[Mb-civic] A wild Article sent by Michael D.

Thu Feb 10 19:39:33 PST 2005

If you havent heard about this....you gotta read this! Amazing...this might
help blow up the "teflon presidency"...MD
The Jeff Gannon Experience

By WilliamPitt <http://forum.truthout.org/blog/user/WilliamPitt> ,

 The blogosphere has been erupting over the last several days over the story
of Jeff Gannon, a White House reporter for something called Talon News. The
story has gone from irritating to infuriating to outrageous, and has lately
parked itself squarely in the realm of the truly bizarre.

How did an obvious Republican operative from an unheard-of news outlet who
uses a psuedonym - yeah, 'Jeff Gannon' isn't even his real name - and who
looks as though he runs a gay prostitution ring in his spare time ever get
credentials to cover the White House? Was this mystery man a key player in
the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame?

Let's take a look...

Media <http://forum.truthout.org/blog/?op=search&topic=Media>  :: Thu Feb
10th, 2005 at 08:32:42 AM PST :: ::

The blogosphere has been erupting over the last several days over the story
of Jeff Gannon, a White House reporter for something called Talon News. The
story has gone from irritating to infuriating to outrageous, and has lately
parked itself squarely in the realm of the truly bizarre.

How did an obvious Republican operative from an unheard-of news outlet who
uses a psuedonym - yeah, 'Jeff Gannon' isn't even his real name - and who
looks as though he runs a gay prostitution ring in his spare time ever get
credentials to cover the White House? Was this mystery man a key player in
the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame?

Let's take a look, starting with this overview from Salon.com
<http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/10/gannon_affair/index.html> :

Fake News, Fake Reporter

Why was a partisan hack, using an alias and with no journalism background,
given repeated access to daily White House press briefings?

By Eric Boehlert
Salon.com

Feb. 10, 2005 | When President Bush bypassed dozens of eager reporters from
nationally and internationally recognized news outlets and selected Jeff
Gannon to pose a question at his Jan. 26 news conference, Bush's recognition
bestowed instant credibility on the apparently novice reporter, as well as
the little-known conservative organization he worked for at the time, called
Talon News. That attention only intensified when Gannon used his nationally
televised press conference time to ask Bush a loaded, partisan question --
featuring a manufactured quote that mocked Democrats for being "divorced
from reality."

Gannon's star turn quickly piqued the interest of many online commentators,
who wondered how an obvious Republican operative had been granted access to
daily White House press briefings normally reserved for accredited
journalists. Two weeks later, a swarming investigation inside the
blogosphere into Gannon and Talon News had produced all sorts of damning
revelations about how Talon is connected at the hip to a right-wing activist
organization called GOPUSA, how its "news" staff consists largely of
volunteer Republican activists with no journalism experience, how Gannon
often simply rewrote GOP press releases when filing his Talon dispatches. It
also uncovered embarrassing information about Gannon's past as well as his
fake identity. When Gannon himself this week confirmed to the Washington
Post that his name was a pseudonym, it only added to the sense of a bizarre
hoax waiting to be exposed.

On Tuesday night, the reporter who apparently saw himself as a trailblazing
conservative "embedded with the liberal Washington press corps" abruptly
quit his post as Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for
Talon News, that after earlier taunting those digging into his past that he
was "hiding in plain sight." Contacted by e-mail for a comment, Gannon
referred Salon to the message posted on his Web site: "Because of the
attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be
a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my
family I have decided to return to private life. Thank you to all those who
supported me." 

The Gannon revelations come on the heels of the discovery that Bush
administration officials signed lucrative contracts for several conservative
pundits who hyped White House initiatives and did not disclose the
government's payments. The Talon News fiasco raises serious questions about
who the White House is allowing into its daily press briefings: How can a
reporter using a fake name and working for a fake news organization get
press credentials from the White House, let alone curry enough favor with
the notoriously disciplined Bush administration to get picked by the
president in order to ask fake questions? The White House did not return
Salon's calls seeking answers to those questions.

...more...

-----

Some more basic information on Gannon has been collected on the Demopedia
pages at DemocraticUnderground.com
<http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Jeff_Gannon> .

The MediaMatters blog takes a look at how having so obviously friendly a GOP
operative in the press pool helps White House spokesman Scott McLellan and
the administration <http://mediamatters.org/items/200502020014> :

"Go ahead, Jeff": Talon News "reporter" Jeff Gannon is McClellan's lifeline
during briefings

Talon News "reporter" Jeff Gannon's softball questions often steer White
House press secretary Scott McClellan away from more difficult inquiries
raised during White House press briefings; on several occasions, McClellan
has turned to Gannon for his questions after other press corps members have
asked pointed questions on controversial topics. In reviewing White House
press conferences from the past year, Media Matters for America has noted
numerous instances in which Gannon's lobs -- leading questions that often
include false assumptions favorable to the Bush administration -- have
allowed McClellan to move to friendlier turf, away from having to answer
questions on such issues as the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment; the
Bush administration's relationship with former Iraqi National Congress
leader Ahmad Chalabi; the growing trade deficit with China; and President
Bush's Texas Air National Guard record.

-----

The incredible research community over on DailyKos has connected Jeff Gannon
to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/30/9415/11717> , one of the most
disturbing ruptures in national security to be seen in recent decades. Read
on:

Plame Leaked by Fake News Source? Overview: Part IV
by SusanG 
Sun Jan 30th, 2005 at 06:41:05 PST

White House-credentialed fake news reporter "Jeff Gannon" from fake news
agency "Talon News" was cited by the Washington Post as having the only
access to an internal CIA memo that named Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie
Plame, as a covert CIA agent. Gannon, in a question posed to Wilson in an
October 2003 interview, referred to the memo (to which no other news outlet
had access, according to the Post). Gannon subsequently has been subpoenaed
by the federal grand jury looking into the Plame outing.

The precise wording of the question posed in the subject interview is:

"TN: An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel
details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for
clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you
could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

These facts have led the Kos community to research the following questions:

1. Who/what is Talon News?
2. Who/what is Jeff Gannon and how did he get credentialed for the White
House?
3. How is this "reporter" and "news agency" being used to disseminate
information?

The thread on this at Kos
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/30/9415/11717>  has a great deal of
background and additional data that is required reading.

-----

Walt Starr, a member of the forums at DemocraticUnderground, has posted a
thread pinpointing several places
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&addres
s=104x3080029>  where Gannon bragged about outing CIA agent Plame on the
forums of FreeRepublic.com. Gannon, ever the master of subtlety, posts on FR
as 'Jeff Gannon.' Starr writes:

Gannon/Guckert seems pretty proud that he was involved in outting Plame. If
this guy was paid by the White House, he's a co-conspirator in this one.
Here's evidence from Guckert himself
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1168703/posts?page=108#108>
preserved for us on FR.

He's all over this thread about it
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1093819/posts> .

Three posts here <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1092073/posts> .

More here <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1049592/posts>  and here
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1048813/posts> .

You might want to save those threads to your hard drive if you are pursuing
this angle. The fellows at FR have a way of disappearing threads that cast
an ill light on the faithful. Great work, Walt.

-----

A post on AMERICAblog delivers this story into the Oort Cloud of utter
strangeness <http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/holy-crap_08.html> :

Holy crap 
by John in DC - 2/8/2005 07:03:51 PM

Let me say again, holy crap.

The blogosphere has dug up some really really really creepy stuff about that
pseudo-reporter with the pseudonym who the White House lets ask all the
softball questions about their briefings. His pseudonym is Jeff Gannon, and
well, the folks at DailyKos, and Eschaton, have been doing a little digging
around on him.

It's a long and sordid tale, but let me give it to you in a nutshell. Mr.
Gannon's home page is JeffGannon.com. Well, JeffGannon.com is owned by a
person and company that owns the following Web addresses as well:

Hotmilitarystud.com
Militaryescorts.com
Militaryescortsm4m.com

And for those of you who are really straight or really clueless, "m4m" is a
gay online term for men who are looking to have sex with other men, and
"escort" means prostitute. And being a military escort is also against the
Uniform Code of Military Justice in at least two different ways, if not
more.

Now, I'm not one to judge how folks like to get their jollies (assuming no
children are involved and it's consensual), but then again, I don't suck up
to the family values agenda like Mr. Gannon does. I've been through Gannon's
archives, and it's a horrendous accumulation of religious right suck-up
pieces on gay issues. Some are concerned that perhaps it's not fair to hit
him with the gay card, if he is gay. Well, take a look at some of the
stories from Gannon's Talon News Service: here, here, here Talon is
promoting "ex-gays," defending Bush on gay marriage, and Gannon himself
writing a story defending Santorum on his man-dog-sex commments about gays.
There are lots more, you get the picture.

Oh, and speaking of pictures, they found photos too.

The big issue here is whether the White House has been knowingly opening its
doors to a pseudonymous male hustler (or pimp) so he'll pose softball
questions to the president. If that's the case here - and in all fairness,
we still need to hear from Gannon - it's not just creepy, it's outrageous
and an incredible violation of the country's trust, and just as importantly,
White House security. Do these people do a background check on anyone?

-----

Kos himself has laid out the bottom line
<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/9/183147/5008>  on this:

The bottom line
by kos 
Wed Feb 9th, 2005 at 15:31:47 PST

Why should we care about Jeff Gannon?

A potential male prostitute gets White House credentials using a fake name,
provides McClellan a welcome ideological lifeline during press conferences,
and somehow gets access to classified CIA documents that outs an undercover
CIA operative. 

-----

Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28) has called on Bush to explain
<http://www.louise.house.gov/HoR/Louise/News/Press+Releases+By+Date/2005+Pre
ss+Releases/WH+Briefing+Room+Scandal.htm>  how such a person could be
allowed into the highest realms of White House media access:

Rep. Slaughter Calls on President Bush to Explain Emerging White House
Briefing Room Scandal

Washington, DC - Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY-28), long time champion of
media reform and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Rules, sent a
letter to President George W. Bush today asking him to explain how
discredited "reporter" Jeff Gannon was credentialed as a member of the
legitimate media by the White House.

The letter follows:

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In light of the mounting evidence that your Administration has, on several
occasions, paid members of the media to advocate in favor of Administration
policies, I feel compelled to ask you to address a matter brought to my
attention by the Niagara Falls Reporter, a local newspaper in my district,
regarding James "JD" Guckert (AKA Jeff Gannon) of Talon News.

According to several credible reports, "Mr. Gannon" has been repeatedly
credentialed as a member of the White House press corps by your office and
has been regularly called upon in White House press briefings by your Press
Secretary Scott McClellan, despite the fact evidence shows that "Mr. Gannon"
is a Republican political operative, uses a false name, has phony or
questionable journalistic credentials, is known for plagiarizing much of the
"news" he reports, and according to several web reports, may have ties to
the promotion of the prostitution of military personnel.

Several weeks ago when it was revealed that radio/TV host Armstrong Williams
had received payment from your Administration in exchange for his vocal
support of the 'No Child Left Behind' initiative, I was stunned. For years
now I have been leading the fight in Congress for fairness and
accountability in the media; the Williams revelation only underscored the
need for a media that has integrity, is balanced and expresses the local
interests and concerns of its consumers.

Since that time, two more members of the media have been found to have
received money from your Administration in exchange for their vocal, yet
undisclosed support of Administration policies.

And just this morning we have learned that "Mr. Gannon" has resigned his
post at the, so called, Talon News amid growing concerns over his
controversial background and falsified qualifications. In fact, it appears
that "Mr. Gannon's" presence in the White House press corps was merely as a
tool of propaganda for your Administration.

Mr. President, I am sure we both agree the White House Press Corps is an
honored institution in America that should be beyond the scope of partisan
meddling, and that a free and independent media is the cornerstone of our
success as a democracy. Likewise, I am sure we can both agree the American
people have the right to expect that journalists who question their
President everyday are experienced, independent, and perhaps most
importantly, unbiased in their approach.

I was already concerned about what appears to be an organized campaign to
mask partisan propaganda as legitimate news by your Administration. That we
have now learned this same type of deception is occurring inside the White
House briefing room itself is even more disturbing.

That is why I am asking you to please explain to the Congress and to the
American people how and why the individual known as "Mr. Gannon" was
repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press
corps? 

Mr. President, your Administration has driven the so-called "values" debate
in this country. But the most important value for those of us in public
service should always be honesty and integrity, particularly when
considering the manner in which we conduct our affairs of state.

I would appreciate your prompt response on this matter.

Respectfully,

Louise M. Slaughter
Ranking Member, House Committee on Rules

---

It should be noted that the very first blog to pick up on the dubious nature
of Talon News was WebDems, way back in February 2004
<http://webdems.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_webdems_archive.html> :

Netizens, start your engines.

Now that the four-year-old Bush AWOL story has broken through the mainstream
media filter, now that Washington journalists are widely characterized as
cowed, intimidated and bullied by a White House that threatens to deny them
access -- now is the time to begin this blog.

Would you be surprised to learn that (as White House reporters are
browbeaten daily) a seat in the fourth row of the WH briefing room is
occupied by a volunteer for a rinky-dink right-wing "news service" whose
reporters include a personal trainer, a scout camp director, an aerospace
employee, and a high-school student? This volunteer, credentialed by the
White House, is a denizen of the barely credible web forum freerepublic.com.
Read down; this gets worse.

Let's take a look at the bogeyman of credentialing practiced by this Bush
White House. Let's go back to the fourth-row seat designated for the news
service mentioned above -- Talon News Service.

The nine volunteer "reporters" of Talon News Service are available for your
inspection at Talon. The roster includes (as mentioned above) a high-school
student who cites as favorite reading the fundamentalist Oswald Chambers' My
Utmost for His Highest; a "reporter" who dutifully lists his work history as
"cleaning my family's bar" and sometime camp director; a personal trainer;
an aerospace engineer; and a couple of self-proclaimed freelancers.

The Talon reporter assigned to cover the White House is Jeff Gannon, whose
product from this plum position is a one-minute daily webcast on Talon's
site and a weekly broadcast over the radiofreerepublic.com network.
Freerepublic.com is the faded home-base of the Clinton haters; a message
board where some dirty tricks against liberals are hatched (the recent bogus
photo of Kerry and Fonda originated there) and a whole lot of blind
Bush-kissing continues. Freerepublic's shrill, extremist rallies in
Washington attract only a handful of people.

Talon News Service is obviously a silly and kooky wannabe outfit. And yet a
precious seat in the fourth row of the White House briefing room is
Gannon's. He boasts on freerepublic about asking questions designed to
elicit "gasps" from the real correspondents.

How and why did Talon gain permission to access White House briefings while
the same White House threatened denial of access to correspondents from
media giants NBC and CNN and The Washington Post? And doesn't Talon's
inclusion cement the critical need for reporters to be credentialed through
peer review?

-----

In one last twist of the Bizarro World knife, this story has also made it
onto the pages of the New York Daily News
<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/279466p-239417c.html> ,
complete with a photo of 'Gannon' in his underwear. One almost pities
him...almost...

Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link

BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

On his TalonNews Web site, Gannon had written that liberals were out to get
him because he's a white conservative man who owns a gun, drives a
sport-utility vehicle and is a born-again Christian.

Yesterday, however, he abruptly quit, and all of the stories he wrote were
erased from the Web site. A great many were on gay issues, including one
detailing John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" that was headlined
mockingly, "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."

-----

Like I said...almost.

'Dirtbag' doesn't even begin to encompass this fellow, and if this is the
kind of 'journalist' the Bush White House likes to keep around, it is no
small wonder why the entire national journalism infrastructure is rotting
faster than the pier pilings in Boston Harbor.

Someday, someone will explain to me how a guy with a fake name and a
background in prostitution was allowed by the Secret Service and God knows
who else to sit twenty feet away from the President of the United States.
Oh, wait. Never mind. They knew he was there all along.

Thank God for the bloggers.

The Jeff Gannon Experience
<http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/10/83242/3251>

<Moving Forward on Election Reform
<http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/9/171445/5656>  (0 comments) |
'How Dirty Harry Turned Commie' - An incredible read
<http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/2/10/13365/2342>  (0 comments) >

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