Failure to communicate

It’s always shocking – but it shouldn’t be – that organizations that exist to communicate with the public communicate so poorly internally. Shouldn’t be because it happens with such regularity.

The latest example is Salongate at The Washington Post, recounted by Post Ombudsman Andrew Alexander in Sunday’s issue. First exposed by Politico July 3, it involved a plan to bolster a sagging bottom line by, in essence, selling access to the newsroom.

The now-aborted scheme called for companies to pony up as much as $25,000 to have dinner at Publisher Katharine Weymouth’s home with, among others, members of the Obama Administration and newsroom representatives. The “spirited” but not “confrontational” conversation was to be off the record.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that any such invitation would be reviewed but that he thought that it “would likely exceed” what the administration would find acceptable.

The major players at the newspaper – Weymouth, granddaughter of the late Post Publisher Katharine Graham and niece of Post chief executive Donald Graham; Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli; President and General Manager Stephen Hills; Charles Pelton, who initiated the plan; and several top newsroom editors who were briefed – now acknowledge, to one degree or another, that it was flawed. The general theme, though, seems to be that they didn’t fully understand what was being proposed or thought that the alert they were receiving was preliminary and would be revised. Apparently no one objected.

Organizations that regularly expose and comment harshly on others’ shortcomings ought to understand that they live in a glass house and be more sensitive to the consequences of violating the rules by which they expect others to live.