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POLITICO: Washington Post sells access, $25,000+ For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is?

By Glenn Reynolds

POLITICO: Washington Post sells access, $25,000+

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.

And it’s a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

Ouch. But note that we haven’t heard the Post’s side of it yet.

UPDATE: Here’s the response. News people say business people were off the reservation.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on July 02, 2009 (boomark / email).