A brouhaha for the Washington Post
The Washington Post found itself in a dustup today over Politico’s reporting that the paper was selling sponsorships to salons for lobbyists and association executives at the home of Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth. The fliers marketing the salons offered off-the-record sessions with journalists and newsmakers. Sponsorships were $25,000 for a single session and $250,000 for a series.
The company has canceled the plans and media reporter Howard Kurtz quotes Weymouth as saying: “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.”
Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told Politico: “You cannot buy access to a Washington Post journalist.” He was named on the flier as one of the “Hosts and Discussion Leaders.”
Jean is projects editor at the Post-Dispatch. She is a member of Bridges Across Racial Polarization, a group devoted to creating friendships and fostering communication among racial and cultural groups in the community. After growing up in a small town in Kansas, she lived in Kansas City and Wilmington, Del., before moving to St. Louis in 2004. She and her husband, Dan Wiggs, live in University City. 
In Washington, everything is for sale, including journalistic integrity. The Washington Post, which abandoned investigative reporting eons ago, decided to boost its sagging revenues by spreading her legs.
I say damn the old fashioned moralists. America would be much better served if the Washington Post was selling access to lobbyists instead of selling the US government’s PSYOPS operations in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Serbia, Venezuela, Honduras, and everywhere else, for which the paper receives a pittance: the reporter can tell his editor that he has a deep source within the government, hardly an adequate recompense for wars that cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when Americans cannot pay the mortgages on their homes.
Once the American media is obviously a whorehouse, which it is, Americans might pull themselves out of their stupor and learn to recognize facts and to think for themselves.
Still employed, Steve?
What’s the logjam?
Can’t figure out how to spell I.G.?