'Reporter' Gannon is Gone

The "Jeff Gannon" saga took an ugly turn. Gannon, you may recall, was the White House "reporter" of questionable bona fides -- apparently a Republican operative whose main role was to ask friendly questions of the president and his spokespeople, a countervailing force to what the Bush administration plainly believes is an overwhelmingly liberal White House press corps. (That view of the suck-up brigade is laughable, in my view, given the half-baked, credulous coverage the administration has enjoyed.)

Various bloggers have been investigating Gannon, and one of them turned up some news that led him to silence himself.

Timothy Karr has some details. See also Daniel Conover's analysis, in which he notes: "It must be clear now that blogs and websites are providing the bulk of significant real-time reporting on MSM matters. Those of us who work in the MSM and care about these issues turn to these "non-official" sources to get the scoop on our industry, and I don't expect that to change any time soon."

Fair enough. But this episode should give people a queasy feeling. The scandal is the administration's contempt for the public, and the lack of journalistic credibility this person demonstrated, not whatever he was doing on the side.

Comments

[Lex]

The scandal might go beyond that. I forgot which blog I read it on, but "Gannon" was cited by The Washington Post back during the height of Plamegate as being the only reporter with a copy of a purported CIA memo that was relevant to that whole deal. "Gannon" supposedly has testified before the Plame grand jury.

If the memo was genuine, this raises a whole host of troubling questions that have nothing to do with "Gannon's" sexual orientation.

[Bill Quigley]

I think it is a pretty frightening thing that the White House were able to get away with using a fake reporter for so long in trying to shape coverage of the President. It almost smacks of the type of propagandistic techniques that many rulers have used over the year. Of course, the fact that the MSM never questioned why he was there and how he got the credential (which, last time I checked, are the hardest ones to get in journalism) should be the bigger story in all this. Hope we start seeing some real reporting on this in the press in the next few days.

[GregB]

Dan Froomkin did some questionong about him, but as far as I know, he's the only one, Lex. A US Rep has now called for an investigation of the whole thing.

Props to you, Dan, for clearly stating that the real issue is the White House side of things. One of the real problems here is that this once again will get spun as a M'media is biased" story, further undermining real journalism - and it won't get tied to the enormous PR campaigns of the administration

[fling93]

On a marginally related topic, Dan, do you have a response to this (the Nicholas Ciarelli case -- I couldn't find a blog entry here that discusses your story)? Seems to me like Luster has a valid point when he says, "When signing up for both WWDC and the ADC Seed Program...participants sign an agreement with Apple not to disclose any facts about upcoming technologies, designs, and hardware." Unless you are somehow suggesting that the right to publish trumps non-disclosure agreements?

[Karen M.]

fyi... the link to Daniel Conover's analysis is not working.

[Daniel Conover]

The link to my post isn't working because i'm a dork and changed the headline after Dan saw it.

This should get you there: "Jeff Gannon, we hardly knew ye"

[Anna]

Conover's post is here.

(and fling93, if you have an off-topic question please keep in mind that Dan has an email address...)

[Alison Chaiken]

NPR noted that Gannon's request for a permanent White House press pass was denied but that he was given a new temporary pass every day. Does anyone know who grants the permanent and temporary press passes? Are different authorities responsible for these?

What has become of the Plame investigation anyway?

[Jon Garfunkel]

Amazing. A friend send me an email on Feb 2nd which I didn't read until I saw the story on Kos and then on Media Matters yesterday. I heard the NPR report today. What really got me was that on tonight's blog surf, I learn that the story was first reported on a little-known blog a year ago. Wow. Put that in your credibility pipe and smoke it. And boy did the BloJoCred conference and subequent tagathon blo this one. Perhaps we're lowering the bar too much on credibility?

Also, I will give credit to the bloggers (and the non-blogging Media Matters) on this one. I have been very skeptical of the claims of blog-triumphalism through my research on the blogosphere's role on public takedowns: Trent Lott was all Marshall at TPM; 60 Minutes was the work of a number of online players-- professionals, bloggers, freepers-- and it only took the Washington Post one day to start wheeling in the HowKurtzer to start firing away. This took a year-- credit to the bloggers in the last two weeks, but the wingers probably missed a number of big chances here.

[francine hardaway]

http://www.broom.org/epic/
Take a minute to view this time-shifting video about the future of journalism. Very opinionated, but food for thought.

[Karen M.]

So, let me see if I've got this right...

Judith Miller et al are risking going to jail in order to protect their source, Jeff Gannon, an uncredentialed voice-box for the administration.

All along, it has seemed improper to me that they would protect those who were attacking the whistleblower. But this is even worse than I thought, and I'm pretty cynical.

Where is the glory in going to jail to protect someone like Gannon? Oh, yeah, I forgot. It's the principle.

[Hiawatha Bray]

I hold no brief for Mr. Gannon, but I'm still not sure I see what he or the White House did that's so terrible...

[Dan Gillmor]

You're joking, Hiawatha, aren't you? Please tell me you're joking.

[Will]

Mr. Bray, I certainly hope your own practices aren't as lax as your apparent acceptance of "what he or the White House did" implies.

Had it been a one-off happenstance, it might not be "so terrible."

But any sentient being should be alarmed at *yet another* example of the pervasive deception that is this Administration's preferred modus operandi.

--
Will

[HT]

As with WMD, Abu Ghraib, the Halliburton pork barrel, etc., etc., etc., this abuse by Bush and his cronies will make a splash for a few days and then fade away as the story becomes too complex to follow and takes too long to spin out.

Americans live in a dumbed-down culture of 90-minute cliché-ridden plots. They have no interest in anything complicated, being too busy playing with their toys, decorating their homes, and anesthesizing themselves with their drugs of choice: TV, internet porn, manufactured pop music, etc.

It's a decadent, brain-dead society, and we are witnessing its long, slow death.

[DavidB]

Dan, will you be printing a retraction if any of this does not pan out? I would guess not. So far there has been little substance and lots of speculation about this person and his ties to the administration. For that matter, there has been little substance about most of the allegations, with the exception of him using a pseudonym. He did not have a press pass, he had a daily pass, and not every day. Then you reference his "friendly questions" as some sort of damning evidence? Please, shall I whisper the name of Helen Thomas to you? Maybe you remember that particular reporter who could hardly contain herself from fawning over the Clinton administration at every chance. Your indignation looks a little selective . . .

[OPIT]

This is embarassing ... but the guy passed security. Who vouched for him ? I'd almost consider the wild idea of an undercover blogger.

[hardy]

Another left witch hunt. How tolerant of them

[HT]

Hardy,

I'm going to assume, perhaps rashly, that you are not a troll.

How, exactly, is it a "witch hunt" to pursue a guy who is admitted to White House briefings without any journalistic qualifications, and without working for a legitimate news organization, and under an assumed name; whose main "work" as a journalist seems to be giving the President and his press secretary relief from real questions by real journalists; and who is then given access to information exposing the identity of a CIA agent whose husband had publicly embarrassed the White House?

I would find these circumstances seriously troubling, whatever the party or politics of the the President and the fake journalist. Wouldn't you? Shouldn't anyone?

"Witch hunt"??

[Bionic]

I'm curious why no one questions Scotty about the reasons why Gannon got a daily press pass.

McClennan said one criteria why Gannon got the pass was that the news outlet he worked for, published regularly, but the Talon News site went up 4 days before he got his first pass. How regular is that?

AND at the time, Washington was under a state of heightened security.

So, maybe Gannon is just some innocent boob, but it raises the question of who in the WH thought that this guy was okay. Who else have they let in?

If I recall correctly the guys who flew the planes lived in their communities espousing Western lifestyles. Do people expect to find "terrorist" listed as occupation when any background check is done?

And how many other journalists have received daily passes for 2 years?

How many daily pass jouralists are invited to the White House Correspondents dinner as Gannon was?

[Ward Gerlach]

Hmmm...so "Gannon" is a scandal?

How about Rather? How about Eason Jordan? How are those less important?

Rather, with a big rep, did indeed depend upon, and defend the use of, forged documents.

Jordan, in an international setting (Davos, Switzerland), did indeed make accusations of murder in the first degree - which he knew to be false.

Bah. A plague on all journalists!