By Greg Marx
Columbia Journalism Review
“The newsletter’s mailing list is used to draw subscribers to closed-door ‘seminars’ in Washington twice a year at which top Administration and political figures speak.

Once General Haig left the side of Richard Nixon in Key Biscayne and flew back to Washington to address one of these sessions. To hear notables give off-the-cuff, off-the-record insights, the businessmen and others who attend-about 65 to 70-pay $200 each. Some of those who have appeared at the request of Evans and Novak have been accorded exceedingly favorable treatment in the column, although there are exceptions, most notably Haig, who fell from grace in the column as he fell from power.”

Stephen E. Nordlinger wrote those sentences about Rowland Evans Jr. and Robert Novak, who gained fame and fortune on the strength of their “Inside Report” column and its related newsletter, in a takedown that appeared in the long-defunct (and, sadly, un-linkable) More magazine. In 1974. This business of journalists collecting money for hosting off-the-record gatherings, it seems, has been around for a while.

Still, given the events of the past week, now seems as good a time as any to take a look at the ethical questions posed by such gatherings. The belief here is that, taken separately, off-the-record dialogues and money-making live events are potentially problematic but within ethical bounds. But marry the two together, and you’re in dangerous journalistic territory.

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