Washington Post Almost Sells Its Soul

The fact that the Washington Post, the paper that broke the Watergate scandal, is itself involved in a scandal for planning to charge up to $250,000 to lobbyists and executives for “exclusive,” off-the-record access to top Obama administration officials, only goes to underline the sheer desperation of newspaper executives to explore any money-making idea, even those that were clearly built on shaky ethical ground from the beginning.

The “salons” were to be held at the home of publisher Katharine Weymouth, granddaughter of Katharine Graham, and a flier on the first salon on health-care reform offered an “Underwriting opportunity: an evening with the right people can alter the debate.” The flier went on to urge companies and lobbying groups to “Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with Obama administration and Congressional leaders.”

Politico.com broke the story last week after a lobbyist leaked the flyer to the political blog. By July 2, Weymouth canceled plans for the dinner and on Sunday she published and apology to readers “for a planned new venture that went off track and for any cause we may have given you to doubt our independence and integrity.”

The event was hastily planned and she didn’t see the flier that went out and she acknowledged that the paper’s mistake was to put out a flier offering an off the record event with power brokers and lobbyists that was paid for by a sponsor. The original plan was to hold an event that would be sponsored by a company only “at arms length” that would not allow the company to control the discussion and would not give special access to journalists.

If journalists participated they would not be asked to invite other participants and would serve only as moderators. There “would be no limits on what they could ask. They would have full access to participants and be able to use any information or ideas to further their knowledge and understanding of any issues under discussion.” (Notice she did not say they could write about the talks?”)

The New York Times’ David Carr points out that Weymouth is a lawyer who went to Harvard School of Business but never worked in the newswroom and apparently doesn’t have a firm grasp on the traditional wall between journalism and advertising. That whole conflict of interest thing. And while her explanation about the brochure may be true, it doesn’t’ explain why invitations to the salon to two members of Congress came from her personal email, according to the New York Times.

If you’re wondering whether this affects the paper’s credibility, consider that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joked about whether he could afford to take a question from a Washington Post reporter. Ha ha.

But clearly the dinners were an attempt to make money for a newspaper that lost $19.5 million in the first quarter of this year in what one analyst told the L.A. Times was “the worst quarter in the modern history of American newspapers.”

In fact, many newspapers and media groups have held conferences and talks to make money. The New York Times seems to hold many such events and Politico had a panel at George Washington University in 2007 that was sponsored by the A.C.L.U, according to the New York Times. But these are usually public, on-the-record events.

Clearly, newspapers must find ways to make money. But as the Washington Post has learned selling your soul shouldn’t be one of them.