Kurtz (hey, he’s quick with these things as much as I hate him) has the response from the WaPo newsroom:
The Washington Post’s executive editor said today he is “appalled” by a plan to charge lobbyists as much as $250,000 for off-the-record gatherings at the home of the paper’s publisher — with Obama administration officials, members of Congress and the paper’s reporters and editors — and insisted that the newsroom will not participate.
“It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” Brauchli said in an interview. The proposal “promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post.”
Brauchli was responding to fliers, circulated by the paper’s parent company, offering an “intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.” The fliers, which said participants would be charged $25,000 to sponsor a single salon and $250,000 to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions, were reported this morning by Politico.
“We do not offer access to the newsroom for money,” Brauchli said. “We just are not in that business.”
What bothers me most about this is that they’re calling these things “salons”. At least call them “massage parlors”.
Update. Commenter clone12 suggests the euphemism “message parlor”.
Balconesfault
But you have to go to Fox News to get a happy ending.
gwangung
Still idiots. Even if the press side was completely ignorant, you’d think the MBA geniuses on the business side would grok the optics of this.
No, wait. These are probably the same genius MBAs that ran the newspaper business and the finance industry into the ground. Of course, they can’t see beyond the dancing $$$…
srv
Sorry to hijack, but the coup is complete. The NYSE will no longer report Goldman Sachs program trading:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/nyse-halts-transparency-feels-goldman.html
Wherever your money is now, it isn’t safe.
Death By Mosquito Truck
Me lobby you long time.
Incertus
What’s the difference between taking cash for access to the newsroom and going off the record for bullshit stories about political opposition so you can keep access in the White House?
Dave
Shorter Kurtz:
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
Kyle
âWe do not offer access to the newsroom for money,â Brauchli said.
“We’re cheap sluts for the powerful, not hookers”, he should have added.
clone12
Wouldn’t it be message parlors instead of massage parlors?
Doug B
That’s right, usually they don’t ask for money for access. Hell, the usual going price is just continued access to the best cocktail parties so they can continue to rub elbows with the movers and shakers.
linda
‘salon’ via wiki:
A salon is a gathering of stimulating people of quality under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host, partly to amuse one another and partly to refine their taste and increase their knowledge through conversation and readings, often consciously following Horace’s definition of the aims of poetry, “either to please or to educate” (“aut delectare aut prodesse est”). The salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical salons of the 17th century and 18th century, were carried on until quite recently in urban settings among like-minded people of a ‘set’: many 20th-century salons could be instanced.
the wdc commentariat does think highly of themselves.
DougJ
I like it.
Snotty
Very nice! I almost sprayed carrots all over my monitor!
Michael Carpet
Kyle @ 7 has it right; if the lobbyists are the johns, and the officials are the hookers, the Washington Post is the pimp. How sad. It used to be a great newspaper. Now, like the LA Times, it has drifted into mediocracy.
Dennis-SGMM
How dare you suggest that this is anything other than a boarding house for young ladies of good background?
Gregory
Sadly, the outrage over the WaPo making access to its journalists available for purchase will obscure the also-outrageous fact that the publisher is setting up a series of meetings among key political players that will be inherently off the record.
Obviously, informing the public isn’t on its agenda. But we knew that.
Gregory
@Incertus:
Apologies in advance for the sexist language, but it’s the difference between being a slut and a whore.
*Edit* I see Kyle got there first.
John O
It’s all over but the violence.
And cash is king, baby.
Louise
Now that the Post editor has his “we would NEVER” memo out, I’d like some Politico or TPM reporters to call up individual newsroom folks and ask them: “Have you previously been directed by your boss to attend an event like this? Did you?”
And I know it means that my heart is not fully coated with its intelligent and cynical shell, but what really burns me about this flyer is the notion that there are only a few dozen people who are going to decide everything about this, and all of them are willing to be whored out.
When I think of all the people in the world who have the brains and persistence to bring real solutions to the table, should anyone think to ask them…and then think of the rodents and invertebrates who will actually be in charge…
Egilsson
Glenn Greenwald is going to explode over this. I can’t wait to read that beat-down!
Louise
OT request: Could someone point me to the thread where you all discussed that offensive Glenn Beck segment with the asshole who thinks Osama should bomb us into his POV?
Mojotron
So the “journalists” knew and were ok with it because they’d be able to “substantially control the nature of any such conference”, even though they wouldn’t be in attendance. And note that Brauchli’s not upset by the content but the wording. Screw these wormtongues.
How does one cancel an online, non-paying account? spam their forums with “Fred Hiatt needs Ci @lis?
JK
OT
Louise SEE BELOW
Jon Stewart also covered it on last night’s Daily Show
The logic of former CIA official Michael Scheuer regarding a possible future attack from Osama bin Laden
GLENN BECK: Do you really, honestly believe that we have come to a place to where those very senior people in the highest offices of the land, Congress and the White House, really will not do the right thing in the end, that they won’t see the error of their ways?
MICHAEL SCHEUER: No, sir, they will not. Not — the only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it’s going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. Only — it’s an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/01/glenn-beck-guest-fantasiz_n_223807.html
Scheuer’s pathological hatred of neocons is equaled only by his pathological hatred of Obama.
Joshua Norton
Much like Claude Rains was “appalled” that there was gambling at Rick’s place in Casa Blanca.
uila
Also, WTF is a “flier”? Did Fred Hiatt have the interns place them under car windshields?
Joshua Norton
STOP! You’re killing me here.
Dennis-SGMM
What is it with these fat old men and violence? None of them ever served and the closest thing to violence that any of them ever experienced is when their hand flies off of their dick and smacks them in the forehead.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Richard Cohen has volunteered to be the fluffer at all of these events.
JK
@Louise:
I’ve seen or heard Michael Scheuer interviewed many times since the 9/11 attacks occurred. The first few times I heard him, he sounded rational and lucid. Over time however, he’s descended deeper and deeper into irrationality. I think Obama’s election victory sent him all the way over the edge.
I think Scheuer’s conflicted because he can’t decide who to demonize more: the neocons or Obama.
TenguPhule
Go around the world without ever leaving the comfort of the room.
Professor Fate
“We just are not in that business.â
Maybe you aren’t but it sure seems like Your bosses are in that business big time.
Do they take credit cards you wonder.
JK
@Dennis-SGMM:
Hollywood would be wise to keep Michael Scheuer in mind for any upcoming film featuring a mad scientist.
Dork
Suggests? Really? This is the verb you choose? What’s wrong with “demonstrates” or “further confirms”?
Chaf
Anyone who’s tried to read the Post in the past, oh, ten years can’t POSSIBLY be surprised by this. Well, maybe the part about the fliers.
Dennis-SGMM
I’m absolutely positive that a WaPo staffer would give up his or her job rather than attend a “Salon.” Oh, wait, they’re off the record.
Never mind.
Dork
If by elbows you mean genitalia, then you are correct.
jibeaux
I don’t go to salons, I go to Great Clips. I might be a girl, but, gracious, it’s $13, do you know what salons catering to women charge? My hair is fine. So anyway, I’m thinking the WaPo salon is probably out of my league too. Why not $50 for cheese and crackers with the assistant to the Deputy Undersecretary for Transportation? Dammit, WaPo, every restaurant and car dealership in town’s got some sort of “recession pricing” bargain plan going on, getcher act together.
It is all kind of reminiscent of a Woody Allen short story, The Whore of Mensa. I think there was a menu along the lines of: $250 for an hour of listening to public radio with twins…
Roger Moore
@Michael Carpet:
The LA Times did not “drift” into mediocrity. It was dragged, kicking and screaming into mediocrity by its corporate overlords at The Tribune Company. The Chandlers should have sold to local ownership that was committed to maintaining journalistic excellence, not to an out of town conglomerate that cared only about short term profitability.
bey
Gene Weingarten just announced in his chat update that readers can have access to him for $79.95 but they’ll have to pay $135 for Dana Milbank.
Probably coz Gene took the buyout.
ricardo
WaPo publisher Katharine Weymouth is sponsoring them? Then how about “Kat House” as a euphemism?
kay
I haven’t been reading the Washington Post very long, so maybe I’m unaware of past glory, but I would never rely on that paper for anything substantive on health care reform, or, actually, the current state of health care delivery.
I read it for two reasons: I can get what I consider a sort of head’s up to whatever extreme neoconservative view on foreign policy is being sold, and because they do really rigidly conventional horse-race political commentary, sans substance on policy.
I guess I read it to find out what theme will be promoted in the coming weeks. I read it so I know what the moneyed minority are trying to sell, what political or policy promotion, and then I can prepare mentally for the coming barrage of bullshit.
It’s defensive reading. I like to know what they’re planning on selling before it reaches full-bore media saturation.
DonkeyKong
Shortest Kurtz/Washington Host, “If you fuck me in the ass, I’m still a virgin!”
Chaf
@Kay: My take is very similar, except for the ever-reading-anything-in-there part. Your “defensive reading” is admirable, but I just don’t have the stomach.
I’d be interested if anyone with a longer memory could tell us whether the Post has done anything of substance in the last 25 years, or are they still coasting on Watergate and looking good next to the Wash Times?
oh really
Don’t you mean whore houses?
Zandar
You are now.
JK
Will Howard Kurtz discuss this scandal on Reliable Sources or will he hem and haw over whether Michael Jackson’s death received too much coverage?
HyperIon
@Chaf:
yes.
very sad but undeniable.
Michael Carpet
@37 Roger Moore — point taken. Just meant it was a slow slide downhill. It is happening all over — even good quality regionals like the Sacramento Bee have become diminished versions of their former selves.
JK
@Chaf:
Dana Priest wrote the story of the CIA bringing terrorist suspects to sites in Eastern Europe.
kay
@Chaf:
It’s not so much admirable as a pathetic admission of how bad this has gotten. When you’re wildly out-gunned ( because that’s how I perceive health care policy debate, as adversarial, powerful interests versus powerless majority) preparation is all you got.
While I can and do fault the NYTimes for a lot, capture by ideological and/or ambitious reporters, mostly, they at least present what they believe at the time of print to be information.
The Washington Post just skips right by fact-collecting, forget fact-gathering, and presents a theme.
I’m not at all sure knowing the theme offers an advantage, but I have very few tools. Is this a possible niche for them? I don’t know.
Napoleon
If I was in Robert Gibb’s shoes at today’s press conference I would walk up to the WaPo reporter in the room and stuff a dollar bill in his/her garter.
beabea
Recently saw Katherine Weymouth on C-SPAN, giving a talk about the state of the newspaper industry.
She told an anecdote about seeing a woman purchase a copy of the WaPo at a newstand, whereupon she decided to discreetly observe the woman as a “focus group of one”.
Apparently, the woman grew increasingly frustrated as she paged through the paper, prompting Weymouth to ask if she could help.
Turns out the woman bought the WaPo for the car wash coupon, and was having trouble finding the coupon.
It’s at about 00:18:00 in the video. Weymouth then claims this proves “people care about our product” and that there is an “appetite for quality news”. I’m sure there is, but when people are buying your paper for the coupons…
Brachiator
@Incertus:
Money. And more.
Damn. This may well seal newspapers fate. A few years ago, the LA Times caught a lot of heat as the publisher and the business departments pushed a special section on the new Staples center that appeared to be editorial coverage, but was pure advertising. Although this was not political, the line crossing between editorial and advertising outraged staff and reporters and the publisher, who had no prior journalism experience, later was let go.
During the Bush Administration, conservative pundits Michael Medved and others proudly boasted of and defended a private off-the-record meet and greet with Dubya. And the wingnut crowd ate this up, seeing it as essential in making sure that the GOP message got out. And Medved and others defended themselves by noting that since they were committed conservatives and commentators, they had no obligation to be objective or to distance themselves from the Bush White House.
WaPo as an institution cannot possibly defend any “pay for access” scheme without damaging their reputation. And both conservative and liberal pundits will crap all over this misguided scheme, which clearly is more about trying to find new sources of revenues, but cripples the Post as a newspaper.
Roger Moore — The LA Times did not âdriftâ into mediocrity. It was dragged, kicking and screaming into mediocrity by its corporate overlords at The Tribune Company. The Chandlers should have sold to local ownership that was committed to maintaining journalistic excellence, not to an out of town conglomerate that cared only about short term profitability.
The LA Times plunged into mediocrity long before the Tribune bought it. And after the death of former publisher Otis Chandler, the majority of the remaining Chandlers were interested in the best financial offer, not the continued existence of the paper.
Yep. I like it. “The Washington Post opened The Kat House to lobbyists, politicians and other Beltway biggies.”
Gregory – Sadly, the outrage over the WaPo making access to its journalists available for purchase will obscure the also-outrageous fact that the publisher is setting up a series of meetings among key political players that will be inherently off the record.
I agree with you that this is the fundamental issue. We already see that TV news and interview shows have become little more than political kabuki, with access guaranteed in exchange for largely friendly coverage to insure future appearances.
Off-the-record discussions and anonymous sources should be used rarely, and should never be sponsored or solicited by an editor publisher. Never.
The promise of friendly, off-the-record exchanges with reporters present — whether or not they ask a single question — fundamentally undermines their credibility as journalists. Why should anyone read anything a reporter writes if you know that he (or she) knows more than he is telling and, with his publisher’s demand and approval, is deliberately withholding information that may have been disclosed to him at a Kat House session which is material to the story that he is writing.
Oh yes, and the $250,000 buy-in likely would keep most pesky bloggers away.
I would love to see the Post do a few of these sessions, and then find out that one of the attendees has secreting filmed the salon and posted the whole thing on YouTube.
BetteB
I have to ask … does anyone think that Obama would have allowed members of his administration to take part in this proposed farce? A secret little salon thingy with heavily monied lobbyists who’d paid WaPo for the privilege of talking with them? I mean, wouldn’t somebody have tipped him off it was happening before it actually took place? Wasn’t it one of Obama’s campaign promises that he’d have nothing to do with lobbyists? Or little, anyway.
Did anyone from Obama’s administration actually agree to participate? If so, who?
khead
You have been invited to “Walk the Appalachian Trail for Health Care” with members of the Washington Post and Congress! Only 250K to participate! Act now!
Death By Mosquito Truck
Is Da Post also charging for pro-war coverage or is that still going to be free?
kay
@khead:
I’m not sure why the Washington Post feel the lobbyists for the health care industry need a special, reserved forum, and access to the powerful.
Have they not been heard from? Almost exclusively? For my entire adult life?
This is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Joe Beese
Remind me again why I’m supposed to be upset that newspapers are dying?
Elie
Even as we chortle — this is a bad bad day for what remains of the newspaper industry and definitely not a good day for our so-called democracy…
They all sold out and the rot is painful to see. Ohhh what its cost us over the last at least 30 Years? The horrible leaders these news organizations helped foist on our country along with their horrible policies.
I wish the ground would open up and the whole damned building that houses the Post would sink from sight. What existed of its integrity long ago vanished anyway…
They can’t undo this — its poison from within its own bosom…
Silver Owl
WaPo a high priced Floozie for hire.
I did find it pretty darn funny that the pimps at WaPo knew that executives and lobbyists would be high paying johns. LOL!
maya
Will this make the Washington Times the equivalent of The Goodspeed Madam?
JK
@Elie:
I also wish the ground would open up, but I’d prefer to see the building that houses Fox News Channel and the building that houses Rush Limbaugh’s radio show sink from sight.
whetstone
Weymouth (lawyer, ad person, not a journalist), FYI, was the commencement speaker at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism a couple weeks ago.
Great timing, guys.
Mnemosyne
@kay:
Only if you assume the problem being dealt with is healthcare for US citizens and not the finances of the Washington Post.
Ash Can
I know this belongs in yesterday’s Palin thread, but I think it’s entertaining and illuminating enough to go OT for here: there’s a story up at DKos detailing the intra-McCain-campaign flap over Todd Palin’s membership in (and Sarah’s sympathy with) the Alaska Independence Party.
On the surface, the account of the flap, told via e-mail exchanges, puts Sarah P. in, ahem, a poor light. More important in my view, however — and surprisingly not really addressed by this DKos article — is that it puts the McCain campaign, and by extension the entire GOP, in an even worse light. Take a look at the article (don’t worry, it’s hyperbole-free, although no guarantee re the comments), and tell me 1) how the McCain campaign could have been so indescribably, mind-numbingly careless as to NOT VET their VP candidate, 2) how Steve Schmidt was able to carry on as campaign manager without jumping off a fucking bridge somewhere, 3) how whoever the sweet living HELL is running the GOP could have let this train wreck of a presidential campaign happen in the first place.
Woody
Louise: I posted the vid here, with some commentary.
Louise
They’ve canceled it.
khead
@ kay
Because what happens on the Appalachian Trail….
…stays on the Appalachian Trail.
Unless you get caught lying about it, of course.
See post @ 63.
Woody
Roger Moore: This is true of the whole industry. News “properties” were scarfed up by non-News corporations. They were systematically looted, their staffs reduced, their bureaus closed, and their reporters turned into stenographers at the behest of the bottom-line CorpoRats who, in any case, hated the press for its independence.
poliwog
With release.
Mnemosyne
@Ash Can:
Well, Rush said she was great — what more did you want?
/wingnut
JK
@Ash Can:
The only thing that mattered to John McCain’s campaign was that Palin made millions of men feel so damn horny.
JGabriel
Apparently your publisher says otherwise.
Don’t worry, Brauchli. No one is really surprised by the concept. It’s been clear from the editorial pages that that’s the direction WaPo has been taking for years.
It’s just the blatancy that’s surprising.
.
NonyNony
@Ash Can:
1) This will be the question that will haunt me until the tell-all stories of the campaign are finally leaked. Who made the decision? Why was it so spur of the moment? Was this an example of the campaign making a bad decision, or an example of McCain doing a “Maverick” thing and having it blow up in his face? I’d love to know the answer to this one.
2) He’s a fucking mercenary. If he’d dove off the campaign after finding out he’d attached an anchor to his own neck he’d never get hired for anything political again and he’d be trying to figure out how to break into advertising or journalism. By sticking it through to the end (but making sure that everyone knows that he was not to blame for the failure) he can continue to get jobs in politics. That’s the theory at least.
3) Who was running the GOP anyway? The GOP was – and still is – suffering from a lack of leadership from about 2006 on. As far as I can tell it was “every man for himself” during the Presidential campaign, and then once McMaverick had been selected as the “least worst option” by the primary voters everyone got out of the way to let him and his campaign staff run the show. If McCain lost he could shoulder the blame, and if he managed to pull off a miracle and win, well, they could claim some portion of the credit. 2008 for the party “leadership” was all about not being the guy who got the blame for McCain’s inevitable flame-out.
JGabriel
Gregory:
Yes, I’m curious as to which administration officials Weymouth had in mind for these little shindigs, whether they knew they were being shilled out for these events, whether they were going to be paid for them, and, if so, how much?
.
JGabriel
Louise:
It’s too late. Weymouth has already made it blatantly clear to the meanest eye what she regards WaPo’s purpose to be, and her hopes for its income stream.
There doesn’t seem to be much else to be said.
.
Xecky Gilchrist
âWe do not offer access to the newsroom for money,â
And the United states does not torture. It’s “enhanced interrogation”.
Tom65
The only truly heinous crime in DC is getting caught.
With any luck, this will kill off the once-proud Post
LosGatosCA
That makes Katherine Weymouth the “Washington Post Salon Madam.”
That would have made David Vitter the first to sign up.
JGabriel
Politico:
And aside from marketing, how is that any different?
Translation: We still wanna do this; we just need to find wording to make it sound palatable. Where the hell is Frank Luntz when you need him?
.
.
geg6
@JGabriel:
Looks like they’re looking into it at the White House:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/02/white-house-acknowledges_n_225056.html
Brachiator
@Woody:
This is not true. Newspapers have had to cut back as the rise of the Internet killed the major source of revenues for all newspapers – display and classified advertising.
The LA Times, to give one example, used to lead all papers in terms of ad lineage. They began offering buyouts and slashing staff long before their acquisition by Sam Zell, which didn’t happen until 2007.
It fun to make evil corporations the bogeyman responsible for the demise of newspapers, but it fails the simplest reality test.
JGabriel — Itâs too late. Weymouth has already made it blatantly clear to the meanest eye what she regards WaPoâs purpose to be, and her hopes for its income stream.
I think you’re right. The Post has done irreparable damage to its reputation. It’s hard to determine which entity has self-destructed more spectacularly, the newspaper industry or the Republican Party.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Brachiator: @Brachiator: Itâs hard to determine which entity has self-destructed more spectacularly, the newspaper industry or the Republican Party.
Insofar as they can be distinguished, yes.
Comrade Michael "Yo, My Bloggah" Brown
@Roger Moore:
Dude. What did you think the Chandlers, kinderin and grand-kinderin, “cared only about” when they sold it? The LA Times and the NY Times and the WaPo are just businesses, man, exactly like Dow Chemical and Murder Inc and the government of Dubai. They’re in it to turn a quick buck, and to keep on doing so as long as they can. One last thing: Despite what she says, the topless girl doing the pole dance doesn’t really “care only about” you, either.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
The Times was already notorious for layoffs when I interned with them back in the pre-internet early 1990s, so I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to blame all their woes on loss of revenue to the internet, either. It’s 30 years of bad business decisions and short-term thinking coming back to bite them in the ass.
tc125231
@Comrade Michael âYo, My Bloggahâ Brown: Actually, NYT has frequently been criticized by shareholders for NOT taking that approach.
I’m just saying. Also.
NYT
Interesting how the New York Times is soft-pedalling their reporting this. It’s described as a “flap” in their headline and their report is really about the Post’s response to the allegations and not about the allegations themselves.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Times is doing something similar.
Also the Post’s ombudsman reveals that “reporters sometimes sit in on off-the-record Post editorial board sessions with newsmakers. But often they are able to reach agreement with guests on reporting newsworthy information.” Good to know.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
My main point was that it was not the acquisition of the Time by a typically evil corporation (with a mustache) that led to the newspaper’s downfall.
On the other hand, I doubt that there was any long-term vision that could have saved the LA Times or other papers. Circulation began declining in the 1980s for all kinds of reasons, and contractions in the California economy began affecting display advertising (in paper ads for supermarkets, department stores, big retaillers). Classified ads became their bread and butter, and when Craigs List and other online ad sites came along, the newspaper’s revenues began to plunge, never to recover.
Times Mirror (the parent company that owned the LA Times) diversified into other areas, but many of their publishing ventures declined as well.
Wile E. Quixote
I think that the WaPo isn’t thinking creatively enough here. How about a salon where you pay $250,000 and get to push Charles Krauthammer’s wheelchair down a flight of stairs ala Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death. Or you get to use George Will as a urinal, or beat William Kristol to death with a nine-iron, or tell Fred Hiatt that he has to travel to Enumclaw, Washington and get fucked in the ass by a stallion.
If Kat Weymouth were sponsoring salons like that I’d be taking out a second mortgage on my house, seeing what I could get for my artificial leg at a pawn shop and offering to sell a kidney on Craigslist so I could jet back to D.C. and join in the fun.
Mary
I left a comment on the story about WaPoGate that was posted on the Atlantic’s website and sent it along to Andrew Sullivan asking that he address it. I’m not surprised that The Atlantic simply took the whole story down.
Here was my comment, which it doesn’t look like The Atlantic or Andrew Sullivan will be addressing:
Until now, The Atlantic was upfront about what it was doing, whereas the Washington Post lied right off the bat. It will be interesting to watch what happens to the Atlantic’s business model now that Mike Allen and The Politico have trashed it.
You have to give it to Mike Allen. This was a ruthless knife in the back to the Washington Post for a business practice that everyone was starting to adopt. I don’t like him but I am in awe of his competitive skill.
Mary
I erred in that The Atlantic did not take their story on WaPoGate down. It is here. http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/07/on_the_washington_post_salons.php
I will be interested to see whether the fact that The Atlantic has been running these same salons with no backlash and willing participation by the Administration and our elite journalists will be added to the backstory of WaPoGate.
MR Bill
urgh.
I remember the pre-Jeff Gannon days, when ‘media whore’ was still just a metaphor….
Richard Stanczak
To uila; Yes these fliers were placed under the windshield wipers of cars.
I have it on good authority that the Post reporters were instructed to place the fliers only on large black vehicles with chauffeurs.