At These Dinners, Candor Is The Entree

[babylonsister]

Stand by to hear more about these. I found this on CQ Politics under this heading: "Secret Media Elite Dinners Exposed"


By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 27, 2009


As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting with some of Washington's top journalists -- excusing himself to take a call from President Obama and another from Hillary Clinton.

As the journalists hurled questions and argued among themselves, Emanuel said: "This feels a lot like a Jewish family dinner."

For more than a year, David Bradley, the Atlantic's soft-spoken owner, has hosted these off-the-record dinners at a specially built table in his glass-enclosed office overlooking the Potomac. And the guests, from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to Jordan's King Abdullah II, are as A-list as they come.

"It's just a joy for me," Bradley says. "These are reflective, considered conversations, which is hard to do when you're going after headlines for the next day's publication." While the guests seem quite open, says the businessman who bought the Atlantic a decade ago, he is new enough to journalism "that I can't tell the difference between genuine candor and deeply rehearsed candor."

snip//

Among those in regular attendance are David Brooks and Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gene Robinson and Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, NBC's David Gregory, ABC's George Stephanopoulos, PBS's Gwen Ifill, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum, former Time managing editor Walter Isaacson and staffers from Bradley's Atlantic and National Journal, including Ron Brownstein, Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042602297.html

[annabanana]

1. I don't care for this, and I'm saddened to see Gene Robinson

on the guest list.. The rest of them do not surprise me.. Ol' "dances with rove" sold his soul long ago.

[babylonsister]

3. I don't see anything wrong with it. Intelligent adults discussing

the issues of the day? I think it'd be fascinating.

[Orsino]

7. Who picks up the check?

I have a feeling that we all do, in one way or the other.

[NYC_SKP]

2. "Secret Media Elite Dinners Exposed"!!!

Oh, we're doomed. We're so screwn. :rofl:

I wouldn't be able to keep my salmon and risotto down for very long with Stephanopoulos and David Gregory at the fucking table.

:puke:

[beachmom]

4. Just as long as these journalists understand it is their job to be a watch dog

not a friend to the White House.

Edit: come to think of it -- if Andrew Sullivan screams at them that torture is a war crime and the perpetrators need to be prosecuted, well, that is not a bad thing.

[ErinBerin84]

6. and Jane Mayer too...just finished her book.

[dalaigh lllama]

5. Haha. Faux News damned with faint praise

on second page, speaking of news media coverage of President Obama:

"On Fox News, by contrast, only 13 percent of the assessments of Obama were positive on the first half of Bret Baier's "Special Report," which most resembles a newscast."

So, there's a small segment on Faux News that is almost...almost...like real news. :rofl:

[gmoney]

8. Condor is the entree?

Tastes a bit gamey and endangered, no?