The Washington Post’s plan for lobbyist-sponsored, off-the-record meetings with high-level government officials was “an ethical lapse of monumental proportions,” Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander wrote in a Post op-ed Sunday.
The newspaper’s publisher, Katharine Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and other top editors “were all aboard a fast-moving vehicle that, over a period of months, roared through ethics stop signs and plowed into a brick wall,” Alexander wrote. A Washington Post Co. spokeswoman did not return calls for comment.
The ethical stumble came to light earlier this month when a Politico reporter obtained a flier advertising so-called “salons.” The flier had been distributed to various lobbying firms and described the nonconfrontational gatherings as a chance to “hear and be heard as an equal with key policymakers and other stakeholders.” The events were to be held in Weymouth’s home and include Post editors and reporters. The flyer said sponsorships for the events were available for $25,000 each.
The problem, as Alexander put it, is that by charging for access to its newsroom personnel, Post “reporters or editors could easily be perceived as being in the debt of the sponsors.” The salons crossed the firewall that traditionally sits between the newsroom and the money-collecting arm of the newspaper business, he said.
According to Alexander, Weymouth has taken full responsibility for the salons, which have been canceled.
“I’m the leader of the organization,” Weymouth reportedly told Alexander. “If anyone should have stopped it, it should have been me.” She left her future as the paper’s publisher up to her uncle, Washington Post Co. Chief Executive Officer Donald Weymouth.
“Katharine,” Donald Weymouth told Alexander, “understands the values that are central to the Post and upholds them well.”
The scandal comes at a time when newspapers, and in particular The Post, are being hit hard by revenue losses. In the first quarter of this year, the newspaper reported an operating loss of $53.8 million.
And while other news organizations have planned events similar to The Post’s salons as part of their search for alternative income streams, this is “about the worst thing [The Post] could be trying to do,” Andy Schotz, president of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics Committee recently told The Examiner.
Brauchli also shouldered blame for the failed revenue-generating mission, Alexander wrote.
“The Washington Post prides itself on its coverage of the intersection of monied interests and people who guide policy or make laws,” Brauchli said. “And we should not be facilitating that intersection. We should be covering it.”
