As reported by Politico (7/2/09), the Post circulated a flyer offering--for the low, low cost of $25,000--an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and publisher Katharine Weymouth." The circular promised the participation of "key Obama administration and congressional leaders" as well as "healthcare reporting and editorial staff members of the Washington Post."

Lest anyone be confused as to why dinner at the Post's publisher's house would be worth $25,000, the flyer helpfully points out that "an evening with the right people can alter the debate." It calls the event "an exclusive opportunity to participate in the healthcare reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done." It's quite straightforward: The Post is offering to help a deep-pocketed customer an opportunity to alter the healthcare reform process by granting access to government officials and its own journalists.

Naturally, one is not allowed to be that honest about the relationship between money, power and journalism in Washington, D.C.  A Post spokesperson told Politico that the advertisement was released "before it was properly vetted," and that the "draft does not represent what the company's vision for these dinners are, which is meant to be an independent, policy-oriented event for newsmakers." Boy, that doesn't sound as much like it's worth 25 grand, does it?

Post publisher Katharine Weymouth then did an interview with employee Howard Kurtz in which she vowed they were "not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom." But she was aware "of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation." And Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli said that "he had been involved in discussions, stretching back to last year, about newsroom participation in conferences"--but the good kind of conference, not the kind that makes you look like a sleazy influence-peddler.

So it looks like they're going to go ahead with these things--"We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business, and that the Post should be leading these conversations," the Post statement to Politico said--but presumably next time they won't market them so nakedly as an exchange of money for power.  Don't worry, Post Co., your clients will still know what they're buying.

Having observed wartime media long enough to know that "that's the way routine death stories go," Solomon has also observed that "reporting on life is like that, and reporting on death is like that: even more so when the media lenses are ground with ideology, nationalism and economic convenience":

The conventional wisdom of press and state insists that the U.S. war effort must do more than go on--it must escalate--in the name of human decency. The political rhetoric in Washington is close to 100 percent humanitarian, while the new supplemental infusion of U.S. spending for Afghanistan is 90 percent military.

Inside a contrived news frame, destruction can nurture life. In media myth, we can be well-informed and ignorant of war's realities. Along the way, the benefits of numbed quiescence and muffled dissent are vastly overrated.

Listen to Solomon's recent appearance on the FAIR radio show CounterSpin: "Norman Solomon on Obama's Inauguration" (1/23/09).

Global Insight projected that after 20 years of higher defense spending, annual car sales would be down by more than 700,000. Housing starts would be almost 40,000 lower. Exports would be 1.8 percent lower and imports would be 2.7 percent higher, leading to a trade deficit that was almost $200 billion larger. The model also projected that there would be nearly 700,000 fewer jobs as a result of the higher level of defense spending.

In short, the economic harm projected from high levels of military spending is far larger than the damage projected from the Waxman-Markey bill. Given this situation, we should expect that all the oil and coal industry folks who are now so concerned about the average family's well-being would have been screaming about the economic pain that would result from sustaining the Iraq War levels of military spending.

Did anyone ever hear them raise this issue? Does anyone recall members of Congress giving speeches about how the job loss from the Iraq War levels of spending will be devastating? Does anyone recall any newspaper columns or editorials making this point? How about a news story that analyzed the economic impact of higher levels of military spending?

"For some reason," Baker says, "job loss and economic pain associated with the military are just not worth mentioning. These items only become newsworthy when the issue is saving the environment." Listen to the FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Miriam Pemberton on Military Budget" (4/17/09).

suggestion for a remedy for our diseased nation that is so far gone now that there is only one solution: Another 9/11....

[guest Michael] Scheuer: ...The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States. Because it's going to take a grassroots, bottom-up pressure, because these politicians prize their office, prize the praise of the media and the Europeans. Only--it's an absurd situation. Again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary.

Beck: Which is why I was thinking this weekend if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now.

While "sure Bin Laden appreciates Beck's advice," Howard still thinks it's "a bit shocking that Beck's counsel to Bin Laden is to refrain from attacking the U.S. because it would benefit the country by motivating Americans to demand protection against such an attack"--which means, Howard explains, that Beck "actually believes that the slaughter of untold thousands of innocent Americans is not only beneficial, but is 'the only chance we have.'"

Rovner then backs up her "analysis" with "a little Meet the Press sound-bite from Fred Thompson"--"The only way to really save cost is to have rationing or it can be done by a cram-down by the government and take it out of the hides of doctors, hospitals":

Rovner's report mainly serves to highlight and promote the research of Elliott Fisher of the Dartmouth Institute. The big deal is that Fisher has found that some areas in the U.S. with lower cost prices for healthcare have better outcomes. Funny thing is that on June 11, 2009, NPR featured this exact research. An interesting thing not mentioned on NPR is the chief "partners" of the Dartmouth Institute. On the list are

• Wellpoint Foundation
• Aetna Foundation
• United Health Foundation

I do smell a conflict of interest, eh?

Rovner fills out the report by going to a solid centrist--Len Nichols (no single-payer, he)--of the New America Foundation (as far left as NPR dare venture).

Don't worry, though--"the wrap-up is provided by Joe Antos of the far-right American Enterprise Institute, who concludes that real change to healthcare is a cultural/behavioral issue more than a cost issue." Read the new issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Media Quarantine of Single-Payer Continues: Fifteen Years Later, Public Health Insurance Still Taboo" (6/09) by Julie Hollar and Isabel Macdonald.

In preparing for a sequel to the first Black in America, which boosted the networks ratings (the O. J. trial saved CNN!), CNN rolled out the usual stereotypes about black Americans. Unmarried black mothers were exhibited, without mentioning that births to unmarried black women have plunged since 1976 more than that of any other ethnic group. Then we got some footage that implied that blacks as a group were homophobes even though Charles Blow, a statistician for the New York Times, recently published a chart showing that gays have the least to fear from blacks. Recently, the media perpetrated a hoax that blacks were responsible for the passage of Proposition 8, the California proposition that banned gay marriage. An academic study refuted this claim, but that didn't deter the New York Times from hiring Benjamin Schwarz to explain black homophobia. Schwarz is the writer who wrote in the Los Angeles Times that blacks who were victims of lynchings in the south were probably guilty.

In the last Black in America, Soledad O'Brien, CNN's designated tough love agent against the brothers and sisters, scolded a black man for not attending his daughter's birthday party. The aim of this scene was meant to humiliate black men as neglectful fathers. Ms. O'Brien won’t be permitted by her employees to mention that 75 percent of white children will live at one time or another in a single-parent household and that the governor of South Carolina's not showing up for Father's Day isn't just a lone aberration in "White America."

On that note, Reed wonders, "How would CNN promote a White in America?" Would they feature "the thousands of meth addicts who have abandoned their children? The California rural and suburban white women who do more dope than Latino and black youth?" And if not, "Why not? Can’t get State Farm, Ford and McDonald's to sponsor such a program? All of these companies are sponsoring Black in America"--"the aim of which," Reed reminds us, "is to cast collective blame on blacks for the country's social problems. For ratings."