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Speaking fee controversy
During an interview in 1996, David Broder said that "It’s clear that some journalists now are in a market category where the amount of money that they can make on extracurricular activities raises, in my mind, exactly, and, clearly, in the public’s mind, exactly the same kind of conflict-of-interest questions that we are constantly raising with people in public life. . . ." [8] In June, 2008, however, Harper's magazine reported that David Broder had accepted free accommodations and thousands of dollars in speaking fees from various business and healthcare groups, in one instance penning an opinion column supporting positions favored by one of the groups.[9] The Washington Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, wrote that Broder's acceptance of speaking fees was an apparent violation of the paper's policy on outside speeches, as was the fact that some of the groups that paid Broder also lobby Congress.[10] Howell continued that "He (Broder) also said he had cleared his speeches with Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, or Tom Wilkinson, an assistant managing editor, but neither remembered him mentioning them."