LA Times - An Identity Crisis Unfolds in a Not-So-Elite Press Corps

[realFedUp]

(this is the first story on G/G in the LA Times
and it's a softball. Let the Time know why G/G
is bigger than "the nuts as usual in the WH press room-
[e-mail])

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-whpress25feb25,1,809749.story

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.

snip

The White House press corps has since attracted an array of unusual personalities. There was Naomi Nover of the Nover News Service. No one ever saw her work published, but Nover — whose coif of white hair somewhat resembled George Washington's wig — got past a security cordon during a Reagan trip to China after a reporter showed guards a U.S. dollar bill as evidence of how important she was.

Lester Kinsolving, conservative radio commentator, wore a clerical collar to White House briefings in the Reagan years. His loud voice and off-beat, argumentative questions often provoked laughter. President Clinton, to lighten up the proceedings, often called on Sarah McLendon, who worked for a string of small newspapers in Texas and called herself a citizen journalist unafraid to blast government bureaucrats.

continued

[librechik]

1. aaaaarrrrrgggghhh

damn LA Time Registration!

They forget my info every time I log off!

Americablog counted 6 pro-Gannon sources and ZERO Gannon critical sources in this piece. WTF?

Have Robert Scheer write it! and where the fuck is Kinsley? Can he not rein in these jackasses who want to powder shrub's behind??

[bemildred]

2. Mozilla will be happy to remember it for you ...

:-)

[tom_paine]

3. Wow, full coverup and Bushevik Propaganda Mode

Some lowlights:

Gannon's biased questions no different from Helen Thomas or Dan Rather

Gannon just the latest in a string of 'small time' reporters who have gained access. (naturally, NONE of them were affiliated nearly as closely with THE PARTY as Gannon G. Guckert)

What is a journalist, really?

and more...

This is a Bushevik Mockingbird piece, even more biased than Gannon himself.

The only question, did the Busheviks pay Ms. meuman, or is she self-censoring in the finest Bootlcikers of Tyrants fashion so she won't get a blast from the Mighty Wurlitzer.

Not that it really matters HOW we got to this or WHAT Ms, Neuman's motivation was: Gannonesque bias, cash payments, or what is now typical Amerikan cowardice since the Old Republic died.

We are here and it is done.

[realFedUp]

4. Ms. Neuman was probably directed in the direction of article

I would place the blame on whoever asked for
that particular angle of this "story", not
really Ms. Neuman herself, although I'm not
an expert on how newspapers work.

Maybe ask Leo Wolinsky, deputy managing editor
if this was his idea....