Howie Kurtz’s Latest Story: Weymouth Defends Pay2Play Scheme

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picture-115.pngHowie Kurtz worked all day yesterday trying to come up with a narrative that would make the WaPo’s Pay2Play scheme look less damning. His latest effort is notable for several reasons:

  • He killed the anonymous quotations from Weymouth and Brauchli
  • With those anonymous quotes, he also killed any description of what the Pay2Play dinners were supposed to be
  • He let Weymouth spend 356 words claiming "everyone does it"
  • He gave a list of the planned attendees

Nevertheless, the bottom line of the story is that Katharine Weymouth still appears to defend the concept of Pay2Play in her living room.

Killing the anonymous quotations from Weymouth and Brauchli

Perhaps Howie killed the anonymous quotes because, in an article trying to defend the WaPo’s "journalistic integrity" and "integrity of the newsroom" it just looked bad to grant the WaPo’s Publisher and Executive Editor anonymity to blame another employee and make vague claims about what the real intent here was. Perhaps Howie killed those quotes because I was already harping on him for them. But as I pointed out yesterday, Howie granted anonymity to WaPo executives who were almost certainly WaPo publisher Weymouth and WaPo Executive Editor Brauchli so they could blame this all on Charles Pelton and make claims about what the Pay2Play Dinners were supposed to be.

Two Post executives familiar with the planning, who declined to be identified discussing internal planning, said the fliers appear to be the product of overzealous marketing executives. The fliers were overseen by Charles Pelton, a Post executive hired this year as a conference organizer. He was not immediately available for comment. 

[snip]

Weymouth knew of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation. But, one of the executives said, she believed that there would be multiple sponsors, to minimize any appearance of charging for access, and that the newsroom would be in charge of the scope and content of any dinners in which Post reporters and editors participated. [my emphasis]

Those anonymous quotations are now gone. Howie replaced the first with on the record quotes directly from Pelton, falling on his sword for not vetting the fliers (but not, it should be noted, for the plan itself).

The fliers were approved by a top Post marketing executive, Charles Pelton, who said it was "a big mistake" on his part and that he had done so "without vetting it with the newsroom."

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Cheney Interview: Pay2PlayPo Losing Its Ability to Report, Too

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picture-113.pngThe WaPay2PlayPo’s Jeffrey Smith is usually a much better reporter than this. In his report on DOJ’s latest attempt to keep the materials from Cheney’s Fitzgerald interview secret–published right under a link to all the evidence released in the trial–Smith "reports,"

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration’s public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

Which, if you take "new evidence" to mean "a new list summarizing many of the events described in evidence introduced two years ago at the Libby trial," would be factually correct.

But this isn’t.

Barron also listed as exempt from disclosure Cheney’s account of his requests for information from the CIA about the purported purchase; Cheney’s discussions with top officials about the controversy over Bush’s mention of the uranium allegations in his 2003 State of the Union speech; and Cheney’s discussions with deputy I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, press spokesman Ari Fleischer, and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure" of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity. [my emphasis]

Smith gets that last bit from this language in the filing.

Vice President’s recollection of discussions with Lewis Libby, the White House Communications Director, and the White House Chief of Staff regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA employee.

gx53201-libby-sonnet.thumbnail.jpgNow, the language used there–"the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity"–ought to be a pretty big clue to Smith that this conversation happened after Plame’s identity was actually made public. That is, after July 14, 2003, which happened to be Ari Fleischer’s last day, meaning it’s pretty clear that Ari Fleischer (who was White House Spokesperson, not Communications Director) isn’t the guy referenced here. But you don’t really need clues like that to figure out that Smith is wrong here. Had Smith only clicked that link above his article and actually looked at the evidence released at trial, he would have seen the famous "meat grinder note," a note Cheney used as a talking point document for conversations with Andy Card (correctly identified by Smith as Chief of Staff) and Dan Bartlett (in his role as "White House Communications Director," the position listed in the filing) in early October 2003 to get them to force Scottie McClellan to exonerate Scooter Libby publicly. 

Has to happen today. 

Call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl.

Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.

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The WaPo Digs Deeper

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The WaPo now has its very own Howard Kurtz story reporting its very own pay-to-play scandal. But in my opinion, it raises as many questions as it answers.

For this story, Kurtz relied on interviews with Katharine Weymouth, the WaPo’s publisher, and Marcus Brauchli, WaPo’s Executive Editor. But he did not get an interview with Charles Pelton, the guy being blamed anonymously–by "Two Post executives" who may or may not be Weymouth and Brauchli–for the flier.

Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. 

[snip]

Moments earlier, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a separate interview …

[snip]

Two Post executives familiar with the planning, who declined to be identified discussing internal planning, said the fliers appear to be the product of overzealous marketing executives. The fliers were overseen by Charles Pelton, a Post executive hired this year as a conference organizer. He was not immediately available for comment. 

Now, if you’re a newspaper trying to reassure readers that you’re not selling access, then don’t you think you owe it to readers to avoid any anonymous sourcing here? Instead, the appearance is that Weymouth and Brauchli are doing damage control by anonymously blaming Pelton for all of this, yet not allowing Kurtz to speak with Pelton directly to learn what his understanding of the conferences were.

On top of that, look at this amazingly decontextualized quote Kurtz gives us from Weymouth.

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

"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."

See the problem? Kurtz doesn’t tell us what Weymouth was responding to when she said she was disappointed! Is she disappointed that the fliers got circulated outside of intended clients? That they had to cancel the pay-to-play conferences? That their management system is so bad they sent these out unvetted? That they fired Dan Froomkin? That we haven’t yet invaded Iran? Read more →

The New(s) Access Brokers: So Much for the “Impartial Center”

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When Dan Froomkin described on Tuesday why the oldtimers at the WaPo had him fired, he spoke a lot about the Holy Grail of the impartial center. Granted, Froomkin described the now-departed Len Downie as that cult’s High Priest. Nevertheless, it sounds like that "impartial center" can be bought for $25,000 to $250,000 a shot.

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."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

Now, Mike Allen skewers his former employer, the WaPo, pretty seriously (and deservedly) for this.

"Washington Post Salons are extensions of The Washington Post brand of journalistic inquiry into the issues, a unique opportunity for stakeholders to hear and be heard," the flier says. "At the core is a critical topic of our day. Dinner and a volley of ideas unfold in an evening of intelligent, news-driven and off-the-record conversation. … By bringing together those powerful few in business and policy-making who are forwarding, legislating and reporting on the issues, Washington Post Salons give life to the debate. Be at this nexus of business and policy with your underwriting of Washington Post Salons."

But I want to know about the other side of the equation. Which members of Congress and the Administration have agreed to participate? Did they know of the payoffs the lobbyists will make to host the events? And did the politicians expect anything in return? Or will they just be able to order up some WaPo scolding every time citizens demand real health care reform of their elected representatives? In other words, what is clear from this is that the WaPo doesn’t give a shit about neutrality, they care only about an illusion of "objectivity." But what remains unclear is the rest of the equation–just how the Read more →

Froomkin and Rosen on Accountability Journalism

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Personal Democracy Forum ended up being perfectly timed to get the newly de-WaPoed Dan Froomkin together with Jay Rosen to talk about accountability journalism. And since we’ve been harping this story, I thought I’d do a real liveblog. With David Corn in the room and Froomkin around, it feels like old times!!

Jay: Why we’re here, then some questions for 25 minutes. Froomkin was WH Watch for WP.com. Circumstances of departure subject of controversy in blogosphere and newsosphere. The Old Guard won at the WaPo. The print guys. The people from the WaPo newspaper, Political reporters on national staff. When Dan came on WaPo.com, run by Brady. Post lived by divided sovereignty. People worked for website, people worked for newspaper.  In my view, served Post well, bc Brady didn’t need permission to put comments on stories, put feature on post on who was blogging story. Now, different era.

Jay: Why no longer under contract.

Froomkin: Some of you represent some of the people who responded with outpouring at my departure. Jay mostly right. Specifics are least interesting part of the story. What is interesting is it has elements of morality play. They told me not working any more. Traffic down. Down compared to what? During last year or two, column most popular feature on website. It was down from that, but still pretty good. Switch from column format to blog format, readers were furious. Bush Obama, different presence, different themes. Some disagreements about format and content. Not exciting with possible exception of pressure to stop doing media criticism. I’ve always felt media criticism integral part of what I was doing. For me to not talk about coverage of White House. Money issue. As a contractor I was a particularly easy line item to scratch out.

Dan: None would have happened or mattered if WaPo thought it had value. What explains delta between readers who thought it was valuable and WaPo who thought it didn’t. I was contractor. Little contact with Post institutionally. When Debbie HOwell thing happened, I only found out an hour and half before deadline. Tensions Jay and I have been writing about. 

Jay: Last column, wrote, when I look back, I think of the lies. But lies not a theme of coverage of Bush years. Hard to get reporters in WH press corps to talk about lies. Why so hard to register lies?

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Bill Leonard on AIPAC Trial

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Bill Leonard, the former head of ISOO whose job David Addington tried to Pixie Dust out of existence because Leonard had the audacity to assume Dick Cheney was required to follow the same classification and declassification rules as everyone else in the executive branch, never got a chance to testify in the AIPAC trial. That’s because, as soon as the Court ruled that Leonard could testify (and that judges get some say over what is introduced at trial), the government quickly dismissed the case.

But Leonard has described his take on the AIPAC case in his new blog:

The Government’s premise in this case was that non-Government officials who do not possess security clearances, such as lobbyists, reporters, and think-tank specialists, can be criminally culpable for further disseminating information shared with them by Government officials, even if they solely received the information by word-of-mouth and were not necessarily informed in the first place that it was supposedly classified . Never before had the Justice Department brought such a criminal case and to me, the actions of Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen clearly should never have served as the basis for the Government’s attempt to initially establish such a far-reaching precedent.

Supporters of the Government’s case have stated that organizations such as AIPAC should not be able to determine what is classified and what is not. I agree – that is the role of the government. However, I became involved in this case because it was clear to me that the government had failed to adequately determine exactly what was and was not properly classified information. All too often, in dealing with the public or the two co-equals branches of government, Executive branch officials simply assert classification. Equally disturbing, the judiciary and the Congress often reflexively defer to such claims. Fortunately, in the AIPAC case, Judge T. S. Ellis 3rd refused to allow the Government to make such an assertion. After reviewing the evidence in detail, I became convinced that the Government would not be able to demonstrate that the specific information the defendants were accused of disclosing was indeed classified in accordance with the process set forth by the President or that, in other instances, it would be easy for the defense to demonstrate that the information was already widely known and thus part of the vast morass of official information subject to the frequent abuse of over-classification. To be effective, the national Read more →

Dana Milbank’s Very Thin Folder

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It was a very thin folder Dana Milbank held in his hand–his shield against the DFH blogger who got to ask a question. "A full list of documentation of me holding the Bush White House to account," he explained it as, in addition to a copy of an email Nico Pitney wrote the night before Obama asked him a question at a press conference.

Milbank’s folder might be so thin because he apparently finds his three to four, 750 to 800 word columns a week a taxing burden. Funny … that sounds like Monday lunchtime to me.

But forget, for a moment, the embarrassing thinness of Milbank’s folder–the columns where, he says, he held Bush accountable. I’m more curious why he brought his thin folder to confront Nico Pitney, whose sin (after all) is that he got to ask the President a question on behalf of Iranians. Nico wasn’t the one criticizing Milbank for not holding Bush accountable (though he did remind viewers that Milbank was rather interested in how Obama looked in a swimsuit).

Dan Froomkin was.

Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long.

(To be fair, Milbank explained his thin folder as a response to others at HuffPo–not Nico–who had accused Milbank of not holding Bush accountable.)

Now, Froomkin did not name Milbank personally. But I can’t help but observe that a very testy Milbank whipped out his thin folder this week–the week when Dan Froomkin was fired because he refused to stop criticizing the crappy coverage of both Bush and Obama. I can’t help but notice that Milbank came prepared to defend himself aganist precisely the charges that Froomkin has leveled–that those covering Bush on a day to day basis "missed the real Bush story for way too long."

This entire exchange, it seems to me, has more to do with the WaPo’s thin skin about Froomkin’s charges than it has to do with Nico’s question.

Which sort of makes you wonder whether Milbank didn’t "collude" with fellow WaPo columnist Howie Kurtz, who apparently had no thin folder of his own even to show.

Criticizing Mr. 25% vs. Criticizing Mr. 65%

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This is a fairly minor point to add to Jane’s excellent discussions about readership with regards to the Froomkin firing.

As we know, one of the WaPo’s key defenses for canning Froomkin had to do with declining readership for his column. The tail off in readership from last year to this–which Froomkin admits but attributes partially to not getting linked on the front page–justifies its actions, the WaPo claims.

But ignore placement issues for the moment and consider this.

Froomkin’s column was one of the most popular columns at WaPo back when he was criticizing Mr. 25%. His columns about Bush–widely disliked for the span of Froomkin’s column–were hugely popular.

His columns about Obama, a President still commanding close to 65% approval ratings, are less popular.

There’s an obvious logic to that–the audience actively seeking criticism of Obama, at this stage of his presidency, is a lot smaller than the audience actively seeking criticism of Bush from 2004 on in his presidency. 

But isn’t that precisely the reason to keep a column like Froomkin’s around? Wouldn’t we have all been a lot better off if the loyal Republican opposition had held Bush accountable back when he was polling at 65%–or even 90%?

Is the WaPo basically saying it won’t keep columns that call a popular President to account, because those columns don’t draw the same readership? I thought that was precisely the press’ responsibility?

The WaPo’s Omerta on Froomkin

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Before I look closely at what OmbudAndy (Andy Alexander) had to say about Froomkin’s firing today, I want to thank Dan for his kind words in today’s post and for the way he went out with a bang. Also, Dan and Jay Rosen will be talking about accountability and journalism on Tuesday at the Personal Democracy Forum (I’ll be speaking at 3:45); I plan to liveblog their conversation.

But onto what the WaPo’s OmbudAndy had to say about Froomkin’s firing. There are two really important pieces of news in his article:

  • No one within the WaPo wants to tell their own Ombud why they fired Froomkin
  • One of the reasons they fired Froomkin is they wanted him to stop doing media criticism

No one wants to talk 

Alexander describes the WaPo’s refusal to explain why they fired Froomkin "ironic:"

Institutionally, The Post is now responding by circling the wagons — ironic for a news organization that insists on transparency from those it covers. Its initial statement on June 18 from spokeswoman Kris Coratti lacked substance (“Editors and our research teams are constantly reviewing our online content to ensure we bring readers the most value…while balancing the need to make the most of our resources”).

I was off much of this week with a minor medical problem. But when I was able to start querying editors yesterday, a wall of silence was erected. Raju Narisetti, the managing editor who oversees the Web site, declined to go beyond last week’s PR statement. Online Opinions Editor Marisa Katz, after talking Thursday with the Washington CityPaper, said she had been instructed not to respond to additional queries. And Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt, who had previously responded to questions from me and other journalists (including the CityPaper on Thursday), today said he was unable to comment.

I’d say it’s worse than ironic. I’d say it’s revealing. The WaPo apparently has no excuse that can withstand scrutiny, so they’re just keeping mum. I’d suggest, in particular, that Hiatt’s inconsistent silence suggests where the stupidity they’re trying to hide lies.

Stop doing media criticism

And here’s the really amusing part. They asked Froomkin to stop doing media criticism.

Froomkin said his editors were urging changes in White House Watch, and he acknowledged disagreement over content. For example, he was urged not to do media criticism. Read more →

They Planted a Gay Whore in His News Conferences!!!

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picture-111.pngI’m going to get to what it means that the AP–purportedly the most neutral source of "news" out there–is harping on the Nico Pitney question. But first, check out what this "news" entity claims in paragraph nine of their story–presumably to meet the AP’s requirement for false equivalency.

Grumblings about favored reporters are not unique to the Obama White House. There were suspicions — never proved — that President George W. Bush’s press operations often planted friendly questions in his news conferences.

Never proved?!?!

They not only planted friendly questions in their news conferences, they brought in their very own gay prostitute to ask those questions. Not to mention paying people like Armstrong Williams to push their policies and flying their favorite Generals around so they’d pitch the Administration line on teevee.

But in the false equivalency moral universe of the AP, allowing a reporter who has announced he’s going to solicit questions from Iranians directly to pose one of those questions is the big scandal.

White House officials phoned a blogger from a popular left-leaning Web site on Monday evening to tell him that President Barack Obama had been impressed with his online reporting about Iran. Could the writer pass along a question from an Iranian during the president’s news conference on Tuesday?

Of course. The next day, The Huffington Post’s Nico Pitney got a prime location in the White House Briefing Room and was the second reporter Obama picked for a question.

And so the supposedly hyper-neutral arbiter of what is news joins the pout-rage that the journalist doing the best work on a story gets to pose a question on that topic.

It’s bad enough that Fox and Politico are–predictably–bitching about this. For the AP to consider this "news" at all just shows how far gone the press is in protecting their privilege over embracing the spirit of journalism. Once again, the White House took this question because:

  1. Nico’s reporting and the role of Twitter in the Iranian crisis are signature moments showing how technology can foster democracy (which is pretty much Obama’s schtick, anyway)
  2. That same technology offered average people on the other side of the world–the people actually involved in this historic event–a way to pose the President of the United States a question about their actions

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