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Recent Articles
I'm Shocked, Shocked. WaPo Selling Access
Mike Allen of Politico is "astonished" to learn the Washington Post plans to offer top lobbyists and the corporations they represent exclusive access to top government officials and Post reporters in off-the-record salons. Pricetag: $25,000 to $250,000. Conferences, Allen reports, are a "trend" in the news industry as it scrambles to bolster its collapsing revenue stream. The Post newsroom has responded with an internal memo that says its reporters will only attend "where appropriate."
This news isn't astonishing. It's a long standing practice by one of the few sections of the news business that remains profitable -- the newsletter and trade journal business. There's also a vibrant conference sponsorship industry that sells exclusive access to top government officials.
For instance, a Texas-based outfit called Pharma Education Concepts, Ltd. is running one of its trademarked "Pharma Conferences" in Cambridge, Maryland in late-August. Dubbed "GMP By The Sea," the meeting brings top drug industry executives together with Food and Drug Administration officials to hear the latest thinking on globalization and the regulation of drug and biologic manufacturing processes. Featured speaker this year is Murray Lumpkin, deputy FDA commissioner for international and special programs. Pricetag: $1,495 a ticket.
In mid-June, a scrappy industry newsletter called FDAWebview filed a citizens petition with the FDA demanding journalistic access to this and any private meetings where FDA officials appear. Its editor couldn't afford the $1,495 needed to send a reporter to cover the GMP By The Sea meeting where Lumpkin, a public official, might say something newsworthy.
The real issue is what will be the ground rules for these Post-sponsored conferences. The public has the right to know what gets said in these meetings with its elected representatives and civil servants. I stand with FDAWebview. Any session where a top government official appears should be open to the news media, right on down to the lowliest blogger.
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Glad to see that the planned
I think you have a few logic
I think you have a few logic problems here... First: Your example is one of an institution lending its resources to an entity that then charges others a product built in part with its resources (ie, public official's statements). If the institution cannot afford to buy said product, it is only courteous for the profiting entity to share it. When that institution is the federal government, as it is in this case, you can extend the argument to say that the resource in question--comments by a public official--are public property and therefore the government is entitled to a copy of said comments, on the public's behalf. That works.
News organizations SERVE the public, but they are not ipso facto the public, as we can argue, based on our system of democratic representation, the government is. The access of journalists is the wrong argument: every journalist in the room, "even the lowliest blogger," is equal in this regard to every other journalist in the room insofar as they all serve, but don't actually represent, the public. Besides, the presence of a government official speaking somewhere doesn't entitle me as a citizen to be there, just because they're government; why should a universal access standard then hold for journalists?
It isn't a matter of access (or, as you seem to imply, of news organization hierarchy). A full transcript is the better argument, insofar as it's an argument worth having---not because all journalists have the right to have been in the room, but because whatever government official showed up should be serving up a copy of those remarks to his/her boss, who in turn should be sharing them with us, if we want them (insert limitations-of-transparency argument here). Besides, then it doesn't matter who had access to the room, right?
On the other hand, you could argue for government-funded newspapers, and then you'd be right: any tax-funded journalists, as literal representatives of the public, should all have a seat in the room. No doubt, though, there are other issues with that argument...
Though it's all kind of a moot point, since the debacle was called off.