Ethics

Washington Post Fails Journalistic Ethics

By Ed Brayton

The Washington Post has caused quite a scandal with this terrible idea:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and -- at first -- even the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on July 06, 2009 (boomark / email).