So. What other reporters publish under pseudonyms, anyway?

[tuvor]

"Gannon" and his supporters suggest it's not at all uncommon.

Any ideas who else is using a nom de plume?

[Clark2008]

1. Well, when I got married, I changed my legal name

to my husband's last name, but still wrote under my maiden name.
But, that's not quite the same thing, is it? :crazy:

[TomClash]

8. Not unless

you were running a lesbian escort service for the First Lady with the potential for compromising national security.

[suziedemocrat]

2. Ann Landers? n/t

[Spazito]

3. Ann Landers was a columnist, not a reporter or journalist

*

[suziedemocrat]

16. I was being sarcastic! Comparing white house reporter to Ann Landers.

guess I should have put the </sarcasm> in.


edit : </sarcasm> didn't show in header.

[Spazito]

18. I think my sarcasm antenna was turned off as well,

I should have caught it but didn't.

[suziedemocrat]

19. No worries -- Canada may be our only hope soon!!!

:)

[bmovies]

4. Nellie Bly

I dont know if she counts since shes not alive today. She died in 1922.

http://home.att.net/~gapehenry/NellieBly.html

[wishlist]

5. Gannon's Freeper friends use 'Geraldo' as an example of a pseudonym

They are lying about other reporters using aliases. To my knowledge from what I have heard and read so far, there are no other credentialed news reporters or journalists covering the WH (and going on TV and radio as well) who use pseudonyms. Just internet bloggers who don't presume to call themselves news reporters.

[Carni]

12. Exactly!

Most of us here technically *blog* under screen names that don't involve our real names but we certainly aren't being credited with being *journalists* nor are we being called on by the resident to spew GOP bullshit!

[KharmaTrain]

6. Radio Reasons

I worked in radio where pseudonyms are common. It's a lot easier to say Jeff Christy and have a Program Director listen to your audition tape than if you tried to be Rush Limbaugh. I knew several station owners and managers who would all but force name changes on some people.

I remember in the 80's, a local TV station was sued by a reporter who was being forced to change his on-air name (a long Polish one). The employer said they "had the right" since this was their station, but the courts agreed with the reporter...and he still uses his full name.

I think Anderson's best question was about "Jeff" not using James was his finest moment and most telling. Few people I knew ever changed their first name, only their last. The insinuation is that when you change both names, you're doing more than making a cosmetic change...you're trying to hide yourself or something.

The media world is loaded with nom-de-plumes. Imagine watching Lawrence Zeiger Live.

[noamnety]

7. Leslie Blitzer? nt

[tuvor]

9. Nope, 'Wolf' is his real name.

Don't know where the Leslie came from. I think it may have been a Jon Stewart monologue.

[Spazito]

10. It seems to have come from an Al Franken joke at some

dinner where he was speaking.

[noamnety]

11. Or maybe Al Franken?

That's funny. It stuck pretty well.


I found this article from December on pseudonyms:

The murky world of blog-related marketing got a bit murkier on Thursday with the launch of NewsBluntly.com, a blog created to influence a highly influential market niche - television news producers - and in the process, find a new, clandestine way of peddling messages from big corporate marketers such as General Motors, Motorola, and Yahoo!, to consumers.

<snip>

While that is not new, and is itself a broadly accepted practice among journalists and public relations executives alike, the process is generally handled transparently and in a way that TV journalists know they are receiving TV footage from marketers themselves. That process, in fact, is well disclosed on TheNewsMarket.com, but not so on its NewsBluntly.com blog, which offers links to VNRs and B-roll, but <b>does not disclose the fact that marketers are paying to place them into TV newscasts.</b> In fact, the only reference to the TheNewsMarket.com is a small note stating, "NewsBluntly is published for The NewsMarket by Plesser Associates."

The rest of the content on the site looks pretty much like other news industry blogs, featuring stories, comments and critiques about TV news industry developments. The postings, says Shoba Purushothaman, president, CEO and co-founder of TheNewsMarket, are <b>written by legitimate journalists using pseudonyms.</b>

http://www.mediapost.com/PrintFriend.cfm?articleId=281367

Pseudonyms used to cover clandestine relationships and conflicts of interest. Go figure.

[Nordic65]

14. No, it isn't...

Wolf Blitzer real name is/was: Irving Myron Federman Jr.

[tuvor]

15. Link?

Interesting. It WAS on Wikipedia according to the Google cache, but it's not on the current page.

The only other links I can find aren't exactly reliable. (freereep)

[BuyingThyme]

13. Jerry Rivers

[Stop_the_War]

17. Ann Coulter...but I don't think she could be considered a reporter

Her real name is Anna Hitler. :silly:

[Shopaholic]

20. That's Adam Hitler----

Ann's a man baby!