While major bureaus here wage constant battle against the epicurean tendencies of their reporters, when the company is paying, in my office the typical senatorial lunch is a slice of pizza, or perhaps a bowl of chili. Another senator I know has popcorn and frozen yogurt just about every day. Big-shot Washington reporters have been accepting thousands of dollars from industry groups as honoraria for speeches for years. Members of Congress and their staffs are subject to an ethics code that is talmudic in its complexity and petty detail. Members cannot accept honoraria or payment for articles.
Staff can do so only under very limited conditions.
It's hard enough to suffer the media when they call Congress crooks. To see them shoveling it in from the very interest groups they accuse Congress of selling out to and then shuck and jive like a politician caught in a funny land deal, really sticks in the craw. When Hillary Rodham Clinton made her hundred thousand in the commodities market, she at least had to put up a thousand of her own. Pay and perks are not the only matters on which elected people think journalists need to look in the mirror. Another is the question of spin.