White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny

chewie_nz

Banned
White House-friendly reporter under scrutiny
By Charlie Savage and Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | February 2, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.


Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers." It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as "bringing the conservative message to America."

Called on last week by President Bush at a press conference, Gannon attacked Democratic Senate leaders and called them "divorced from reality." During the presidential campaign, when called on by Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Gannon linked Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to Jane Fonda and questioned why anyone would dispute Bush's National Guard service.

Now, the question of how Gannon gets into White House press conferences is coming under intense scrutiny from critics who contend that Gannon is not a journalist but rather a White House tool to soften media coverage of Bush. The issue was raised by a media watchdog group and picked up by Internet bloggers, who linked Gannon's presence in White House briefings to recent controversies over whether the administration manipulates the flow of information to the public.

These include the disclosure that the Education Department secretly paid columnist Armstrong Williams to promote its education policy and the administration's practice of sending out video press releases about its policies that purport to be "news stories" by fake journalists.

McClellan said Gannon has not been issued -- nor requested -- a regular "hard pass" to the White House, and instead has come in for the past two years on daily passes. Daily passes, he said, may be issued to anyone who writes for an organization that publishes regularly and who is cleared to enter the building.

He said other reporters and political commentators from lesser-known newsletters and from across the political spectrum also attend briefings, though he could not recall any Internet bloggers. McClellan said it is not the White House's role to decide who is and who is not a real journalist and dismissed any notion of conspiracy.

Nonetheless, transcripts of White House briefings indicate that McClellan often calls on Gannon and that the press secretary -- and the president -- have found relief in a question from Gannon after critical lines of questioning from mainstream news organizations.

When Bush called on Gannon near the end of his nationally televised Jan. 26 news conference, he had just been questioned about Williams and the Education Department funds, an embarrassment to the administration. Gannon's question was different. Continued...
Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the US economy," Gannon said. "[Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"


As it turned out, Reid had never talked about soup lines. That was a phrase attributed to him in satire by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.

Last year, during the presidential campaign, Gannon's comments could be even more pointed. In a Feb. 10, 2004, briefing with McClellan, for example, Gannon rose to deliver the following:

"Since there have been so many questions about what the president was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?"

David Brock, the former investigative journalist who made his name revealing aspects of former President Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs, said he was watching last week's press conference on television and the "soup lines" question sparked his interest because it "struck me as so extremely biased." Brock asked his media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, to look into Talon News.

It quickly discovered two things, he said. First, both Talon and the political organization GOP USA were run by a Texas Republican activist and party delegate named Bobby Eberle. Second, many of the reports Gannon filed for Talon News "appeared to be lifted verbatim from various White House and Republican political committee documents."

Eberle did not return phone calls yesterday, and Gannon declined to comment. He did reply to Brock's group on his personal blog: "In many cases I have liberally used the verbiage provided on key aspects of the issue because it is the precise expression of where the White House stands -- free of any 'spin.' It's the ultimate in journalistic honesty -- unvarnished and unfiltered. If only others would be as forthcoming."


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/w...white_house_friendly_reporter_under_scrutiny/
 
Damien435 said:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=73

And this guy has been accused for prostitution in the White House, not of the straight kind either. That is right, he was also a homosexual-prostitute who did sexual favors for people in the White House for money, upwards of $100 an hour.

wow...lol REALLY!? that's awesome!
 
Damien435 said:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=73

And this guy has been accused for prostitution in the White House, not of the straight kind either. That is right, he was also a homosexual-prostitute who did sexual favors for people in the White House for money, upwards of $100 an hour.


:roll: And a website with a graphic referring to our President, VP, and Rumsfeld as the "asses of evil" is certainly a reputable source for such accusations, any more than David Duke could be considered a good source for information about Israel.

This forum is NOT a place to post unverified, agenda-driven accusations.
 
What I really don't like about US Politicians is the bi-partisan divide that often led to a series of name calling, that is quite embarassing for the American Public. But not all US Politicians tend go towards a more bitter tone.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Okay so the White House decided on WHAT on gay marriage?

They did not know what was going on, which is not the most reassuring statement one could make but it is true.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/068144.php
http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/column203.html
http://www.soulflakes.net/archives/122

Yes, I know, blogs are terrible, they have no journalist credentials, their word is as valuable as a continental. Well, the people at FOX, CBS, CNN, and NBC do have jounalistic credentials and we all know that they are not in the least bit bias. Today's reporters are all trying to push an agenda of some sort, unfortunately far to many of them are choosing to push a political agenda.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27730-2005Feb15.html
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/02/17.html#a1626 - Also a clip of a train/semi collision on the end, minor injuries only.
 
k19 said:
so let's watch CBC then, surely is different than FOX, CBS, CNN, and NBC......

Of course, this is what I hate about America, Freedom of the Press, sure it is needed but still, NBC might have killed the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam because of their stupidity.
 
Cabal said:
What I really don't like about US Politicians is the bi-partisan divide that often led to a series of name calling, that is quite embarassing for the American Public. But not all US Politicians tend go towards a more bitter tone.

Bush doesn't and look at how popular that got him :-/
 
Whispering Death said:
Cabal said:
What I really don't like about US Politicians is the bi-partisan divide that often led to a series of name calling, that is quite embarassing for the American Public. But not all US Politicians tend go towards a more bitter tone.

Bush doesn't and look at how popular that got him :-/

Perhaps you have forgotten about the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
 
Damien435 said:
k19 said:
so let's watch CBC then, surely is different than FOX, CBS, CNN, and NBC......

Of course, this is what I hate about America, Freedom of the Press, sure it is needed but still, NBC might have killed the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam because of their stupidity.

Damn that freedom of speech hey?
 
Charge_7 said:
Doesn't like freedom of speech, huh? Somebody gag him. I'm sure he won't mind. :twisted:

Do I need to give a little lesson to you about the difference between Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press? I never said anything about Freedom of Speech, nice try at being funny though, really, I would give you a cookie but I do not know where you live.
 
Your attempt at humour fell much flatter, PFC.

You actually think there is a difference between freedom of the press and freedom of speech? Exactly how would freedom of speech be extended without freedom of the press? Stand out on a mountaintop, yell as loud as you can and hope everybody gets the message?

How important freedom of the press/speech is (for they are the same thing) can be illustrated in the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"Given a choice of a country with no freedom of the press and a strong government or a country with freedom of the press and no government I should choose the latter."

And that was from a man hounded by the press.

Do I think the press goes too far at times? Of course I do, but guess what? That's part and parcel in the equation. Freedom of press/speech is meaningless unless you include that which you don't like to hear.
 
Freedom of Speech applies to the individual, Freedom of the Press applies to an organization of people called the press.

Oh, and my "humour" was meant to fall flat.
 
But nobody without freedom of the press would be heard much beyond a few blocks if it weren't for freedom of the press. Freedom of the press is an extension of freedom of speech and one cannot exist without the other. You can quibble about niceties of who is who but the press is the vehicle for the freedom of speech. You might as well say that people can travel freely but they can't use any kind of vehicle to get there as analogy to what you would wish.
 
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