Politico and the Washington Post Have Become Virtual "Escort Services" for Moneyed Elites

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For a half dozen years, Atlantic Media has been hosting sponsored salon dinners in Washington and around the U.S.  I don’t believe that any one of these events had any of the ill intention or effect that some have attributed to The Washington Post concept. But we live on a street too close to the brush fire to pretend no interest.  So what I thought I might do is give the detail of the Atlantic Media dinners, address some of the concerns I’m reading now on the Web, explain the virtue I see in this work and end with a personal statement and caveat.  Please forgive me if this runs long.

Let me begin by saying that I won’t distance myself from this issue.  From some of our earliest events, I have been part of the thinking behind this work.  I’ve approved many sponsored dinners personally, sent out my own invitations, hosted some dinners at my house, welcomed the sponsors in my remarks and written thank you notes to those involved.  I am a part of this work.   Openly.

That led Slate’s media critic Jack Shafer who called the Atlantic’s salons "corrupting” to scathingly write:

In an interoffice memo that he posted to the Web yesterday, Bradley defended the corporately sponsored, off-the-record public-policy dinners that his company has been hosting for "a half-dozen years” in his patented self-effacing manner. He claims that his presence at his sponsored dinners "as to all things -- tends to dampen high spirits.” Elsewhere in the memo, Bradley writes, "Please forgive me if this runs long.” Oh, no, David! It’s your blogspace and your defense! Go on as long as you’d like! I’ll even hold your coat while you do!

Others, also, weren’t fully buying Bradley’s explanation.

Zachary Roth, who broke the original story for TPM Muckraker about the Atlantic’s salons, had this to say about Bradley’s defense of himself.

Atlantic Media publisher David Bradley is defending the corporate-sponsored, off-the-record "salon” dinners that his company has been organizing since 2003, in response to TPMmuckraker’s report yesterday on the dinners.

In a 1500-word "letter” posted on The Hotline, Bradley refers to "concerns I’m reading now on the web” (no attribution, naturally), before explaining why he thinks the salons -- which, as we wrote yesterday, are very similar to the Washington Post’s planned event that ignited a furor last week -- "are full of good purpose.” (He adds that they’re also "part of my best thinking on how we carry forward (read fund) modern journalism.”)

But Bradley falls back in part on the same defense that Post publisher Katherine Weymouth used, unconvincingly, last week: I didn’t read the marketing materials -- obtained by TPMmuckraker -- and they don’t reflect the true nature of the events. He writes:

The Washington Post’s Katharine Weymouth had not begun, in fact, the hosting of policy dinners; I am six years into this work. What we do share in common is that I, too, had not read our marketing materials. I don’t believe ours are egregious but I now know they do not all reflect the central fact of our conversations - dialogue and debate, without the advance of a particular interest. Due diligence now begun, we will make sure that future materials reflect exactly the spirit and facts of the dinners…

And he admits:

I would not rank this last week among my favorites in publishing.

You sort of get the impression that, from the moment Politico’s report on the Post’s planned salon came out last week; Bradley knew it was only a matter of time before the focus turned to his own events.