Weymouth's Weak Apology to Wash Post Readers

The Washington Post's publisher and CEO, Katharine Weymouth, apologized in Sunday's paper for what she calls "a planned new venture that went off track.'' She's referring, of course, to the plan – scotched pronto once it was reported - to sell access to government officials and to her own newsroom staff at a series of small dinners in her home.

The initial story, broken by Mike Allen in Politico, reported that the paper was trying to line up corporate sponsors who would pay big bucks to lobby officials and befriend reporters and editors right in the publisher's living room – at $25,000 a pop, or $250,000 for a series of soirees.

Initially, Weymouth faulted her marketing department, and said that the bald cash-for-access trade advertised in a flier sent to lobbyists was not at all what she had in mind. Only, was that because the language in the advertisement was so vulgar and, well, accurate, or because she really saw that the setup was, from soup to cheese course, an ethical non-starter?

Since then, somebody seems to have convinced K-Wey that blaming underlings is not the cowgirl way; I wouldn't say she's come to Jesus, exactly, but it's a start: "The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind,'' she says in the apology. "But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem. Our mistake was to suggest that we would hold and participate in an off-the-record dinner with journalists and power brokers paid for by a sponsor.''

But the mistake wasn't in the suggesting; it was in actually planning to hold and participate in off-the-record dinners with journalists and power brokers paid for by a sponsor. The paper's editor, Marcus Brauchli, had planned to attend the dinners. And last week, a piece on the scandal by Post media writer Howard Kurtz reported, based on interviews with two executives familiar with the planning of the events, that "Weymouth knew of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation. But, one of the executives said, she believed that there would be multiple sponsors, to minimize any appearance of charging for access.''

She still has not addressed how she could possibly have thought multiple sponsors would minimize any appearance of charging for access -- when she actually would have been charging for access.

Now, in any case, she promises, "We will not organize such events. As publisher it is my job to ensure that we adhere to standards that are consistent with our integrity as a news organization. Last week, I let you, and the organization, down. The Washington Post remains committed, now and always, to the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Nothing is more important to us than that, and nothing will shake that commitment.

So, what happened? Like other media companies, The Post hosts conferences and live events that bring together journalists, government officials and other leaders for discussions of important topics. These events make news and inform their audiences. We had planned to extend this business to include smaller gatherings, a practice that has become common at other media companies.''

No, conferences and panels open to the public without charge or for a nominal fee are not the same at all, and if she knows of any other media company that charges to put government officials and reporters together with the lobbyists who'd like to influence them, I'd like to know about it.

"From the outset,'' she writes in the apology, "we laid down firm parameters to ensure that these events would be consistent with The Post's values. If the events were to be sponsored by other companies, everything would be at arm's length -- sponsors would have no control over the content of the discussions, and no special access to our journalists.''

Only, if they're having dinner in her home, how is that not special access?

As long as so many unanswered questions remain, I don't see how the paper – where my husband is a reporter – can possibly put this behind it. As she must know as well as anybody, that isn't how it works.

And when the photos Annie Leibovitz recently shot of Weymouth and Brauchli as the new Kay Graham and Ben Bradlee are published in Vogue someday soon, well, the captions might not be quite what they'd hoped.