More Details Emerge on Post Sponsorship Scandal
Newspaper ombudsmen rarely, in my view, contribute all that much to our understanding of what’s happening. But Andrew Alexander’s column on the Washington Post industry-sponsored salons concept breaks from that mold and really adds value. Initially, this was explained to the public as a kind of rogue business staff operation gone off the rails without anyone on the editorial side knowing. But Alexander makes clear that that’s not the case. Charles Pelton was the key mover on the business side, and he was well aware that he ought to clear this concept with editorial before moving forward:
The e-mail said the plan to hold the dinners at Weymouth’s home “speaks to heavy editorial involvement” through “mixing different editors and beat reporters.” But in arguing for “background only” discussions, Pelton asked if they thought the discussions should be “on or off the record.” And while he endorsed the sponsorship idea, noting there would always be “more than one,” he also said “I want to be sure our newsroom is also comfortable” with the arrangement.
Within an hour of receiving the e-mail, Brauchli forwarded it to his top three editors — managing editors Raju Narisetti and Liz Spayd, as well as deputy managing editor Milton Coleman — asking their thoughts.
You should read the whole piece.
My bottom line is that realistically even if the news business recovers from the recession we’re looking at a more competitive future environment with lower profit margins. That means, in practice, much less editorial insulation from business considerations than was the case during midcentury. Everyone will tell you that advertisers or sponsors or donors or whatnot don’t influence their coverage, but I think everyone should be suspicious of those kind of claims. In the real world, he who pays the piper calls the tune at least to some extent. Which is ultimately why it’s important to have a media that contain diverse revenue models—commercial and non-commercial, subscription-based and ad-based, etc.—so that you don’t have too much systematic distortion of coverage.
10 Responses to “More Details Emerge on Post Sponsorship Scandal”
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July 12th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
The attempt to blame the temp guy / girl for running to Kinko’s with a flier which wasn’t properly vetted was one of those horse-shit dodges which was so utterly obvious that everybody who was anybody tried diligently not to notice it.
July 12th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Once the main-stream American media saw that they could effectively censor any item critical of Israel, it was a natural step to censor items critical or even not supportive of neoliberal/laissez-faire economics.
That accomplished, now they are trying to move on to more directly dictating policy discussions.
The publishers want to be a modern Cardinal Richelieu.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Arguably, these sponsorship deals are more transparent than old-style corporate influence — friends of the publisher, major advertisers, firms with lots of local employees and nonprofits with clout-heavy boards receiving deferential or promotional news coverage.
That’s assuming the sponsorships are publicly known, which they presumably wouldn’t have been in the WaPo’s off-the-record salon scheme. (No report of the gathering, so no mention of who bankrolled it.)
The off-the-record, “non-confrontational” ground rule of this scheme was what made it scandalous for a news organization, not the idea of a corporate funder of an exchange of views. Plenty of public policy forums, debates, lectures, etc., are sponsored by businesses, foundations and wealthy, influential individuals, and aren’t viewed as being tainted by their sponsors.
Also, does anyone seriously think that administration officials, representatives of interest groups, policy wonks and journalists would be any more candid or off-script around Weymouth’s dinner table than they would be in a public forum? The biggest difference, I suspect, would be looser time constraints at the dinner party, enabling everyone to get out more talking points.
July 12th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Who is this blog’s ombudsman?
July 12th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Whenever the problems facing the newspaper industry are discussed, some basic truths should be acknowledged:
1) Newspapers were hurting badly while the economy was humming along.
2) The pain the newspapers were then feeling, although no doubt aided by dwindling readership and advertising, was not caused by them – indeed, many newspapers that were seen as failures and that their owners were looking to sell or to close were making operating profits over business expenses of around 20%. They may have been looking ahead to progressively bleaker future prospects, but they should have been doing fine on their merits at the time.
3) The big problem the newspapers then faced was a crippling debt load, the result of financing ridiculous leveraging to realize their vastly over-bidded book value or to take them over, such that papers meeting and even greatly exceeding their operating expenses could not hope to bear the burden. See Sam Zell’s record for a great example of this.
July 12th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Newspapers are always hooked into the chamber of commerce in any city. That the post wanted to monetize that hook is pretty gross. But the hook is still there. D.C. money comes from lobbying and from war. The Post reliably advocates wars and the causes of the heavier lobbyists (for instance, “centrist” solutions to health care – i.e. the continuing control of health care by insurance companies) The Post’s love of wars might seem, to the reader out of the D.C. orbit, as just a perverse taste for blood, explaining the career of Krauthammer et al – but anybody who noticed how much money went to D.C. for the war on terror will realize that this is where the town’s bread is buttered. Of course, the population of D.C. – people below the one hundred thou a year level – have no newspaper, and haven’t for years.
The surprise is that all the D.C. papers are so rightwing when the D.C. suburbs are so reliably liberal. I think the need to promote war is what pulls them all so far to the right. It is a shame that there is no nice liberal paper – one that isn’t a Joe Lieberman faux-liberal paper – that could pick up on a constituency that is obviously ill served. The problem is, that constituency most likely has either dropped newspapers all together – the majority solution – or reads the NYT – along with the Post.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I think the secondary takeaway from this piece is that Brauchli, the executive editor, is a big fat liar and probably needs to resign. But he almost certainly won’t.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
The solution? Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment will be over soon. Next year could very well be Year of the Washington Post Editorial Board.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Who is this blog’s ombudsman?
Jennifer Palmieri.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
[...] ===== NOTES: Washington Post item via Yglesias. [...]