WP, Kurtz: Influence Being Peddled! (WP Co. $100K Inaugural contributor)

[DeepModem Mom]

Influence Being Peddled!
Friday, Jan 14, 2005; 2:51 PM

It was hard to miss the front-page headline in yesterday's Washington Post: "Big-Money Contributors Line Up for Inauguration."...

***

Oh, and by the way: The Washington Post Co. forked over $100,000.

Not to worry, the company has an explanation: "We make clear to one and all that all we want is tickets to the balls for our major corporate advertisers," Post Co. Vice President Patrick Butler, who is quoted in the piece, told me. "If we could get them on eBay, we would have done it." The money buys a grand total of 50 tickets. The company, which made similar donations in 1993, 1997 and 2001, passes up the other perks, such as "dinners with all kinds of high and mighty," said Butler.

Courting advertisers may be the motivation, but the appearance is awful. After all, the practice is deemed unsavory enough to warrant a Page 1 piece in The Post Co.'s newspaper.

The company has business interests that are affected by administration policies. It owns a bunch of television stations that have FCC licenses, for example. So are we being asked to believe that the Bush administration will not notice that The Washington Post Co. was neighborly enough to cough up 100K for the inaugural bashes? We -- meaning journalists who work in the newsroom -- don't believe that other corporations and trade associations give such contributions without expecting anything in return. In fact, we write about this sort of thing all the time, including yesterday....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/kurtzhoward/?sub=AR

[Voltaire99]

1. "A Whore is a Whore, Of Course, Of Course, Unless...

...unless the name of the Whore is the Washington Post."

Shameful; all too typical, though.

The Post once willing to take a financial beating for reporting Watergate is long since gone.

[UpInArms]

2. don't you mean The Whoreshington Post? ....... n/t

[The Zanti Regent]

3. The WHORESHINGTON POST lives up to its' name!

If anyone doubted that that miserable dog turd of a propaganda rag wasn't kissing Bush ass 24/7, this is the smoking gun.

I hope Bob Woodward gets what he deserves for flaunting all the brown lipstick he wears!

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Hi, Zanti --

I knew you'd like this one!:)

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Especially when you found the smoking gun, Deep Modern Mom!

Is it too much to even dream that the presstituting will ever end???????

[Supersedeas]

5. Top Hats and Cigars for all our corporate sponsors--but we claim to spin

for neither.

Funny...the appearance of impropriety is just that...an appearance.
Keep the faith and ignore the physical manifestations of cronyism.

OK.

[tibbiit]

6. did they pay

100 grand for the 50 tickets in 1993-2001?
Did they pay big dollars for the Clinton bashes??
tib

[The Zanti Regent]

9. Now, you KNOW Sally Quinn vetoed that!

My goodness, even doing anything like that with those (her words) "White Trash Clintons"...

BTW is Sally still doing the immoral out of wedlock act with Ben Bradlee?

[DeepModem Mom]

14. I think Ben married Sally long ago, which she apparently...

saw as justification to set herself up as a moral arbiter not only for D.C., but for our entire nation. What a smug, hypocritical snob she is!

[pk_du]

10. Apparently they did in 1997 but not in 1993

but they still suck.

<snip>

The Washington Post Co. gave $100,000. Patrick Butler, vice president of the company, said the donation was an efficient way of getting tickets to inaugural balls for Post and Newsweek advertisers. The company, which owns Newsweek, "traded back" to the committee all the tickets for dinners, receptions and ceremonial events to get 100 inaugural ball tickets.

"Appearances" were considered, Butler said, "but because we've done these kind of things in the past -- at different price levels -- we thought it wasn't unprecedented."

For President Bill Clinton's 1997 inauguration, The Post paid $15,014 for ball tickets, which cost $150 each. Tickets to the inaugural balls this year cost $125.

<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A48775-2001Jan25¬Found=true

[girl gone mad]

12. They cost $125 each, but $100K only gets them 50?

Ummm... fuzzy math or lies? What's the story here?

[daleo]

8. The advertisers could just get their own tickets

This is a lame excuse, and shows how comfortable they are with the Bush administration's agenda.

[Isere]

11. Howard "Conflict of Interest" Kurtz

Isn't there something a little rich about Howard Kurtz lecturing on ethics?

[kodi]

13. Why, I am shocked, shocked that there are pigs in the sty!

with government in some form accounting for 35-40% of the economy, why would anyone think that people and corporations would not suckle at the teat of government?

as if anyone remembers the virtually complete silence on the pages of the wash post corp (and NY Times corp.)back in the mid 90's when congress debated media consolidation legislation that favored their companies ledger at the expense of the public.

congress gave away the store, and the media giants kept mum.