John Aravosis: Worst Article Yet on 'Gannon' in LATimes...

http://www.americablog.org/

LA Times wins the award for WORST reporting of the mainstream media
by John in DC - 2/25/2005 10:11:00 AM

Yes, the Los Angeles Times ran a story today in which 6, count 'em, 6 sources were cited defending Gannon, and ZERO sources were quoted from the other side. And apparently, it's now "gay activists" who exposed Gannon, rather than the top progressive blogs.

I have not seen this shoddy a piece of journalism in years. No one, no one, cites 6 sources on one side of a controversial story and ZERO sources on the other side. Did this reporter even call me? No. Did she contact the Kos people? I don't know, but if she did, she'd know that they're not "gay activists."

Truly one of the worst, shoddiest pieces of journalism I have ever seen. The mainstream media has decided they do NOT want to report this story. Absolutely pitiful.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-whpress25feb25,1,2007906,print.story

WHITE HOUSE NOTEBOOK
An Identity Crisis Unfolds in a Not-So-Elite Press Corps
Defining a journalist has always been an inexact science, even before the Gannon affair.
By Johanna Neuman
Times Staff Writer

February 25, 2005

WASHINGTON — Its members work inside one of the most secure facilities in the nation, the White House, and they get to question America's most senior leaders, including the president.

Yet the White House press corps is not the thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite Americans might presume. Along with stars of the country's major media organizations, it has long included eccentrics, fringe players and characters of uncertain lineage. And now, a semi-impostor has forced the White House and the mainstream reporters covering it to address a basic question:

What is a journalist? It's a question the press corps and White House officials have tended to duck in the past — each for their own reasons. For reporters, policing the ranks smacks of undermining the 1st Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press. For White House officials, it has always seemed like an invitation to endless argument about who should be in and who should not — especially when newsletters, bloggers, cable news channels, satellite radio stations and Internet sites all claim a share of the turf that once belonged to a relative handful of news organizations.

Last month, however, the subject broke into the open after a reporter for the website Talon News asked President Bush how he could work on Social Security and other domestic initiatives with Democrats "who seem to have distanced themselves from reality."


http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

I consider it a sideways move, one that pays more money, BTW.

"We wanted to err on the side of inclusion," said Steve Scully of C-SPAN, who serves on the executive board. "Once you start dictating who is a journalist, you go down a slippery slope."

Um, er, once you start planting prostitutes to whore out propaganda for an administration, isn't that a slippery slope? I mean, I'm just asking.

I understand the inclusion value, but it seems it was trumped a bit by other standards. Guckert couldn't get Congressional pass access, right? They didn't seem to have a problem with the inclusion issue.

LA Times? Biggest hotbed of CIA disinfo around.
Expect no less.

and followed up with Shelly rumormongring. I can almost tell who's ging down next, because they will start with the one-sided articles.

Pathetic.

that he said that.

The only journalistic exclusion going on here is the inability of the establishment to see that bloggers are better journalists than they are.

to prove just how obsolete they are.

Can you hear the death rattle?

For one thing, they seemed to be pissed because it was so hard to get a press pass to Congress.

To see just how ridiculous it really is. It's absolutely infuriating that this has become about who, in the past, has gained access to the press briefings and not about how this prostitute using a fake name gained access to the press briefings. Just unbelievable!

I prob should have edited it some for my post, but everyone should read the whole thing to really get a good idea of how skewed it is. It's entertaining in an infuriating way.

Here's one posted by someone at Americablog:

Here is the letter I wrote to Ms Neuman

To: Johanna.Neuman@latimes.com

Ms Neuman,

It is unfortunate that the first article in the LA Times to cover the Gannon/Guckert scandal is three weeks into the story and then so poorly written. It is ironic that you pose the question "What is a journalist" then misquote Gannon's question to Bush in the January Press Conference. It was "divorced from reality", not distanced. Putting something in quotes implies that you actually looked it up to assure accuracy. Alas, you don't appear to be that concerned with accuracy.

You also seem to miss the meat of the story, which is how could a person without any press experience be given a daily pass for two years unless he was cleared through someone on the White House staff (obviously to avoid a background check)? How could he have been refused a Congressional Press Pass but receive a daily White House pass for two years? His softball questioning/opinion stating point to his membership in the Armstrong Williams club of press paid to promote the White House talking points.

Also not mentioned is the fact that he began using the alias of Jeff Gannon as his online persona, the gay escort. So his use of that name in the press room raises other troubling questions about his connections to the White House, possibly through his online escort business.

At least the LA Times finally mentioned this huge story. No wonder so many of us are seeking news from internet sites. They seem to be the ones truly investigating the wrongdoing by the Bush administration. Other than Robert Sheer, you folks are pretty disappointing.

Former subscriber,

point these discrepencies out far and wide. Thats gonna do more good than anything else. Hypocrisy is one of the keystones of the issue.
And her pride has it coming.

Sent a few articles that he SHOULD HAVE written.

While I applaud the fact that someone is actually writing about the Gannon story, I only had to read the first paragraphs in your article to find not only factual errors ("distancing" versus "divorcing") but also a glaring misunderstanding of this story. Had you done some research on the internet you'd find that "What is a journalist?" is not a question that is relevant to this story.

Here are a few relevant questions:

- Why was someone using a fake name while in the White House Press Corps? According to most journalists, it takes an extensive background check to be granted a day pass. Gannon sat there for two years.

- Why was a "reporter" with no reporting experience (except a $50 weekend course) let into the press corps?

- Why was he allowed into the White House when he was denied a press pass from the Congressional Press Corps?

- With the Bush White House history of buying media influence, and with Gannon's softball and partisan questions being asked as well as his affiliation with GOPUSA, why was no one investigating him BEFORE the recent question?

- Since Gannion apparently engaged in illegal activity (soliciting and prostitution), did it occur to anyone that he might be a security risk to the president? Or that his outside activities may explain the link as to why he is in the press corps (blackmail)?

There is no defense for Gannon and the White House for this horrific breech of trust to the American Public. There are not slippery definitions of "journalist" to excuse this situation. There is no "gay bashing" going on. I think the White House Press Corps might disagree about not being the "thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite."

A more balanced and investigative journalistic effort is on order on this story.

Regards,

who sign their paycheck and grant them closer access to be even better stenographers and shameless cheer-leading section for both the Republican Party and the Executive Branch. The Republicans are on a serious mission (from the Devil, not God) to destroy the Democratic Party and the Corporate Media is one of their all to willing TOOLS.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

... that any reporter ducking the JimJeff story or defending him likely has a few skeletons in their own closet?

I mean, who besides Keith Olberman and maybe a couple others, in the mainstream press has the Gannonballs to actually report it the way it should be?

that writes about... get ready for it... the White House Press Corps!

http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/author.cfm?ID=Ron%20Nessen%20and%20Johanna%20Neuman

Press Corpse
by Ron Nessen and Johanna Neuman
read by Christopher Lane
Unabridged
Press Corpse brings back the dynamic twosome of Jerry Knight, the "Night talker"-the brash and opinionated right-wing host of America's most popular all-night radio talk show-and Jane Day, a thoroughly liberated and just as opinionated leftist reporter for The Washington Post.

Their philosophies are light-years from one another. From food to religion, politics to who's going to win the Superbowl, these two can't seem to agree on anything.

Anything but murder, that is.

When a well-known journalist is killed at an event where the president is speaking, knight and Day can't help getting involved. It soon becomes apparent that the bad guys may have hit the wrong target. And the president might be next...

hope you havent sold any copies with this post.

Her characters are called "Day" and "Knight." See?

Because they are so different... get it?

Wink wink? Nudge nudge?

:puke:

Anybody can get published these days.

Airport bookstores, as some other DUer pointed out not too long ago, tend to be full of RW bilge. I bet the characters get hot and heavy.

The issue is not one of inclusion of reporters, the issue is of CORRUPTION of journalistic standards and values and anyone who can't see that, I have to question their ability to be a decent journalist.

And there's a falafel stand right next door!

Oh brother :eyes:

Another possible MSM 'ho is outed? Worth a looksie.

Yes, this is the first time the LA Times
has addressed this issue and they threw
a lameball...but it's a great opportunity
to send in letters laying out why JimmyJeff
is not just another nutcase "journalist"
in the White House press room.

letters@latimes.com

Send in a lot of them..wake up the readers.

I think we should all give up our newspaper subscriptions, or write e-mails or something. I used to be in journalism and it saddens me to see that this is what it has come to. The reporter is at fault but the editors should be questioning them about everything. Its all about sensationalism and how much money they can get out of everything.

kick

letters@latimes.com

You wrap fish with that, you'll ruin the fish.

The biggest problem with the Guckert/Gannon/Gosch story is that it is about the failures and weakness' of the MSM.

Don't they care if there is a propagandist in their midsts? It would appear not.

Don't they care that other, respectable journalists were bumped to get Gannuckert a pass? It would appear not.

There's little to no up-side for the MSM in this story. It makes them look bad.

You would think sex sells, wouldn't you? Unfortunately we, the reality based community, don't have a New York Post to trumpet, front page, the dirty laundry of the other party. And if no-one mentions it - and no-one is, then how will people know?

Which is crushingly depressing. Because it sounds like the final nail being pounded into the coffin of the fourth estate. If you aren't willing to stand up for yourself...

I'm new too and it's good to see a WOW posts from another new guy/gal. Welcome.

:hi:

what took you so long to find the DU? Welcome! :hi:

I think they are getting more and more sensitive to their lessening influence with us. Hopefully this lame and factually-challenged story of theirs will generate a lot of response.

for Johanna Neuman, Howard Kurtz, and the rest of the so-called journalists that have gone out of their way to derail and obfuscate the Gannon scandal:

Repeatedly you have implied journalists and the profession of journalism feel threatened by blogging. It's the talk of the town in your trade, as bloggers are snatching real investigative reporting from the big media, while the MSM further slips into irrelevancy.

My question is the following, and i think it goes to the root of it: how come you don't feel threatened by Gannon and other fake reporters planted by the Bush administration? Do you feel your job has become one step above stenography? Are you not bothered by the unprecedented efforts by this administration to replace real reporters with paid shills? Why do you look the other way?

I mean, given a chance to investigate a case of governmental fraud, and a saucy scandal with roots that may lead to higher-ups in the White House, first you completely ignore it. Then you go out of your way to turn it into a story about big mean bloggers playing reporter and invading Gannon's so-called privacy (that is, a series of public websites in the world wide web where he advertised his services as a prostitute?

This is the question they need to answer. It's not just about this scandal. The MSM have purposefully stepped down from their duties to investigate and keep an eye on those in power for the rest of us.

I think any letter to the L.A. Times should really focus on this matter.

And BTW, don't just send emails to Johanna Neuman. Make sure you copy (cc) her managing editor and ombudsman.

great post

Greetings also from Brooklyn!

:toast:

taking a $50 weekend journalism seminar, "graduate",
start their own web "news", and then demand access to
Shrubco's press conferences as "reporters" for a news agency.

Of course, those of you who have an escort service should not
join in, but other than that...how could the WH deny access?

It would probably get a bunch of publicity if we sent a bunch of people with shady backgrounds and no real credentials into the queue to get access to the press corps. It would put the fascists in a very ironic position, would it not?

were squeaky clean. That way, when they were denied access to the press
conferences, it would highlight the hypocrisy of Guckert getting through.

this article and that they are defending a tax-evading WHORE with pornographic images of himself on the internet selling himself for Gay sex and who lobbed softball questions and shilled for the Bush White House who managed to get into the White House for 2 years with such "credentials" (not to mention that he didn't even have a journalistic background) when 99.9% of us could never attend a Bush Town Hall meeting despite being tax paying, law abiding citizens?

Here is my letter to the Readers Representative:

After reading "An Identity Crisis Unfolds in a Not-So-Elite Press Corps" I immediately thought of Armstrong Williams, not in comparison to Gannon/Guckert, in comparison to Johana Neuman! The article is the most one sided piece of propaganda I have read.

It was erroneously written that pictures were put up on a web site, as if to imply after the fact someone was out to "get him". Sorry no such luck. The three websites or more that were documented by americablog.org were well researched. The web master who created them even posted the billing for his services and the extra photos that Gannon/Guckert sent to him.

The information was verified by more than one source and in fact one web site was at that time still active. Gannon/Guckert was engaged in illegal activity.

He also had "scoops" on confidential highly classified documents and actions such as the Valerie Plame memos, and the announcement that we had commenced bombing of Baghdad 4 hours before it was announced by President Bush.

This is a large breach of security and another blatant case of propaganda spewing forth into the media from the administration.

I hope that you will correct the story, give it the attention it deserves and discipline Neumann for an absolutely erroneous and one-sided story. I never thought I would live to see the day that the Los Angeles Times could be bought off by the white house administration.

Sad, sad day. We have had a lot of those lately for the press here in the United States. It speaks volumes that the most serious question asked thus far concerning media and white house influence came from a Russian reporter for Interfax News Agency.

Pretty sad when you get scooped by a country that once, not so long ago had government owned press.

Stand up for what is right
Stand up for the american people
Ask the hard questions
Answer the call

Last month, however, the subject broke into the open after a reporter for the website Talon News asked President Bush how he could work on Social Security and other domestic initiatives with Democrats "who seem to have distanced themselves from reality."

You know... If you can't even get the "divorced from reality" quote right after how many times it's been repeated... You might as well just stop there.

THE JAMES GUCKERT/ JEFF GANNON, FAKE REPORTER IN THE WHITE HOUSE QUESTION IS MOOT!

BY JOHN TULLY
THE LOS ANGELES SUN
HTTP://LASUN.NET
A weekend journalism-school reporter, using a fake name, was given access to the President of the United States at White House press briefings before he even worked for any news organization. He claims that he has seen a confidential, so-called C.I.A. document which reveals the name of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife and shows her recommending him for the trip to Niger to investigate yellowcake uranium sales to the Iraqis.


It turns out that Secret Service has been waving James Guckert by the guardhouse for two and a half years and once inside, he became Jeff Gannon. He wrote for a fake website, Talon News, run by Republican strategist Bobby Eberle and the organization GOPUSA.

To understand how something like this could Not be a story, that this could happen to begin with, is to understand how The District of Columbia really runs. However, one can only watch and wait as the laws of physics begin to rear their ugly head. Try as they might and for whatever reason, The Mainstream Media (as good of a description as any) just can't keep this monster down.

Howard Kurtz, the longtime and wise sage media critic with The Washington Post, trusted by little old Quaker ladies in Cleveland Park D.C. and lobbyists alike, just could not figure out what the big fuss was all about and immediately chalked it up to over-eager WWW types and their preoccupation with the salacious part of the story.

Oh that.

The Great Diversion and the reason why non-political junkies in America are apparently not talking about this story is that this fella' publicly advertised his services as a male prostitute on numerous sites on the Internet and registered and launched numerous gay male pornographic websites.

Really.

CNN's Aaron Brown, so brilliant in his earlier years on the old ABC overnight news program, pooh-poohed the scandal as a bit of "so what". On Wolf Blitzer's "Hard News" program, Mr. Guckert/Gannon was treated almost softly, as if not to upset. The New York Times finally ran the story, deep in the back pages on Friday, Feb 11th, more than a week after website journalists began to fully reveal this fake journalist's deceptions.The shockjock mentality came out instantly in the groupthink mainstream media with a curious mix of apathy and frat-boy jokes.

There was no outrage to be outraged over.Meanwhile , writers on web sites like The Daily Kos, David Brock's Media Matters and John Aravosis's America Blog, among others, had been doing their own journalism and found out that Mr. Guckert was not who or what he appeared to be. They started their dig after witnessing a press briefing by the President back in late January. A strange reporter asked a clearly partisan question / pronouncement that, among other things, stated that the Democrats were "divorced from reality".

They got dirt all right.

Columnists Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd finally had to write cute pieces about the mess nearing the end of last week. Katie, Matt, and The Today Show eventually did a quick three- minute story in the first hour last Wednesday. Radio man Don Imus couldn't get anyone to bite and wondered aloud about the titillating aspect of the thing. This was now more than ten days since the story had broken, or hadn't broken. No one was even discussing, outside of the Web, the nasty business of the C.I.A. memo that Mr.Guckert had claimed to have seen or knew about right there on Mr. Blitzer's show. Links to web sites where Mr. Guckert solicited clients for sex were widely available at the very same time Mr. Blitzer was tripping all over himself to give Mr. Guckert an Easypass.Ultimate Washington insider Mary Matalin, Vice President Cheney's sometimes consultant, told Imus that she just wished Ms. Dowd would just come in from the cold and get with the program.

Why did President Bush and Scott McClellan, the President's spokesman, call on Mr. Guckert/Gannon so often in those two and a half years and how could other reporters not write about Talon News and GOPUSA 's illegitimacy? Veterans of the White House beat sometimes don't see a question for years. Was he a plant?

But just like the high school sophomores that they are, the Washington press corps have hemmed and hawed and giggled their way for weeks now through a real-live genuine scandal unfurling at the White House. Waving their collective finger, they dismissed the whole affair in full. It was simply The Bloggers and their liberal retribution for the Rather/CBS assassination and a lurid fascination with the X-rated angle thrown in for good measure.

Now the simply idiotic Bush-Tapes story, along with a long weekend and a brilliant fake-outrage campaign over a congressman's comments about Karl Rove, is threatening to bury forever a story that the entire profession of journalism would like to pretend was never born to begin with. Everyone seems to be looking around at each other and tsk-tsking the lack of outrage on each other's part, as if to say "This is terrible. Someone do some real reporting.

"Someone did - as Mr. Bush would say, on the "Internets". Stay Tuned.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HTTP//:WWW.LASUN.NET
johntully@gmail.com
BEARDOG PRODUCTIONS
525 E. 13th St. PH
New York N.Y. 10009

:yourock:

doesn't it. But, I like that he says "stay tuned." :thumbsup:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

http://www.americablog.org/


Wall Street Journal Vying With LA Times For Worst Guckert Coverage
by Michael in New York - 2/25/2005 12:49:00 PM

Thanks to tizzie for pointing us to this Wall Street Journal article today about James Guckert. It continues the LA Times angle that this is a case of old media versus new media and who gets to decide what constitutes a real journalist. Again, not ONE quote from a source who argues that Guckert was indeed a fake journalist and that this is a serious issue about national security and the manipulation of the media by the White House.

"The fact is that the history and tradition of the White House have been much more open and accepting" of nonmainstream journalists than other Washington institutions, such as the Congress, says Ari Fleischer, Mr. McClellan's predecessor to the Wall Street Journal. "I think it would be a real shame if that tradition ended. It might be good for the press secretary but not for diversity of opinion."

The story is filled with offbeat reporters who also attend the White House press conferences, though it doesn't make clear whether they all get repeated day passes or have hard passes which demand a security check -- the very security check James Guckert would have failed.

This isn't about his anti-gay, far right politics. If Rush Limbaugh and Maureen Dowd applied for a day pass to the White House press room, they both would deserve to get one.

But, again, this is not old media versus new media or about the difficulty of figuring out what constitutes a real journalist.

James Guckert aka Jeff Gannon received a day pass to the White House press room before he'd ever written a single article for any news media outlet of any sort in the entire world. He wasn't even affiliated with any media outlet -- real of imaginary -- when he received a day pass as a reporter to the White House. I think if you're going to draw the line somewhere, that seems a pretty good place to start.

Yes, a few weeks later, GOPUSA.COM set up the fake news website Talonnews.com and yes, eventually their "volunteer" reporter James Guckert started getting paid half wages because even fake journalists have to get paid something in order to get press passes. But slowly building up a front over the years doesn't change the fact that James Guckert was allowed into the White House press room when NO ONE under any conceivable standard could consider him a journalist.

Also, L.A. Times was not all that a lefty periodical prior to that. Apparently there was a reporter from that paper that hung up his journalistic credentials when he went out looking for Clinton's sexual picadillos early in the campaign years.

Johanna Neuman.

I once worked at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., many years ago while she was there. She became our Washington correspondent and even did a fellowship at Harvard.

She was always an excellent reporter.

Of course, I haven't known her for a long time.

Is this what they teach in the prestigious schools such as Columbia, Northwestern and other colleges?

I have a journalism degree and I remember the standards that were set by my instructors. I can't believe the reporters on today's major media were held to these same standards.

It goes beyond the stupidity of the reports run by the news organizations (Michael Jackson, silicone breast implants, Lacy Peterson, etc.). Today's reporters constantly use bad grammar (using phrases like "completely destroyed" which is redundant) They're little more than a collection of dumb bimbos and jocks who would like to think they're worldly, all-knowing people.

When I was studying journalism in college, it was right after Watergate. Reporters were not afraid to stand up to authority figures and ask the tough questions. I pissed off a lot of local authority figures with my questions, but they had to be asked.

These days, any report on the Bush Administration or any authority figure may as well be taken from a sheep barn. Same difference.

http://democrats.com/blogcall
WASHINGTON -- February 25 -- A group of progressive investigative bloggers has launched BlogCall, a brand new press conference call where members of the mainstream media can pose questions to newsmaking bloggers.
The first BlogCall was held on Thursday, February 24, and it featured John Aravosis of Americablog.com discussing his newsmaking work on "Gannongate."
Aravosis is a leading progressive blogger who exposed White House reporter "Jeff Gannon" as a gay prostitute whose real name is James Guckert. Aravosis discussed the latest developments in the story during the 45-minute conference call.
The press conference was webcast by RadioLeft.com, and is permanently archived at WhiteRoseSociety.org.
"Progressive bloggers are doing outstanding investigative work at a time when the mainstream media is passively watching the innumerable scandals of the Bush administration," said Bob Fertik, President of Democrats.com and founder of BlogCall.
"These under-investigated scandals include Dick Cheney's still-secret Energy Task Force, the administration's Iraq War lies, and the criminal outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by a top White House official. BlogCall will build a bridge between progressive investigative bloggers who are investigating those important scandals and the mainstream media," Fertik said.
BlogCall will begin a regular weekly schedule on Tuesday, March 8. The next featured blogger will be Brad Friedman of BradBlog.com, who has exposed the story of Clint Curtis, the Florida computer programmer who wrote "vote-flipping" software for touchscreen machines at the request of powerful Republican Congressman Tom Feeney.
Progressive bloggers and mainstream journalists are invited to participate in BlogCall by submitting their credentials at BlogCall.org.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0225-09.htm
=====
Ben Burch (whiterosesociety.org) has an mp3 of Blogcall
NEW!
An archive of Blogcall
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
http://www.whiterosesociety.org/Blogcall.html

Left wing bloggers, gay activists - anyone remember the political side of thr "brave bloggers" that brought up the so called "flawed TANG documents" planted with CBS?
I remember only positive coverage for those, althogh, with all the firing of people, no one could determine the truth of what they were instructed to start.