We're going to front the retrocast in this edition. What happened between 6 pm on Saturday and 7 am Sunday? Something big, 'cause when I went out to check for our newspapers, I felt as if I was in another macroclimate altogether. Talk about a dry front moving in! Was the difference between walking through roof cement and a Newport breeze. We're looking at a mid-80s day on Monday then back to the low 90s. Those 90s---they're not going to stay away all summer!

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So the Washington Post appeared to want to make you pay big bucks for meet-ups with their reporters and editors. Politico had the scoop on the Post scheme in which Publisher Katharine Weymouth would host "salons" in which lobbyists and association muckety mucks would pay large sums of money to hobnob with Posties, Obama administration officials, and members of Congress.

Let's stop and just say it: This is/was really, really dumb. Unethical and dumb. Yesterday, Weymouth published a "Dear Reader" letter apologizing for the now-abandoned salons. It reads in part:

"A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem."

I wonder if the Weymouth has to put a stop order on the hot appetizers she planned on serving to D.C.'s elite. I hope the Post doesn't have to eat the cost of the flower arrangement orders. And I hope they got a deal on those fliers they're not going to use. Next time: Evites.

Read More "Post Salon Scandal Gets Full Take Down" »

In his column today on the death of newspapers, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz makes an oft-made point: That without newspapers, the amount of investigative reporting out there in the world will dwindle. To buttress his point, he takes a shot at other media:

Local TV isn't likely to expose a crooked mayor, as the Detroit Free Press did.

Arguable point, especially to Tom Sherwood, the dean of reporting here in municipalDCworld. Sherwood quickly banged out an e-mail to Kurtz asking, "[W]hat prompted the wholesale, gratuitous slap at "local tv" not being worth anything when it comes to investigative, serious reporting?"

The tall, baritone-voiced local from WRC-TV has some bona fides in this area. As his missive points out, his reporting has gotten people fired and had policies changed in local government. And Sherwood advises Kurtz to look at the best reporting of local TV stations---you'll find some fine investigative work in there, he says. "A wholesale dismissal, I believe, was uncalled for in your otherwise important story."

"Important story" is a bit too much praise for this particular Kurtz piece. The Post's top media reporter, a very responsive soul, had this to say about the assertion: "I should have qualified the statement a bit; there are a relative handful of stations that do good investigative reporting. But I was talking about the big, sweeping, labor-intensive investigations that topple a mayor or expose sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Given the cutbacks in the broadcasting, those are rare indeed in local TV."

Writing today in the Washington Post, media reporter Howard Kurtz posits that newspaper companies failed to position themselves for the upheaval that's battering their industry. Here's Kurtz on the matter:

The people who run such companies bear a considerable share of the blame. In 1993, just before the Internet became a consumer force, I argued in a book that newspapers had become too cautious, too incremental and too dull, tailored largely for insiders. The rise of hugely profitable monopoly papers in most cities made them increasingly bland, seemingly allergic to controversy.

Then the Net changed America, but newspapers remained mired in two-dimensional thinking. They created sites that were largely a static replica of their print editions. There was little updating, little sense of the dynamism of the Web, and when I started writing a blog for washingtonpost.com in 2000, I had little company in the mainstream media.

Read More "Kurtz on Newspapers’ Demise: Off Base" »

* In case you missed her: Washington Post's Howard Kurtz on Palin's Katie Couric interview. "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in her third interview since joining the Republican presidential ticket, licked her finger and stuck it in the air, saying that Sen. Barack Obama might wait and "see what way the political wind's blowing" on the Wall Street rescue package," he writes.

* For those interested in competing in one of those high-stakes, emotionally wrenching reality television programs---and for those whose place of employment merely imitate them---Slate's Joanna Weiss has your guide to how not to be the first contestant kicked off a reality show.

* New Columbia Heights has updates on the proposed neighborhood farmer's market: At a recent ANC meeting, William Jordan proposed that the market be run by EMG Marketing Group and Change Inc. and be held three (!) times a week.

* Mr. T in D.C. bows respectfully to the employees of the Columbia Heights Subway sandwich shop:

I just wanted to thank them here today. By now, all the employees there recognize me, and know what kind of sandwich I usually get. . . . The two women who work there on weekday evenings are particularly helpful and pleasant. They recently told me they were from Eritrea; I wonder what their lives were like there? It's not very far from lawless, violent places like Darfur and Somalia.

And in this newspaper:

* Arthur Delaney on D.C. Jail disaster readiness, terrorist threats, and the power of Google.

* Tim Carman tries to make a bagel, lies to City Paper staff.

* Mike DeBonis on the Nat's stadium slush fund.

* ... and the debut of Orr Shtuhl's Beerspotter!

Image courtesy pingnews.