By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Published: July 2, 2009
For generations, The Washington Post has been a scrupulous watchdog over the capital’s cozy world of power networking. For a short time, it almost became the network’s host.
The Post decided Thursday to cancel plans to charge lobbyists and trade groups $25,000 or more to sponsor private, off-the-record dinner parties at the home of its publisher, Katharine Weymouth, events that would have brought together lobbyists, business leaders, Post journalists and officials from the Obama administration and Congress.
The revelation of the parties early Thursday morning by Politico.com appalled members of The Post newsroom and put the paper squarely in the cross hairs of journalism ethicists. In response, Ms. Weymouth canceled the first dinner, scheduled for July 21.
A flier describing the events promised corporate sponsors conversation (“Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No.”) at the Washington home of Ms. Weymouth. Sponsors were asked to pay $25,000 to attend an event, or underwrite a series of 11 for $250,000.
The July 21 event, focusing on health care reform, “guaranteed” a “collegial evening” with health industry advocates, Post journalists covering the field and administration officials involved with its policies.
The Politico article prompted an immediate newsroom reaction. The Post’s ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, wrote on his blog that “this comes pretty close to a public relations disaster.”
Valerie Strauss, a reporter who, unlike some, was willing to speak on the record, said, “I don’t believe the newsroom would ever go along with that.”
With the print business in tough straits, many news organizations have turned to conferences and other events to raise revenue and their profiles. But the planned Post events seem particularly audacious, not only acting essentially as a paid conduit between lobbyists and government officials, but also providing sponsors the opportunity to make their case to Post journalists.
It was not entirely clear Thursday how the salon idea had developed, how much people inside the company knew about it or who planned to attend. Soon after the news broke, Marcus W. Brauchli, executive editor of The Post, sent a memo to his staff saying that “the language in the flier and the description of the event preclude our participation.”
In an interview, Mr. Brauchli said he had intended to go to the dinner and knew the company was seeking paying sponsors. But he said he did not see the promotional flier, or know that the event might have a single sponsor. Invitations to the event stated it was “underwritten by Kaiser Permanente.”
Sybil Wartenberg, a Kaiser spokeswoman, said that despite what was written on the invitation, “we were in discussions about the event, but there was no final agreement for us to participate.”
Mr. Brauchli said that in talking to The Post’s marketing arm, “we have always been explicit that there are certain parameters that are elemental for newsroom participation” in special events. Among those, he said, “we do not limit our questions, and we reserve the right to allow any ideas that emerge in an event to shape or inform our coverage.”
A few officials at the Department of Health and Human Services had been invited to the gathering, but no senior White House officials, administration aides said. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said during his daily press briefing, “I do not believe, based on what I’ve been able to check, that anybody has accepted the invitations.”
In midafternoon, Ms. Weymouth sent a memo to employees, saying: “A flier went out that was prepared by the marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom. Had it been, the flier would have been immediately killed, because it completely misrepresented what we were trying to do.” She added that other salon dinners would not involve the newsroom.
The Post recently hired a marketing executive, Charles Pelton, to begin organizing conferences, and executives said the flier came from his group. He did not return calls seeking comment.
The Post’s ombudsman, Mr. Alexander, in his blog, quoted Mr. Pelton as saying that the nature of the events had been “well developed with the newsroom,” but that “what was not developed was the marketing message to potential sponsors.”
News of the planned events dominated discussion across the nation’s capital Thursday, and inspired wisecracks.
At that White House briefing, when a Post reporter, Michael Shear, asked about the president’s health care plan, Mr. Gibbs joked: “The counsel’s office has advised me to ask Mike exactly how much each of these questions is costing. I seem to have forgotten my AmEx card.”
In the Post’s newsroom, editors and reporters reacted with dismay. Marc Fisher, the enterprise editor for local news, said people in the newsroom knew the company was considering conferences, “but I don’t think that anybody envisioned that we would attempt to sell access in a very limited way, with the implication that there would be inside information only to those who ponied up big money.”
Most often, events held by journalism organizations are on the record and the public can attend by buying a ticket. Even Politico, which broke The Post story, has done some such events.
“We have not done anything quite like this,” said John F. Harris, the editor in chief of Politico, referring to The Post’s plan. In December 2007, for instance, Politico hosted a panel at George Washington University that was sponsored by the A.C.L.U.
During last year’s presidential conventions, Politico had panels sponsored by Yahoo.
Since 2003, The Wall Street Journal has held the All Things Digital Conference, which gathers executives and others for “informal but pointed conversations” for an audience of paying customers.
The New York Times, too, has considered holding paid business-sponsored forums involving Times journalists, but only on conditions that would avoid any real or apparent conflicts of interest, company officials said.
What has made The Post’s proposed events different is the setting — in the privacy of the publisher’s home — and that they were aimed at connecting lobbyists, trade associations and other influential capital players.
Loren Ghiglione, a professor of journalism ethics at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, said the episode was “disappointing but not surprising,” at a time when news organizations are casting about for ways to replace lost revenue. “So it’s not surprising that people got, let’s say, a little too creative about how to do that,” he said.
Jeff Zeleny and Tim Arango contributed reporting.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/business/media/03post.html
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