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Alegre's Corner
We're not finished folks - not by a long shot!

Fallout from yesterday's presser / Washington Post selling access

by: Alegre

Thu Jul 02, 2009 at 10:44:59 AM EDT


They had an interesting discussion on Joe Scarborough's show yesterday with Carl Bernstein and Chuck Todd, about how reporters gather the news etc.  Bernstein takes today's reporters to task for not hitting the bricks to collect the news, and says they're happy to sit in on pressers and shout questions at the press secretary and call that reporting.  As Peter Daou notes, Todd got a bit defensive and refers to the pressers as "a show" but then backed off.

Take a look...

Meanwhile, you've got the Washington Post out there selling access to the movers and shakers of Washington.  I know the newspaper industry is fighting to survive, but this is about as low as you can go on the ethics scale...

WashPost sells access, $25,000+
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff." ...

"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 ...

Wow - imagine that... a lobbyist looking down their nose at the Post over questions of ethics.

BTW - the topic for the first "Salon"...? Health care reform and whether it's a good thing.  UGH! Guess none of us will have the $$$$ to attend one of these to lobby for single payer, eh?

Alegre :: Fallout from yesterday's presser / Washington Post selling access
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There's a word for people who sell access to other people (0.00 / 0)
Pimps maybe?  I wonder what that makes those policy makers who attend the Wash. Posts dinners.

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Post responds to "access for sale" story (0.00 / 0)
The Post sent out an internal memo in repsonse to the above Politico report, saying the language of the flyer precludes them from taking part in those "Salons"...

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.

LINK

In other words... we got caught with our hand in the cookie jar so we're pulling it out and pretending we never went for the yummies.

Invest in Women - Change the World
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I like the "and whether it's a good thing" (0.00 / 0)
Framing the argument much?

Seriously, "and whether it's a good thing"? (0.00 / 0)
Someone tell the Post we just had an election on the issue !!!!!

[ Parent ]
Better yet... (0.00 / 0)
somebody tell the WH and the Dems in Congress!!!!

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[ Parent ]
Everybody's talking about the Post scheme (0.00 / 0)
Folks are up in arms over this nonsense - and rightly so.

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In order for the post to (0.00 / 0)
sell access to Congress and the Obama Administration, the two branches need to be willing participants.

Obama and Congress can stop this.  All they have to do is say no....


Who knew . . . (0.00 / 0)
that there would come a time when the lobbyists would be the good guys?

That WaPo memo.  Wow.  Just wow.


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