"Gannon" The Perfect Press Plant: He Fit Right In!

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
February 10, 2005

Gannon or Guckert?
The Perfect Press Plant: He Fit Right In!
By DAVE LINDORFF

The real question the public should be asking in the l'Affaire "Jeff Gannon" is not whether or not the White House knew of or was behind his infiltrating the White House press corps, but why it was so easy for a Republican shill posing under a false name as a journalist to last so long hiding out among the members of the legit White House press corps., and why it took bloggers to expose him.

The answer is that his puffball questioning of the president was not that different from the questions that are routinely asked by the mainstream reporters in that gaggle of fine suits and well-coifed hair.

Anyone who watched the press crew at the staged session back in 2003 when Bush announced his invasion of Iraq would have to agree that there is little difference between the reporters for our so-called Fourth Estate and this poseur. Instead of questions about why the U.S. would be invading a country that posed no threat and that had not attacked or threatened to attack America, and about how this enormous diversion of military resources would affect the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, reporters asked the president about his faith and family! Not only that--the legitimate press corps allowed the White House to decide in advance which reporters would get to ask questions, after first requiring them to submit their questions in writing. Uppity members of the group, including Helen Thomas, were forced to go to the back of the room behind the potted palms.

In a group of real reporters, Gannon would have stood out like a sore thumb, but there aren't too many real reporters operating in Washington these days.

What I keep wondering is why the Bush administration has gone to such incredible, unprecedented and unprincipled lengths to control the media spin. We now know that they hired at least three journalists under the table to write favorable articles about Bush education policy, Bush social policy and Bush war policy, and no doubt these three are just the tip of a huge iceberg. We know that they put out fake news reports which they managed to get aired on regular TV news programs as though they had been generated by a real news organization. We know that they at least tried to set up--and probably secretly have set up--a department of disinformation in the Pentagon to create and distribute fake news globally. And we know now too, that they inserted a shill into White House press briefings to manipulate the coverage of the president and his policies.

The other thing I keep wondering is why the public isn't up in arms about all this deception and fraud (all accomplished, I might add, at taxpayer expense). Just imagine, for a moment, if any one of these things had been done by the Clinton administration.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff02112005.html

[nashville_brook]

1. as a wannabe journalist from elementary school, i think it's a class issue

it's nearly impossible to rise from a lower middle-class background -- go to a state school -- and wind up doing any meaningful reporting for a national pub. much less wind up on the WHPC -- unless you are a shill.

i think reporters have a class-interest just like anyone else. they aren't rank and file americans. rank and file americans don't go to Columbia or Princeton. we go to UT and MTSU. we don't get a voice.

responding to your wonderment RE spin -- they have to control the spin b/c they don't have a sell-able program. they are selling out the people and even privilaged reporters are going to report that as they see it. without bush's shaved-head buddies, Bush can't get his message out in the lying way he needs it to be.

classic.

[KC21304]

I am waiting for Dan Rather to weigh in on this.

I wish he and some others at CBS would grow a spine and let er' rip.

[medeak]

2. reporters weigh in on Gannon

proves what we already know:

'Gannon' Fodder: Real White House Reporters Weigh In

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000798573

By Joe Strupp

Published: February 10, 2005 6:05 PM ET

NEW YORK In the wake of revelations about ex-reporter “Jeff Gannon,” veteran White House correspondents told E&P today they could not recall another instance of a credentialed reporter using an alias allowed on that beat.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan acknowledged this morning that he knew Talon News reporter “Jeff Gannon” was really James D. Guckert.
snip

But Herman, who has covered the White House on and off since 2001, said there are a number of reporters who show up from news organizations he's never heard of or offer questions as partisan as Gannon's, although in their cases, mostly likely, they are working under their real names. "There are times in that briefing room where I am hard-pressed to tell you who they are working for or who sees their reporting," Herman said.