In 1988, I met an alcoholic retired newspaper man who lived in the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, he'd come down to Scranton to hit the clip joints and we became asshole buddies.

He had been a reporter in Washington DC for about 20 years. He told me that the ONLY reason the Washington Post got involved in Watergate was because when Richard Nixon was a representative in the 1940s, Pat Nixon had called Katherine Graham a "yid" and she never forgave it. Yes, Graham's saintly father was a Jew (Might want to check out her paternal grandfather who was run out of LA for the "great water steal" referred to in the movie Chinatown.)

Yes, in her "autobiography" she refers very favorably to her friend, a war criminal named Henry Kissinger, a fellow Jew, at least 200 times, and to Pat Nixon three times when she and Pat were in Washington at the same time for at least 25 years.

The great democracy and its great newspapers.

First, it is absurd to suggest that the publishers home was to be used and she had not been involved with the planning. Second if it was an out of control marketing guy, there would have been one or more firings. As you write, Lambert, the "apology" is neither a real apology nor an honest statement about what the Post did. But most importantly, it demonstrates more clearly than any article the Post could have published how deeply corrupt our nation's government is and how utterly unfit the Washington Post is to cover it.

It's all about training the reporters on acceptable reporting (emphasis mine).

"What was the point of this fine salon? In his opening paragraph, Kurtz attempts to define the problem:

This dinner would have given a big corporate player like Kaiser Permanente “access to Post journalists, Obama administration officials and members of Congress,” Kurtz unconvincingly says. In paragraph four, the Post’s executive editor accepts this framework in denouncing this unseemly plan. "It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase,” he rails. But crackers! Big corporate interests like Kaiser Permanente already have access to major Post journalists. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t. It’s absurd to suggest that they don’t.

An event like this would not be about giving Kaiser “access” to Connolly. This event would be about defining acceptable boundaries of thought and discussion within the Washington In Group. The Group would sit at Weymouth’s table, thrilled to have been invited there. And The Group would learn what you can and can’t say—if you want to remain in The Group.

And don’t worry—the grasping losers who hand you your “news” do want to sit at that table! The want the career advancement such status implies. They long for the high social standing."

As for the 'redoubtable' Katherine Graham, read further:

"In 2003, the grasping climber Margaret Carlson explained the process with remarkable candor in the 26-page autobiographical chapter which drove her semi-book, Anyone Can Grow Up (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/18/03). In that chapter, Carlson described the gruesome process by which she attained social standing inside DC’s elite. In her inspiring up-from-steerage tale, she—the child of working-class, Irish Catholic parents—ends up sitting at the right hand of Post publisher Katharine Graham!"

snip

"“I always said yes,” this classic climber wrote. But when social climbers like the young Carlson agree to say yes, they are typically saying yes to more than a set of dinner invitations. They are also saying yes to the constellation of political views which guarantee them a continuing seat at such Very High Tables.

They’re saying yes to what The Group believes. They’re saying no to everything else.

Today, Carlson is one of the biggest fools in Washington. (She’s also a regular, simpering guest on our biggest “progressive” TV show! Surely, the gods rock with laughter.) But in her very valuable book, she gave us a very valuable look at the desire of these social/career climbers—the desire to gain acceptance at The Highest Washington Tables. But darlings! To gain acceptable at those tables, there are certain things you mustn’t say— mustn’t believe, contemplate or even discuss."

The big players already have plenty of access, only a moron wouldn't know that. They have access to the White House, they have access to the politicians, they have access to the reporters, they have access to the editors and any other elite they want. What they don't have is reporter's bosses legitmizing them explicitly in front of the reporters personally. They don't have a forum to explicitly lay out what the 'story' is or should be, or how it should be massaged, what terms are 'correct', etc.. It's not even subtle.

All this talk about 'access' is plain silliness, embarrassingly dumb. But of course, Somerby gets it, gets it first, and was even on it nearly a decade ago. Every day he is proven more right.

To even read such a statement without immediately thinking, "WTF?" one would have to assume health insurance lobbyists would put down money and not expect something in return (and that "something" would not be empathy, but overt advocacy through deception). How stupid do they think we are?! "Went off track?" Please.

This is why we need public-backed journalism. When it comes to public goods that are necessary for the well-being of a democracy (e.g., schools, fire departments) there must be government organizations offering such services.

EDIT: Let me just add: even if lobbyists aren't putting down money, their sole intention in meeting with a person of power, whether they are politicians or journalists, is to get you to lie on their company's behalf. So why would you approach them to "further" your "knowledge" about the company or industry you're writing about? They're inherently compromised.