Gannon-Guckert-Gate

[norml]

Gannon-Guckert-Gate

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2005



Mixed Reaction To Report


(Photo: AP / CBS)



Bloggers should think hard when they complain about standards for passes for White House press briefings.



(CBS) This column from The Nation was written by David Corn.
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The emails keep pouring in with this plea: Investigate Gannongate! These messages are obviously part of a campaign among liberal Internet activists who believe the controversy concerning Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) has not received sufficient media attention. Gannon/Guckert was a conservative reporter for a marginal news outfit who obtained a daily pass to the White House press office and who also apparently was seeking customers as a gay, military-oriented prostitute. Serious questions do remain as to why and how the Bush White House's press operation granted access to Gannon/Guckert, a correspondent for the Talon News. Should a fellow with a fake identity--and a questionable background--be allowed into presidential press conferences? Talon News was connected to GOPUSA, an organization run by Texas-based Republican activist Bobby Eberle, and Gannon/Guckert routinely asked softball questions of Bush's press secretaries during their daily White House briefings. But throughout this scandal, I have wondered if the Gannon affair may be smaller than it seems. I expressed several concerns in an earlier column. Still, in response to the emails, I decided to heed the call and look further. What I found leads me to ask--gasp!--if Gannon/Guckert, on a few but not all fronts, has received a quasi-bum rap.

Let me stipulate that how Gannon/Guckert came to be permitted into the White House press room is a worthy topic of inquiry. But his pursuers ought to be careful on this point. Talon News was a fly-by-night (or phony) news operation with a political agenda. But White House daily briefings should be open to as diverse a group as possible. There is a need for professional accreditation; space is limited. Yet there is nothing inherently wrong with allowing journalists with identifiable biases to pose questions to the White House press secretary and even the president. And if such a reporter asks a dumb question--as did Gannon/Guckert (which triggered this scandal)--the best response is scorn and further debate. Bloggers should think hard when they complain about standards for passes for White House press briefings. Last year, political bloggers--many of whom have their own biases and sometimes function as activists--sought credentials to the Democratic and Republican conventions. That was a good thing. Why shouldn't Josh Marshall, Glenn Reynolds, John Aravosis, or Markos Moulitsas (DailyKos) be allowed to question Scott McClellan or George W. Bush? Do we want only the MSMers to have this privilege?

snip http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/25/opinion/main676554.shtml

[HereSince1628]

1. True, unless of course you are PLACED in the press breifing

BY the administration in order to manipulate the independent inquiry of the government.

The Bill of Rights stipulates freedom of the press and the right of people to petition the government concerning their concerns and grievances.

The Bush administation puts such petitioners in "Free Speech Zones" and it appears to those plain folk out here in the midwest that the Bush administration has gained control, rather than influence on the media.

[LuminousX]

2. Partisan Events Compared to White House Press Briefings

I guess that is about right.

[ixion]

3. yes, true, press conferences should be open

but then why is it that progressives like Russell Mokhiber are only able to get in once every few months, and creeps like Guckert get in daily?

hmmmm?

[thebigidea]

4. what a red herring!

as if Snotty is going to let left wing bloggers in there indefinetely, with renewed day passes.


as if the gannon story were just about bloggers being taken as seriously as the MSM.

Corn should go back to cashing checks from Rupert Murdoch.

[Warpy]

5. Oh, bollocks. Presidents have always had favorite journalists

who wrote favorably about their programs. However, in the past, they were always JOURNALISTS, not dirty tricks plants who were only there to eat up time by spewing propaganda. That's the difference and it's high time real journalists realize it. Make no mistake about it, he was there to make sure those guys couldn't do their job by spouting right wing talking points and tacking softball questions onto the end of them. And those boys fell for it. And they're still so befuddled that they don't think being shut out of the question and answer process by a propaganda shill was a big deal.

And yes, this is always about how such a sleazy character got himself hustled past a background check he never could have passed, and why they wanted him, specifically, instead of a hungry reporter from a right wing news magazine who would have done the same thing without all the problems.

This was never about bias in the press room, because that has always existed. This was about a paid flack preventing journalists from doing their job, no matter what their bias was. And it was about a paid flack who was only belatedly covered by being associated with a fake news outfit. And it was about a flack whose background was so flawed that he really did represent a tremendous security risk.

[EVDebs]

6. Corn, repeat after me ... "Operation Mockingbird" media manipulation

you are getting sleepy now... When Katrina Vanden Huevel's dad was in the CIA you'd have to work even harder to get a story like this out. Nowadays, well, you can just wait until the Mighty Wurlitzer drowns out those who question the 'controllers'...like Corn.

"Think hard..." Oh, baby !

[norml]

7. Here's a link to another thread on this subject.

David Corn in "The Nation" claiming that Gannon "received a quasi-bum rap"



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x109114