Just thought of this for no particular reason.
Back in the mid-1990s, the fact that some big-name Washington reporters were receiving huge speaking fees created a scandal within the journalism world. No one was tougher in criticizing the practice than David Broder of the Washington Post, a Pulitzer Prize winner and a professor at the University of Maryland who is commonly referred to as the “dean” of the national press corps...
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So it’s surprising to see that Broder, who recently took a buyout but will continue to write his Post column, appears to be a regular presence these days on the business-lecture circuit and has even spoken to major health-care groups. Do a Google search and you’ll see that Broder is represented by a number of speaker’s bureaus, including Grabow, which says it is “your David Broder booking agent for private corporate events.”
Broder is identified (in various promotional and other online materials) as a featured speaker at such events as these:
Last October’s Western Conference of Prepaid Medical Service Plans, “an organization comprised of 31 member companies, primarily Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, principally located throughout the Western United States and Canada.” The event was held at the La Quinta Resort & Spa, “a legendary hideaway and meeting destination, renowned since 1926 for its charm and serenity. La Quinta Resort & Club features 90 holes of some of the country’s best golf . . . [and] a variety of unique indoor and outdoor treatments including PGA WEST Golf Massage, open-air Celestial Showers Sacred Stone Massage and more.”
According to a draft agenda, Broder was set to speak on October 16. Two days earlier, he wrote a column for the Post called “A Market Makeover For Health Insurance,” which hailed the release of a new report by the Committee for Economic Development (CED), “a high-powered business group,” which called on “government to restructure the private insurance market in less rigid form than Hillary Clinton proposed 14 years ago—and then step back and let competitive market forces do their invaluable work of forcing recalcitrant insurers, doctors and hospitals to bid against each other on the basis of price and quality.”
For inexplicable reasons "no one" even brings up the issue anymore.