Mike Allen at Politico reports that the Washington Post has launched a pay-for-play scheme for health care lobbyists seeking favorable treatment in the paper’s pages and access to the Post’s many inside contacts among the Obama cabal. Even ethically challenged Washington lobbyists are revolted:
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”
The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.
If this is what the Post needs to do to survive, it should do America a favor and die.
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Happy Independence Day, everyone. Happy birthday America!
[...] an open letter to readers for the proposed pay-for-play arrangement with healthcare lobbyists that we reported on last week: I want to apologize for a planned new venture that went off track and for any cause we may have [...]