White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny

he he he, a small victory. Looks like a friendly nudge to the Globe's ombudsperson paid off. As I've said before, cultivate relationships with the media, they're not all rotten apples.

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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/02/white_house_friendly_reporter_under_scrutiny/

White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny
By Charlie Savage and Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | February 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website. Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers." It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as "bringing the conservative message to America."

Called on last week by President Bush at a press conference, Gannon attacked Democratic Senate leaders and called them "divorced from reality." During the presidential campaign, when called on by Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Gannon linked Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to Jane Fonda and questioned why anyone would dispute Bush's National Guard service. Now, the question of how Gannon gets into White House press conferences is coming under intense scrutiny from critics who contend that Gannon is not a journalist but rather a White House tool to soften media coverage of Bush. The issue was raised by a media watchdog group and picked up by Internet bloggers, who linked Gannon's presence in White House briefings to recent controversies over whether the administration manipulates the flow of information to the public.

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McClellan said Gannon has not been issued -- nor requested -- a regular "hard pass" to the White House, and instead has come in for the past two years on daily passes. Daily passes, he said, may be issued to anyone who writes for an organization that publishes regularly and who is cleared to enter the building. He said other reporters and political commentators from lesser-known newsletters and from across the political spectrum also attend briefings, though he could not recall any Internet bloggers. McClellan said it is not the White House's role to decide who is and who is not a real journalist and dismissed any notion of conspiracy.

Nonetheless, transcripts of White House briefings indicate that McClellan often calls on Gannon and that the press secretary -- and the president -- have found relief in a question from Gannon after critical lines of questioning from mainstream news organizations. When Bush called on Gannon near the end of his nationally televised Jan. 26 news conference, he had just been questioned about Williams and the Education Department funds, an embarrassment to the administration. Gannon's question was different. "Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the US economy," Gannon said. " Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" As it turned out, Reid had never talked about soup lines. That was a phrase attributed to him in satire by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.

more......

on The Daily Show. Made fun of him afterwards--what a joke this White House is! Keeps me laughing!

for a conspiracy to manipulate media coverage what is ?

Hmmm if this "journalist" really wanted to play relief pitcher he should have asked - "Windows, MacOS or Linux ?" - what is it gonna be :)


-max.

It is absolutely unbelievable!

See http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050203082209965

...but MSM is shunning this.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/10/reporter_tied_to_gop_quits_over_scrutiny?mode=PF

Reporter tied to GOP quits over scrutiny
By Alan Wirzbicki and Charlie Savage, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff | February 10, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Jeff Gannon, the reporter whose GOP connections, lack of conventional journalistic credentials, and softball questioning of President Bush raised questions about the White House's decision to grant him access to news conferences, abruptly quit yesterday after bloggers connected him to websites apparently devoted to gay sex. Gannon, who uses a pseudonym, posted a message on his website saying that recent scrutiny had made it impossible for him to continue covering the White House for TalonNews.com, a website operated by a Texas Republican Party operative that has run articles skeptical of what it calls ''the homosexual agenda." ''The voice goes silent," Gannon, whose real name is James Dale Guckert, wrote. ''Because of the attention being paid to me, I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my family, I have decided to return to private life."

Gannon posted the announcement shortly after a group of liberal bloggers posted reports saying they had connected another of his identities to the registration records for website domains such as hotmilitarystud.com, militaryescort.com, and militaryescortm4m.com. The websites are either inactive or shielded by a password. Although he would not comment about those reports, Gannon told the Globe yesterday that it was entirely his decision to resign from Talon, where many of his reports over the past two years have been criticized for consisting largely of passages from official press releases reprinted verbatim. Gannon came under scrutiny after Bush called on him during a rare and nationally televised news conference two weeks ago. Gannon's question attacked Democrats as having ''divorced themselves from reality" and repeated an allegation against Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, that turned out to be a joke by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh.

The unusual question prompted a wave of attention initially led by David Brock, the former right-wing investigative journalist who now operates a left-wing media watchdog group, Media Matters for America. ''We didn't think it was appropriate for a conservative partisan with no journalism experience asking loaded questions to be included in those briefings," Brock said. The scrutiny was later picked up by the bloggers on sites such as DailyKos and Atrios, which began using public records to look into his private life. Gannon said that he had been ''stalked" by the bloggers.

Kelly McBride, who teaches media ethics at the Poynter Institute, said the investigation of Gannon's personal life crossed traditional boundaries and was characterized by ''mean-spiritedness and snarkiness." ''Those are not tactics you would see practiced in most traditional newsrooms," McBride said. Meanwhile, US Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat of New York, sent a letter to the president yesterday seeking an explanation for why Gannon had been ''repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press corps."

The White House did not return calls yesterday. Last week, press secretary Scott McClellan said suggestions that he used Gannon as a lifeline were ''nonsense" dreamed up by liberal bloggers and that any reporter for a news organization who passes a background check can get a daily pass to the briefing room. ''I don't think the press secretary should get into the business of being a media critic or picking and choosing who gets credentials," he said. Gannon also applied for a congressional press pass but was denied one on the grounds that Talon did not qualify as a legitimate news service, according to Jim Drinkard, a USA Today reporter who headed the committee that reviewed the application. Gannon said yesterday that he had applied for the background check and White House daily passes under the name on his driver's license, not his ''professional name." He asserted he got no special consideration. ''The White House decides who gets in," he said. ''They generally go with established recognizable news services, and Talon had established itself as a news service."

They are open for new information. PM to me and I will forward.