http://tinyurl.com/5ux64SHOW: CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN 10:00 PM EST
February 10, 2005 Thursday
BROWN: We have a rule about using air quotes you know air quotes in the NEWSNIGHT office. We don't. But this story has tested the rule mightily. At its center is a so-called reporter for the Talon News Service, a website run by a Republican activist in Texas. The reporter and many people take issue with his use of that label resigned yesterday from covering the White House.
But the story is much more than that, so we begin with CNN's Tom Foreman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the radio, on the Internet, on dozens of TV channels thousands of people call themselves journalists and that is raising a sticky question when it comes to access to the White House which ones should be treated like real reporters. Press Secretary Scott McClellan said today "When you have changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism, where do you draw the line?"
A question to the president by a conservative Internet reporter sparked the debate. Jeff Gannon of Talonnews.com took aim at Democratic Senators last month.
JEFF GANNON, TALONNEWS.COM: How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?
FOREMAN: Liberal Web sites called Gannon a shill for conservative interests. Congressional Democrats asked why he was allowed into the press briefing. Gannon is defending himself.
GANNON: Well, Talon News is a legitimate conservative online news service and my questions are things that my readers, 700,000 daily subscribed readers, want the answer to.
FOREMAN: Still, under a torrent of what he calls unfair Internet assaults on his personal life and threats against his family, Gannon has resigned from Talon News and even White House reporters who like him say that's for the best.
BOB DEANS, WHITE HOUSE REPORTEER, COX NEWSPAPERS: The public has a hard time right now discerning who to trust with the news.
FOREMAN: Bob Deans is the former president of the White House Correspondents Association.
DEANS: They ought to be able to know that we are who we say we are. We don't have a political axe to grind and we're going to deliver the news straight up and that if we don't our editors are going to yank us out of there.
FOREMAN (on camera): Getting a permanent press pass at the White House is difficult. Generally only big news organizations can do it but daily press passes are handed out to almost anyone in the media who passes a basic security test. That is how Jeff Gannon got inside for two years.
(voice-over): And although he is now gone, White House journalists say others with clearly political points of view remain while the White House says it's not the administration's job to decide who is or is not a legitimate journalist.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: As we said this odd little story covers a lot of ground and raises a good many issues.
We're joined from Washington tonight by John Aravosis, one of the bloggers who has been fueling the story. He writes for America Blog, a Democratic political consultant as well, also joining us here in New York Eric Boehlert a senior writer and media critic for Salon, good to have you both.
John, there is I think here a kind of so what quality. Here is this guy. Everyone knows what he is. The only people honestly who read the website are people who believe what he believes to begin with so why the fuss?
JOHN ARAVOSIS, AMERICABLOG.ORG: Aaron, I think the fuss isn't about this guy being a conservative because I think the point's been made there's a lot of conservatives, a lot of liberals in the press corps.
The point is this guy has a rather fishy background that the bloggers over the last couple of weeks at dailycoast.com and also myamericablog.org have found out that, you know, this guy's business experiences go back to dealing with some rather sort of shady Web sites a year or two before he was in the White House.
He sets up his Talon News Service on April 29th, I believe, of 2003. Six days later he's getting a White House pass to get in and ask questions of the president.
We then find out just a few months later that this journalist, who just pops up out of nowhere, is getting CIA documents in the Valeria Plame affair, which was the CIA agent that was outed with regards to the WMD and all of that.
It's just the larger question here for me isn't so what about this guy, is he a journalist or not but how did somebody get this kind of access to the White House and this kind of CIA information? I think the White House is behind this.
BROWN: Let's come back to that.
Eric, is there something a little unseemly about the way -- the way people went at this guy's personal life? I mean this was about ultimately partisan differences, political differences and they went at his personal life.
ERIC BOEHLERT, SALON MEDIA CRITIC: Right and, you know, and I think that's something the bloggers were obviously behind and at Salon that's not what we focused on. We focused on -- we talked about what was the relationship between him and the White House? How did he get this access? But, you know, he was writing under a fake name. There's not many people in the press White House writing under a fake name. He was very mysterious about it.
BROWN: I think they call that a pseudonym in your business don't they?
BOEHLERT: You pick it, alias or whatever.
BROWN: Yes.
BOEHLERT: Not many people going to the press office writing under someone else's name.
BROWN: Right.
BOEHLERT: Sort of mysterious about his past and then so people started digging into both his past and his news agency and a couple of days ago he posted this sort of aggressive essay on his website saying "I'm hiding in plain sight." You know, come after me if you want to find out who I am and people did.
BROWN: So, he did a sort of Gary Hart?
BOEHLERT: In a way, yes. I mean he wrote an essay, "I'm hiding in plain sight. Any of you liberals who want to find out who I am, you know, start digging. There's nothing to find." Well, there was something to find. But, again, I think it's more interesting how did he get this access and, you know, it seems like the rules were bent at the White House to give a partisan a front row seat in the press room.
BROWN: Well, here's what, I mean what a job at the White House says is they don't really ask about your political affiliation on these daily passes. The correspondent corps doesn't pass judgment here. If you show an ID and you pass a Secret Service check then you get to sit there and if your number is drawn, you get to ask a question.
ARAVOSIS: That is the biggest bunch of hogwash I've ever heard.
BROWN: Oh, OK.
ARAVOSIS: George Bush's White House controls everything that happens every second of the day and anybody that thinks that that White House doesn't know everyone walking in the door, they threw out Sara, I forget her name, I want to say McClanahan (ph).
BROWN: Sara McClendon.
ARAVOSIS: Sara McClendon. She got thrown out for three months in 2001 because they didn't like the questions she was asking and she was told for security reasons this 90-year-old reporter couldn't come into the White House.
They absolutely decide who does and doesn't come in that door. If you ask the wrong questions, they punish you. And for them to now suggest that some guy who had a shady business background, we're not talking about his personal life, we're talking about his business life, he told Wolf Blitzer earlier today that he was hired to construct some Web sites that basically the web addresses dealt with escort services.
BROWN: Yes.
ARAVOSIS: We'll leave it at that. I think that that raises enough of a red flag that at least you wonder if this man should be meeting with the president of the United States and getting CIA documents. That's all we're saying.
BROWN: Got it.
ARAVOSIS: This isn't personal. It's important.
BROWN: OK. Well, OK.
BOEHLERT: And the way it works in Washington, if you want to cover the White House, first you go to Capitol Hill. That's the first stop. You have to get credentials for Capitol Hill.
ARAVOSIS: Right.
BOEHLERT: And then if you want a hard pass, a permanent pass to the White House, you go to the White House. You fill out an application and then the Secret Service does a background check. If you don't have Capitol Hill credentials, the White House won't even submit your application.
BROWN: For a hard pass.
BOEHLERT: Yes. Jeff Gannon went to Capitol Hill. They said "You're not a real reporter. This is not a real news organization."
ARAVOSIS: Right.
BOEHLERT: And then he spends two years in the White House Press Office getting his daily passes.
ARAVOSIS: How did he get -- how did he get to ask the president a question two weeks ago? I mean, Eric you know and Aaron you know as well, you don't just get to ask the president a question. That's planned in advance. These guys, there's something else going on here.
This isn't just some journalist who happened to get in and happened to get a pass. They wanted him there. They scripted this and I'm frankly wondering again how did he get involved with Valerie Plame?
It's just there are some unanswered questions here higher up of somebody in the White House and it brings us to the larger question of Armstrong Williams and everything else as far as the whole propaganda White House.
BROWN: We'll leave it at that. It does raise lots of questions on having to do with media, having to do with what's appropriate and, in fact, having to do with the White House and how it operates, good to see you both tonight. Thank you for coming in tonight.
ARAVOSIS: Thank you.
BOEHLERT: Thank you.
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