A Letter to Our Readers (WaPo's Weymouth: "dog ate homework" - Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Washington Post ^ | July 5, 2009 | Katherine Weymouth

[DUMBGRUNT]

March 2006: Grammar Trap: flier vs. flyer

http://www.agriculture.purdue.edu/agcomm/ontarget/0603/Grammar_trap.htm

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I’m sure this happens all the time. The difference is ADM or DuPont or Raytheon used to go through the pretense of buying a full page ad in the business section on Sunday.

The only thing that’s changed is they just stop using the euphemism “escort service” and put a red light in the window.

[Fred911]

[Raycpa]

Thanks. No wonder I am never certain which word to use.

[angkor]

This time with paragraphs:

"we laid down firm parameters to ensure that these events would be consistent with The Post's values."

Ha ha hah. Grossly hypocritical elitist "values" perhaps.

ComPost "Parameters":

(1) Call these "events", "salons", which Merriam-Webster defines as "a fashionable assemblage of notables (as literary figures, artists, or statesmen) held by custom at the home of a prominent person."

(2) Hold the "salons" in the publisher's home living room.

(3) Adopt the money-making techniques of the most egregious and questionable practices of trade journalism (e.g. from "Waste Management Weekly" and "Restaurant News").

It's actually that last item that exposes the ComPost as having "ethics" and "principles" no more advanced than the lowliest practices of trade journalism.

Because it's one thing to couch your meet-and-greet under the pretensions of a refined and elite "salon."

And it's another thing to hold your "salon" in the publisher's living room.

But it's all quite another universe to tout your "salon" as providing access to journalists. For money.

I only wish they'd included the names of the whores journalists to be in attendance at the "salon" in the letter, so that we'd know just whom Katerine Weymouth considers suitable ladies-of-the-evening for her high class and elite clientele.

And by the way, that's exactly how the alleged "objective journalists" from the MSM consider at this practice of from trade journalism handbook: as straight-up prostitution.

[Man50D]

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.

Her only mistake was not preventing it from becoming public. Her fellow socialists can't be too happy with her.

[abb]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flier

usually flyer : an advertising circular

[hoosier hick]

The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind.

Ah-- the old "some low-level flunky accidently invited people to pay big money to come to my house for a meal and political plotting? defense"...

hh

[abb]

The document.

http://media.washingtonexaminer.com/images/washington-post-white-house-health-care-lobbyists.png

[Raycpa]

It reads like the handbills for sex in Las Vegas.

[HarleyD]

We will not organize such events.

Er...not now that the public has found out.

[abb]

http://www.siennaentertainment.com/productImages/TOP%20FLYER-2.jpg

PG rated pic.

[Bernard]

Whenever the prostitutes become too blatant about conducting their business, the mayor and police chief always feel obligated to make an appearance on TV and promise to clean things up. Which translates to moving the prostitutes and their clients down the street, away from the TV cameras. Same thing with these guys.

The only reason the Washington Post dropped this campaign is that the publicity was too blatant and too public. Now, the question will be, how will the cockroaches at the Washington Post find a way to make that kind of money without having somebody turn on the lights?

[maica]

I just read about a half dozen of the comments on the WaPo site and they are amusing. Posters are accusing the paper of rightwing bias and doing what republicans want!!! I wonder if these posters are living in the Code Pink house on Capitol Hill?

Example:

I’ll have more respect for WaPo’s integrity . . . when it dumps rightwing fascists like Krappthammer and Will . . . who contribute absolutely zero to the discussion of what’s best for the country — they only regurgitate the Neocon(victs) jibberish of the past 50 years . . .

And, the fact that WaPo (and most notably, Blob Woodward) were totally asleep at the switch during Dumbya & Diick’s reign of terror . . . especially The War for Corporate Welfare in Iraq.
7/5/2009 7:35:11 AM

---

pipemannow wrote:
“... Anyone with integrity would resign, as you would call for any politician to resign under such huge ethical lapses....”

Oh, good point...........as a matter of fact, as I recall, the Post never did call for Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld to resign.
7/5/2009 7:43:14 AM

---

The Post lost its way a long time ago - when it decided its role was to promote the power brokers and conventional wisdom in Washington in return for favors, regardless of the cost to the country. This little episode is nothing new, just another step on the long decline from the paper of the 1970’s. In the same way I have dismissed Murdoch’s Fox news for its rabid ideology that trumps everything it does, I have stopped considering the post columnists and opinion leaders because they are so hopelessly antagonistic to changing America, and the people who live outside the beltway.

I think the ideology of the post could be summed up by “we will support those in power if they are republicans” — otherwise we will pretend to be journalists.

A prime example of this attitude is Dana Millbank, who is more concerned over his personal ego than getting his facts straight, or reporting on things he may not like. So goes Dana, so goes the Post. c’est la vie.
7/5/2009 7:56:34 AM

[conservativeharleyguy]

"...We had planned to extend this business to include smaller gatherings, a practice that has become common at other media companies..."

Ahh.... the venerable "5-year-old kid, caught with a stolen cookie defense": "But... but... but... don't spank me, 'cause Tommy took a cookie too"!!!!

Well, since everybody's doing it, it must be OK. I guess just go ahead. Really, what's the harm? Go ahead, get some for yourselves....

Brought to you by the same mentality that looted New Orleans, and is looting the US Treasury.

Tip of the iceberg, seems to me.

[Red Dog #1]

Also in the news today...”Mass Murder Defendant's Mother and Lawyer Say He's Innocent”...”Say's Prosector Out to Get Him”...

[Condor51]

guilty or not?

Guilty.
But the Sentence is suspended :-)

[abb]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/04/AR2009070402722.html
Post Publisher Acknowledges Mistakes
Weymouth Says Rushed Planning Led to Inaccurate Flier on Policy Dinners

[Chode]

and the RATS, take another one in the..............................HA ha!!!