WaPo Trying To Find Money, Whoops!

Washington Post sells access, White House denies involvement

By: Bill Myers and Kiki Ryan
Washington Examiner
July 2, 2009


A clip from the flier circulated by the Washington Post advertising a conference program which offered access to top Obama administration officials and senior Post staff to health-care lobbyists in exchange for sums between $25,000 and $250,000.
The Washington Post has long prided itself on its access to the capital's elite. Now, it appears, the paper is willing to sell that access.

In a flier circulated to Beltway lobbyists, the Post touted a "salon" program which gives "exclusive access" to "Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" for between $25,000 and $250,000. (View an image of the flier.)

White House officials said privately Thursday that the administration had no idea that the Post was peddling access to its officials.

The first event, entitled "Health-Care Reform: Better or Worse for Americans" is scheduled for July 21, at the home of Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth.

"Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No," the flier states. "The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it."

The flier, first reported by former Post editor Mike Allen on the Politico web site, offers the chance to "hear and be heard as an equal with key policy-makers and other stakeholders," including Weymouth, Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli and health-care "reporting and editorial staff members" at the Post....

Post Publisher Cancels Plans for Off-the-Record 'Salons'
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 2, 2009 1:04 PM

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."

..."We do not offer access to the newsroom for money," Brauchli said. "We just are not in that business." He told the staff in an e-mail that the newsroom would have no part of this plan, writing: "Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable."...