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In a letter appearing in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post, publisher Katharine Weymouth apologized to readers amidst an uproar over a “salon” the newspaper planned to host. On Thursday, the website Politico.com first reported on a promotional flier for a series of salons to be hosted at Weymouth’s private home that promised a gathering of Obama administration officials, Congressional lawmakers, and the paper’s own reporters. Corporate sponsorships were offered from a sliding scale of $25,000 per dinner ticket to $250,000 for the entire series. In her letter, Weymouth claimed that the flier for the now canceled event was not vetted and as a result did not reflect the parameters she sought for it. Nevertheless, the controversy caused by the reporting on the event flier cast light once more on the question of the future of journalism as some have interpreted it as a desperate gasp of a dying industry. As journalism ponders which direction to take, Extra!, the monthly magazine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, had dedicated an entire special issue to the question. Contributors to the July edition take on the debate from an array of perspectives from finance structures in a post-print era to citizen journalism armed with new technologies.

GUEST: Jim Naureckas, Editor of Extra! FAIR’s Magazine. Read more at www.fair.org.