WaPo Finally Begins to Admit Pay2Play Details
The WaPo is finally beginning to reveal the true details of the pay to play dinner Katharine Weymouth was throwing. Surprise surprise, the dinner was pretty far down the road of selling access to their pay to play event.
But while Post executives immediately disowned the flier’s characterization, senior managers had already approved major details of the first dinner. They had agreed, for example, that the dinner would include the participation of Brauchli and at least one Post reporter, that the event would be off the record, that it would feature a wide-ranging guest list of people involved in reforming health care, and that it would have sponsorship.
Some members of the newsroom raised objections about attending an event at Weymouth’s house. No change in plans was made.
The only unresolved question was whether the first event would have multiple sponsors or a single one. Brauchli and Weymouth have said they preferred multiple sponsors, to dilute the influence of any particular sponsor. Yet when Weymouth’s office sent out e-mail invitations to the event early last week, only one sponsor, Kaiser Permanente, was listed. (Kaiser officials have said they had not decided whether to participate.)
The WaPo is doing two self-investigations to figure out how this happened. But don’t worry. Even after they discover that the dinner was planned long before current scapegoat Charles Pelton got hired, and therefore someone like Weymouth is the responsible party, they’re just looking forward.
The review, along with a parallel inquiry by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and Senior Editor Milton Coleman, are aimed at avoiding another episode that could damage the paper’s reputation.
"We think we know what happened, but we want to know if there were any details we missed or if there was something we overlooked," Weymouth said in an interview. "If any of our business practices aren’t clear, we’ll amend them."
This all feels so DC.
Hmm….could WEYMOUTH’S butt be on the line here? That’s clearly where the axe should fall, and Pelton’s stock as scapegoat has just dropped significantly.
Boxturtle (TradMed is too expensive. You can buy access to most bloggers with Starbucks)
Cheetos dude.
the really good bloggers would hold out for monogrammed pajamas
Only thing Starbucks would get ya at my house is booted out the door. Selling swill as coffee oughta be a crime.
Marcy: How do u think this plays out with the front page story of hospitals offering a deal to the White House to save billions of dollars on healthcare? What can we do about the story in the blogosphere that the WH is giving up the public option for dealmaking?
It’s so sad that the corruption goes way beyond the newspapers and the corrupt House and Senate members who will take the money and throw us aside.
How can “We the People” become a more vocal and powerful people’s lobby? There’s also the story on the CFTC and the Obama attempt to regulate. It’s all the same old influence peddling machine. What can we do to shock them into doing their jobs? I know what Jane is doing is engaging people, but when the White House and the Congress cave to the money, how can we beat them?
Sigh…
Front page of the WSJ
“If any of our business practices aren’t clear, we’ll amend them.” No worries there, Weymouth. Your practices are quite clear.
Translation: We’re gonna keep this kinda stuff closer to the vest next time.
Yeah, they are investigating to see how to cover it up better next time.
And publishing the ‘results’ of the ‘investigation’ works like the flyer, only now new and improved, just like the WASP*.
[*Wapo Access Sales Program].
Oh, yeah….there’s the ticket; don’ya just luv them self-evals? Fox; meet henhouse. :-((((
It was pretty disgusting to hear Judy Woodruff on PBS, The News Hour, talking as if this were all some goof up by the staff. Guess she’s a real insider too.
Yeah, and the others (even the guy from Poynter) were so gosh darned worried that WaPo might *lose* credibility ’cause of this.
(As if they had any to begin with.)
*Vapors*
As someone who lived in DC off and on from 1969 to last year, I seem to recall that Weymouth’s grandmother, Katherine Graham, used to hold such “soirees” or “salons” at her house. I don’t recall there being the participation of lobbyists, or the “corporate sponsorship,” but there was definitely the “mix of politicians and the news [sic] folks.”
This picture, of everyone sitting around Katie’s dinner table trading bon mots, is the perfect portrait of “the Village.” The press doesn’t then criticize the politicians, because gee, you just had dinner with them, or might be invited next week. The politicians don’t have any fear of the press, because they can take the columnist aside at Katie’s next week and explain away their latest.
The “intelligencia” running the country, talking and plotting among themselves, because inviting the Great Unwashed to such get-togethers would be so . . . discomforting? unattractive?? just not done.
Resident Post Idiot Howie Kurtz had a completely unaware article this past April about Rahm attending just such a “salon” sponsored by the Atlantic. So the fabulous tradition lives on!
Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.
If you’re not reading a book on history or current affairs, start one today.
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
Good morning pups. This semi-sordid episode shows once again (as if we needed any more proof) how court-centered (in the Versailles sense of the word) our national capital has become since Reagan’s coronation. There is hardly any pretense anymore that the country consists of two quite different nations: the insiders from Skull & Bones (Dana Milbank, it was a surprise to me, but shouldn’t have been), and the other wealthy types with their nose ounder the tent who really decide what goes on in this country, and the rest of us, who don’t count except when they need to raise cash for elections.
If this were nothing more than the post feeding off the sense of self-importance of wannabee’s that would be something else: a legitimate scam. But it actually shows where they think the ‘real’ government is.
Villagers.
The Industrial Cocktail Weenie Complex would prefer we not see how the sausages get made.
Thanks Raven… as I thought. This is now the WH caving to the big money once again.
So Chuck Schumer has his way with Wall Street and the Dems cave again. I know that already, but what can we do to stop it.
This is a joke:
This was a total screw job for seniors and disabled people who take drugs. This prescription drug “benefit” (ha ha) has caused unbelievable financial and physical suffering for millions when the “donut hole” pops up and your drugs suddenly cost you $2k a month!
What is it that the WH and the US Congress don’t understand?
They understand quite well that, in their minds, the great American consumer is a bottomless well from which to extract wealth. We stopped being citizens decades ago. Now we’re just consumers, our only value being able to funnel money upwards.
Have newspapers become non-profits in the wacky world of no good
capitalistic greed…
As the fight for advertising dollars turns media barons against one another, the depth of these propaganda organ’s collective misdeeds will be revealed, on the pages of their competitor’s rags.
And the rats suddenly began to eat one another…
Asscovering, it’s not just for politicians any more.
From DKos:
Jane will want to know about this:
John M. Orman, 60; Fairfield University Professor, Noted Political Commentator
John M. Orman, a well-known political science professor at Fairfield University who considered running for the U.S. Senate in 2005 against incumbent Joseph I. Lieberman, died suddenly Sunday night. He was 60.
we knew this was happening to us, we just didn’t how formal the process was.
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
“The WaPo is doing two self-investigations to figure out how this happened.”
Those self-investigations always go so well.
Why not just go all the way and sell the editorial space like advertising – as an entirely advertorial format? Each lobbyist can simply hire their favorite WaPo Propagandist directly to sit with them and co-write their advertorial together.
Sounds like a great business model. All the present journos just become freelancers – with no health benefits or salary overhead for the oligarchs to pay. I’m sure all of these former journalists will do just fine out in the competitive market place as freelancers, where open bidding for their services drives their true value in the market ever closer to zero. That’s when the propagandists begin to eat their own.
Let’s all just acknowledge that the United States no longer enjoys a free press, and get on with life.
Nothing has changed since Colby’s time, except for the financing of the enterprise. The marching orders still come from the same source.
Words in papers, words in books
Words on TV, words for crooks
Aunt Tina got it right.
This all feels so
DC.Versailles.fixed that for you
This isn’t just a Washington Post scandal, who from the Obama Administration was willing to participate in the Washington Post’s payola.
Catherine Graham would have disapproved of putting a price on the WP’s credibility…in her day the folks who mattered around DC didn’t need to be told how much was expected for this kind of service.
Katharine Weymouth is a stooge. The two words that applied to her last week still apply. After this ‘I told you so’ realization, they apply even more !!
RESIGN – TODAY.
You’re just being your grubbily cynical self again. Maybe dinner off fine china, nice wine and the effervescence of proximity to power might clear your mind and spirit after all those dusty old documents. Why traipse around in the weeds when you can spend time in the hanging gardens of Babylon?
Clubby Brauchli does have a decent quote here, to his credit: “We should be shining a light in dark corners, not creating the dark corners”.
RickinSF has got it right. These “salons” have been going on for quite some time, only the “price” was never so expicit.
How far the Mighty have fallen.
You will note that Weymouth didn’t exactly fall on her sword.
As for the $155 bil deal with hospitals, only 25 percent of that will possibly be money to help the uninsured.
And, as for Obama’s tough talk to MoveOn, even some bloggers haven’t stressed enough Obama’s “muscle” threat. (Ironic at least, hypocritical at most from someone not showing a lot of legislative muscle.) And, one should take note that Ms. Health Insurance, Ceci Connolly, wrote that article too. Did Team Obama tap her?
This whole thing stinks. Weymouth’s butt should be on the line. They were selling influence – I’m sure they thought it was a great business model in this era of less everything – and they got caught, plain and simple. All this trashing around is just muddying the waters.