Ethics

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch?

By Ed Brayton

My CIM colleague Spencer Ackerman has an amusing post at his blog about the impact of free lunches from think tanks on the media:

Ever since the dawn of the blogosphere, there's been a great deal of emphasis placed on the Cult of the Cocktail Party -- that is, the supposedly all-consuming and all-corrupting social event in which journalists are absorbed into the Washington hivemind. Yet we at the IFA can report that journalists have far too much integrity to be purchased for a meager glass of white wine. In truth, journalists lose their souls not at cocktail parties but at think-tank lunches.

And for good reason. Entry-level journalism is a painfully unremunerative job, especially for one of the most expensive cities to live in. When I came to Washington I made $1200 per month and had a rent bill of $525. All of a sudden it's 1 p.m. and all the downtown lunch places are offering are $8 salads. But wait -- isn't there a national-security forum near the Hill? And they're serving... sandwiches? You now understand my career. Come for the tuna salad. Walk out with a three-page bullet-pointed white paper. You now have a full stomach and material to hit your deadline with.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on November 22, 2008 (boomark / email).