Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth abruptly canceled plans Thursday to hold a series of policy dinners at her home, wherein lobbyists and corporate representatives would have been able to mingle with journalists and lawmakers for a nominal fee.
Marketing fliers for the events, written and approved by the Post's business department, promised lobbyists access to journalists, members of Congress and Obama administration officials, charging upwards of $25,000 a head. As soon as news of the dinner broke, the invitations were promptly revoked, while Weymouth issued an apology.
"Absolutely, I'm disappointed. This should never have happened," Weymouth said in an interview with her own newspaper. "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."
Politico was the first organization to break the story, prompting an uproar from the Post's own newsroom about the journalistic ethics of a corporate-sponsored dinner to facilitate policy discussion.
"Bring your organization's CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders . . . Spirited? Yes. Confrontational? No," read the flier for a July 21 dinner. "The relaxed setting in the home of Katharine Weymouth assures it."
The salon, it continued, would involve "health-care reporting and editorial staff members of The Washington Post . . . an exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done."
Among those invited to the dinner, via personal e-mail from Weymouth's office, were Tennessee Democrat Rep. Jim Cooper and Maine Republican Sen. Olympia J Snowe. Cooper accepted the invitation, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, as an opportunity to exchange ideas about policy, while Snowe chose to decline the offer.
Weymouth claimed that she had never read the copy for the marketing flier, apologizing for her apparent compromising of journalistic ethics by allowing special interests privileged access to Washington's top reporters and legislators.
