Photo by Adam Fagen

On a swing through Washington yesterday, Mitt Romney stopped by the Newseum to address the Business Roundtable, a club of politically conservative chief executives representing some of the biggest corporations in the United States.

In addressing the Business Roundtable, Romney charged the Obama administration with pursuing the “most anti-investment, anti-business, anti-jobs series of policies in modern American history.” There was other red meat for the well-heeled crowd.

That portion of Romney’s visit to the Newseum was open to media coverage, as evidenced by, say, this dispatch on The Caucus.

But after the speech, Romney hung around for some up-close conversation with some members of the executives’ group. That meeting, held in the Newseum—a hulking Pennsylvania Avenue edifice with the First Amendment etched on its facade—was closed to press. Do robots understand irony?

Of course, this kind of stuff happens in campaigns all the time. Public events are often followed by private bull sessions in which VIPs get some face time with the candidates. Just yesterday, President Obama visited Kenny’s BBQ Smokehouse with a pair of active-duty military officers and D.C. barbers. For most of the crosstown trip, Obama and his luncheon party sat inside the restaurant while reporters, according to a pool report, was “being held a block away.”

And the Newseum? Pish-posh. It’s tough to get riled up about press access when one holds an event in that temple to corporate media. At $20 a visit, that place is less open than The New York Times’ paywall.