Weymouth-Brauchli continue to pass buck on Post salons

It looks like the dynamic duo, the Washington Post’s publisher and executive editor, respectively, are going to let Charles Pelton take most the heat on the Post’s ill-fated salons, while Post President Stephen Hills won’t even talk to his own reporters about it.

In an e-mailed statement Friday, Pelton said: “This is a new venture, there were some stumbles and too much of a rush to the finish. And I’ve taken responsibility for my part in this. However, I strongly believe that journalism must support more than a newspaper and a set of Web sites. It needs new avenues of expression — and revenue — and live events are just one of these.”

Some at The Post view Pelton as overly eager and not attuned to the newsroom’s ethical sensitivities. But Pelton raised questions about some of those very issues in a May 21 e-mail to Weymouth, Brauchli and Stephen P. Hills, The Post’s president and general manager. Pelton reports to Hills, who declined to be interviewed.

The salons evolved in other ways. Originally, the salon financiers, members of Congress, etc. would all be “on background.” Not good, but, at least you get comments. And, since just about everything reported out of Washington by the MSM today is “on background,” i.e., comments by people not named, and not directly quoted, in the real journalism world, this would be business as usual!

But, at some point, it went from “on background” to “off the record,” a whole different kettle of fish.

Meanwhile, the Post still has more than 200 managers? Wow. Maybe that’s part of why you’re losing $20 mil a quarter right there. Sounds like The Dallas Morning News — whack the folks on the front line, have the managers keep their jobs.