http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.c...70B2-A8FD90B34
E41BF57
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 paperıs 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 itıs a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as
the flier says, its ³health 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.
And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington
Post for its ethical practices.
--
Stephen