Comments on: The WaPo Digs Deeper

By: EliRabett

EliRabett — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:44:44 +0000

Isn’t selling access to public officials against the law? If so where is the justice department

By: Nell

Nell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:50:52 +0000

Remember all the fainting spells six or seven years ago in reaction to Media Whores Online’s terribly, terribly uncivil name and attitude?

By: Rayne

Rayne — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:00:01 +0000

Melinda Hennenberger, Editor in Chief at AOL’s Politics Daily, has an update which says Pelton invited a couple dozen business executives and White House health care adviser Nancy Ann DeParle (also points out that DeParle’s spouse works at NYT). Kaiser Permanente had voiced an offer to be one of the sponsors for the first salon.

So much for the typical guest list of 20 or less; they hadn’t even rounded out the number of WaPo or Congressional attendees yet.

Cannot believe Pelton pulled this out of his backside. This has to be something that was cooked up over time, had Weymouth’s consent since it was going to be held at her house (jeebus, can you imagine letting a marketing manager decide who’s going to be eating at a dinner party at your own house?). Really want to know if this was a standard across industry, or at least at Pelton’s previous employer. Would be no surprise to me if WSJ did this stuff after all.

By: PPDCUS

PPDCUS — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:06:50 +0000

Demise of the Fourth Estate

For those of us who remember the days of Katherine Graham & Ben Bradley, it’s important to note that Watergate was an aberration. Graham, Bradley, Woodward & Bernstein all knew the risks of taking on the most powerful anti-constitutional regime before Cheney & Bush rode into town on an election decided by five votes to four.

The Graham men prior to Katherine ran the Post like a country club where only the rich & powerful were invited, much like the Villagers’ paper of record today.

If they keep this charade up for much longer, 2009 will be noted as the year the word journalism passed from common American usage.

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” Thomas Jefferson

By: milly

milly — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Silly me …I thought when g bush planted Jeff Gannon a male hooker in the WH press corpse for two years with none of the corpse picking up on the hooker in the midst….it was a joke.He did have a zany sense of humor.

Come to find out it was business as usual and not a joke.

By: Dalybean

Dalybean — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:05:34 +0000

The Washington Post’s acting like this was a big mistake is a crock. I just found this interview from December 0f 2008 with the marketing person for the Atlantic where she is bragging about the exact same pay-to-play business model of corporate-sponsored salon dinners that the Post was using. http://www.bizbash.com/washing…..nters.php, which Howie Kurtz then wrote about in April of this year. Howie Kurtz and that whole crew at the Post are bald-faced liars in pretending that they weren’t doing the same thing as The Atlantic. Who will be holding The Atlantic and The National Journal to account?

By: Funnydiva2002

Funnydiva2002 — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:47:58 +0000

Oh, delighted to hear they don’t intend to pedal. Wouldn’t want them bicycling newspaper gods and godesses to get smushed in DC traffic.
And even if that’s a typo, it’s still not much of a denial.
“Oh, no, dahlink, we wouldn’t peddle influence. So common…only little people peddle.”
FunnyWheelieDiva

By: Dalybean

Dalybean — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:14:12 +0000

I’ve just returned from a discussion at Matt Yglesias’ blog on this issue where I raised the question about whether the journalists themselves were paid stipends to participate in these events and the response was, “What would be wrong with that?”

By: fatster

fatster — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:04:36 +0000

OK, you win! Thnx.

By: moeman

moeman — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:57:36 +0000

What font did they use in that flier/flyer?