the additional word "breach?"

It's not just a "public relations disaster," BTW. It's a sleazy move that they pulled back from when they got called on it.

nothing to see here folks, move along...
uh. please move along,
oh, gawd, please...
we're soooo sorry -- it was all a mistake...

oh, shit! oh, shit! oh, shit!

ah, well, at least i'll die having met my soul mate...

Ideas for the Washington Post To Bring In More Money:

1. Bill out the reporters and editors through their Kaplan division to do SAT Reading Exam tutoring.
2. A Spanish language version of the Post.
3. Return to the Post's Democratic liberal roots. They haven't done nearly as well since they have put on their veneer of bi-partisanship. The Post's finances have sunk in direct proportion to the GOP's approval ratings.
4. Create a focused, high-level seminar series on major policy issues. Hold it at a hotel and call it a networking event.
5. Negotiate the booking rights to the Lincoln bedroom.

It's healthy for the WaPo at long last to publicly declare itself to be the whorehouse that it actually has been for decades. Truth in advertising.

Can't go out of business fast enough.

"Absolutely, I'm disappointed, that we got caught " Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. "This should never have happened. The fliers got out. They represent exactly what we were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom." So we'll wait until this blows over and maybe try lunches instead.
There. Fixed that for ya'.

"The Post Co. lost $19.5 million in the first quarter ..."

Sorry, can't report many tears for the WaPo welling up given the steady trot down the neocon path their OpEd page has taken to under Fred Hiatt.

Scrapping the "message parlors" (h/t Balloon Juice) after they'd been caught doesn't impress me much. Obviously the invitations went out without any of the ethically challenged incompetents at the Post -- who haven't seemed to give much of a damn about their credibility in years (see Hiatt, Fred, editorial page leadership of) realizing what a bombshell they were.

The real scandal -- unfortunately so commonplace as to go unnoticed next to the selling of access -- is the WaPo hosting a hobnob between government officials, reporters and lobbyists, all off the record. Unless Weymouth plans to seriously curtail her social schedule, the Post will likely continue to be involved in that kind of thing, even if -- if! -- no one writes a check for it.

Feh.

Howard Kurtz added.."The Post Co. lost $19.5 million in the first quarter... prompting Weymouth to look for new sources of revenue."

I don't see how Kurtz's comment adds anything for a reasonable excuse/explanation for this.

Now that WaPo has tried, and screwed the pooch with 'jpournalism', it is trying it's hand at pimping. Interesting juxtaposition of business models.

'jpournalism' = journalism. Sorry, just thinking about WaPo does that to me..

"Appalled" my ass - this King Villager just realized that the PR was going against him and his rag.

"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."

Speaking of early-retirement buyouts, why don't they give packages to paleo-conservatives David Broder and George Will. Neither has written an interesting column in decades.

When WaPo says "salon" I think "whorehouse" and now, thanks to that flyer, whenever I think of WaPo I'm going to think "pimp". What the hell were they thinking??

And this from the paper that broke the Watergate story...how the mighty have fallen.

Not trying to be cute here. I'm trying to understand what was so bad about what the WaPo was trying to do.

If I understand correctly, they were charging people to attend an event with reporters and politicians. Just like people get charged to go to campaign dinners.

Is the concern that this compromises the Post's independence? Why?

Villager, I'll take you at your word that you're not trying to be cute, hard as that is to believe. There are at least two ethical breaches here:

1. Charging for access to its reporters raises the likelihood of favorable coverage in the paper

2. Charging for access to the government is an abuse of that access, which is granted so that the paper can report on the government to the people, not so that the paper can enrich itself by reselling that access

(Alternately, the government was in on the action, which would itself should be major scandal leading to resignations and impeachments, but I rather suspect that was not the case here.)

Interesting - I tried to follow your link to the Ombudsman's piece ("A Public Relations Disaster") and got page not found. So I went to the Post front page and under the Kurtz column was a link to the Omb's "A Public Relations Disaster" piece, with that exact headline - but when you click on the link, you go to the Omb's column from yesterday. Howie's column also has a link to "A Public Relations Disaster", which leads to a page not found.

Looks like that piece didn't survive very long.

Looks like that piece didn't survive very long.

Maybe it's because the words "pretty close" weren't true.

this comes pretty close to a public relations disaster."

The article is back up.

The scary thing is how bad their health issues reporting has been. If Ceci Connolly could produce such dreck before the wooing, could it have been going to get even worse? Or were they already conciously in the tank?

The Post obviously understands that corporate lobbyists who can afford to pay $25,000 to $250,000 to attend such a dinner have difficulty making their views known to government officials, so they need a little help from the Post getting their voices heard.

There simply isn't any excuse whatsover for this idea to have gotten as far as it did, whether or not the newsroom was involved, or even knew about it. If the Washington Post Company were truly in the business of journalism, then everybody in the company--even on the so-called "business side"--would have known better.

But the fact is that there are very companies any more that are actually in the business of journalism.

Katharine Weymouth should resign or be fired.

> There simply isn't any excuse whatsover for
> this idea to have gotten as far as it did,
> whether or not the newsroom was involved,

While I agree with you, I trust it is clear that this sort of thing goes on every single evening in Washington DC? Not as blatantly, but clearly there are reasons why single-payer health care can't get a hearing in Congress despite 65% approval, and those reasons include informal meetings among the key Villagers. It would be foolish to think that WaPo publishers, editors, columnists, and a few key reporters aren't part of those informal meetings.

Cranky

We're seriously supposed to believe that these were scheduled to take place at the publisher's private residence but that she had no idea what was going on?

Please. Pull the other one, Weymouth.

Weymouth—Kay Graham's granddaughter—is just one in an incredibly long list of examples illustrating why nepotism invariably produces incompetence and disaster.

"'jpournalism' = journalism."

Maybe it should be "journali$m" when the WaPo is involved.

RZvt0l

How are you. Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Help me! Help to find sites on the: Bachelors of arts degree. I found only this - bachelor degree careers. Higher education news trends physician recieves bachelor degree after yewars. An accredited online bachelor degree opens doors. With best wishes ;-), Paolo from Chad.