In a letter to former Washington Post marketing executive Charles Pelton whose disclosure kicked off a new round of “Salongate” coverage over the weekend, Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli said that a Sept. 12 story in The New York Times represented his statements inaccurately when it said he was not aware a series of proposed fund-raising dinners had been promoted as “off-the-record” events.
“I knew that the salons dinners were being promoted as ‘off the record’… The New York Times reporter apparently misunderstood me,” Brauchli wrote.
So did anyone at the Post bring the apparent misunderstanding to the attention of the Times when the story was first published, before some behind-the-scenes legal maneuvering prompted this letter? Via email, Richard Perez-Pena, the author of the Sept. 12 story, says: “Nobody complained to me.”
Greg Marx is an associate editor at CJR. Follow him on Twitter @gregamarx.