It’s Washington, so we can chalk this up to habit

The newspaper that taught us to “follow the money” is apparently doing the same: Politico reports that the Washington Post has advertised events to sell access to reporters and government officials.

This type of thing isn’t new – political debates and public forums often have media sponsors.  But those events have a purpose which serves the “public good” (and as journalists like to remind us, theirs is a profession where the pursuit of public good is vital).  The public good in exclusive “Salons” for the inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia is, shall we say, somewhat less clear.