Some of the bloggers who broke the Gannon story -- live at 6 CST

[SophieZ]

It's your world. Understand it!
February 20, 2005: Sunday Monitor


"All the significant breaks in the story emerged online...
The internet has become a sort of Fifth Estate as the Fourth Estate of the mainstream media has slid toward irrelevance."

-- The Observer. See article at bottom of the page.


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After the headlines, we will get the latest on the White House correspondent who lobbed easy questions at White House press briefings by day, and advertised, apparently, his male escort services by night ("military, muscular, masculine").
Who broke the story? Not the White House press corps who was in the room with him day after day for two years. No, it was online citizen researchers -- bloggers -- who exposed Jeff Gannon's partisanship, lack of credentials, and who are scrutinizing numerous other possibilities.


JEFF GANNON/ JAMES GUCKERT



<> {around 6:20 pm CST} GUESTS: BLOGGERS WHO HELPED BREAK THE JEFF GANNON STORY

BRIAN KELLY -- dailykos
Based in New York, Brian Kelly is a blogger (someone who writes regularly on the web, on a web log, is called a blogger). He is a spokesperson for a team at dailykos, a popular website, that helped investigate the White House correspondent using the name Jeff Gannon. Gannon's real name, it turns out, is James Guckert, and he had little to no journalism experience before he suddenly appeared on the scene of White House press briefings slightly over two years ago. Starting with the first log about Gannon on January 28, daily kos has hosted thousands of comments since then.

Brian Kelly, along with SusanG and a team of several hundred at dailykos, examined public records and helped break the story of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, asking questions like, "Who is this guy," "Why did he get clearance to be in press briefings" and "Why does he seem to have inside information before anyone else on big stories?" "Is Gannon a fake reporter with a fake name asking fake questions for a fake news agency?" "What is his relationship, if any, to the exposure of former ambassador Joe Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA agent?"

The Gannon researchers at dailykos are also expanding into a new website structure which they hope will facilitate the whole process of a far-flung network of citizen researchers who are picking up the slack where corporate media have fallen down on the job.

Others in the blogosphere cracked open pieces of this investigation. Media Matters found the link between Talon and a partisan Republican operation run out of the Houston area, GOPUSA. Another website, hosted by Atrios, found "Jeff Gannon" was a pseudonym. As the investigation gains steam, someone is quickly obliterating website evidence and changing or obscuring ownership trails. Is someone hiding something?

dailykos WEBSITE: http://www.dailykos.com/


JOHN ARAVOSIS -- Americablog
John Aravosis is a Democratic political consultant in Washington, D.C., and a blogger for his site AmericaBlog. The blog site addresses gay politics, national politics, and the Religious Right. John investigated the links between Jeff Gannon --reporter and Jeff Gannon--apparently the owner of male escort websites on the internet like Hotmilitarystud.com and Militaryescorts.com. John also was one of the first to write an articulate summary of the investigation to date. (Warning: although the screen shots of the original X-rated website material have been cropped etc., these may be considered offensive by some people. If you are offended by male pornography or near-pornography, skip this article.) http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html.

John Aravosis' WEBSITE: http://www.americablog.org



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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpts from an article from The Observer, across the Atlantic:

For two years Jeff Gannon cut an unobtrusive figure at White House press conferences. The shaven-headed, craggily handsome man worked for an obscure news agency called Talon News, known for its conservative sympathies. He was often the subject of jokes by colleagues on weightier news organisations.

No one is laughing now, because Gannon was far from being a harmless distraction.

He was writing under a false name and working for a Republican front organisation.

Suddenly, his 'softball' questions to White House officials looked less like eccentricities and more like plotting by an administration which has frequently displayed a dark mastery of the arts of press control.

When it emerged that Gannon was also linked to gay prostitution websites and might be a gay prostitute himself, the scandal as to how he was allowed daily access to the White House grew even murkier. The American media is now being forced to confront the possibility that Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, was simply a Republican plant, used by officials, including President George W Bush, to ask easy questions in difficult press conferences. 'The idea of having a mole in the White House press corp is amazing, but that's what it looks like,' said Jack Lule, a journalism professor at Lehigh University.

... a vacuum in the US media. It is a space being filled by 'bloggers' from both left and right who write personal journals, or weblogs, on the internet. It is here that the real media battles are now being fought. The internet has become a sort of Fifth Estate as the Fourth Estate of the mainstream media has slid toward irrelevance.

...All the significant breaks in the story emerged online, forcing Gannon to resign, reveal his real name and go into hiding. ..

"The mole, the US media and a White House coup"
by Paul Harris, Sunday February 20, 2005, The Observer, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,1418539,00.html



SEE ALSO Maureen Dowd's column.

"Bush's Barberini Faun," by Maureen Dowd, NEW YORK TIMES, OP ED COLUMNIST, February 17, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/maureendowd/index.html?inline=nyt-per

[ElectroPrincess]

1. Whoa!

Above all else, they published a very unflattering picture of this Blog Cabin Republican.

MAKEUP! :evilgrin:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ElectroPrincess]

4. KUDOS to ALL *fact filled* and researched left-wing bloggers!

Our fellow Comrade Katie Couric in the LiBerAL (Corporate!) TV news media has to revamp - IMO - that piss poor attitude problem:

It's not Navy Seals, but those wily Left Wing Bloggers that are a rockin' now!

:headbang: :yourock:

:grouphug: - special for our RW lurkers ;P

[Straight Shooter]

3. Fifth Estate!

I love it, love it, love it.

From now on, we are members of the Fifth Estate.

Calling nostamj, it's T-shirt time!

:bounce:

[AgadorSparticus]

5. could someone explain what 5th estate means? i've never heard

this term before.

[riverwalker]

6. CNN just gave DailyKos a giant screen shot

as well as Americablog. This means MILLIONS of Americans across the country are spending Sunday night on their computers learning about Gannongate. :bounce: