Via Melinda Henneberger at Politcs Daily, a disturbing report from Politico about the Washington Post‘s latest fundraising plan, apparently cooked up by CEO and publisher Katherine Weymouth:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few”: Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

(“Obama administration officials” had never heard of the scheme.) Once word got out, the newsroom wasn’t having any of it. Melinda has the memo sent to Post employees by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, which reads in part:

We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable.

There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values.

Since Politico ran the story, Weymouth has canceled the event(s). We’ll see if that’s enough to save her job.

It may not merit top ranking on the woes-of-the-world list, but–as many other writers have noted–the continued implosion of the newspaper business is particularly threatening to traditional arts journalism. Papers have been laying off book and movie critics for several years. (I noticed today that a site documenting the waning ranks of film reviewers hasn’t yet caught up with the recent dismissal of the longtime movie critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the daily in the Virginia city where I live.) Reviewers and arts reporters who haven’t been given the old heave-ho may be asked to writer shorter pieces, and to be pickier when choosing works to discuss.

Of course, reviewing, at least, is flourishing on the Web. But the Web tends to be niche-ified: It’s the more conventional journalistic establishment, arts critics included, that can better generate a cultural discourse the whole society can share.

Investigative reporting, too, often falls by the wayside when the media is pinching its pennies. Various  nonprofit organizations, such as ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting, have sprung up to preserve that valuable journalistic genre. Perhaps there’s a need for a national nonprofit specializing in arts journalism–an outfit that could dispatch writers to document and critique that museum exhibit, or small-town adventurous play, or noteworthy dance production that might otherwise fall through the cracks. The nonprofit could publish the pieces on the Web, of course, but perhaps before ink-and-paper outlets die out completely, it could also become a sort of Associated Press for arts journalism, allowing papers and magazines across the country to run the coverage for a modest sum.

Any energetic visionaries willing to step up to the plate?