Time for a Blogger Ethics Panel

As traditional business models collapse, more and more prestigious media outlets are trying to find innovative ways to cash in. The Atlantic, where I was working last summer, now earns a substantial amount of revenue by having its writing staff serve as entertainment for hyper-wealthy summer vacationers at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival. And the New Yorker, I know, now stages a lot of “events” where I guess people pay money to see New Yorker writers speak in person. This mostly strikes me as clever and unobjectionable, a smart way of adapting, but you can always wind up stumbling into awkward territory:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational 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.” [...]

“Underwriting Opportunity: An evening with the right people can alter the debate,” says the one-page flier. “Underwrite and participate in this intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth … Bring your organization’s CEO or executive director literally to the table. Interact with key Obama Administration and Congressional leaders …

In my experience, editorial staff really don’t like being asked to participate in this sort of thing, but with the economics of the business being what they are it’s not clear that anyone really has any choice.