Doing Pro Journalists' Work For Them

The Raw Story, going where professional journalists have utterly failed to tread, peers further into the increasingly weird "Jeff Gannon" story. Two Democratic members of Congress apparently had to file a Freedom of Information request with the Secret Service to get logs of Gannon's comings and goings at the White House, and the logs are curious.

More here, including the documents themselves.

See also Salon's coverage.

Comments

[Mike]

Isn't this story already dead? I'm not happy about this whole Jeff Gannon thing, but it's hard for me to pretend to be surprised. The Bush Administration gives favorable and unequal access to people (even pseudo-journalists) that are sympathetic to the administration's views. This is hardly a news flash- see Valerie Plame, the energy commission meetings, Halliburton no-bid contracts, etc. If those other stories didn't go anywhere, why should this one?

[Perry Swarthout]

I think Raw Story is interesting for the reason that proper investigative journalism is conducted there, and it's by a non-print guy in Jack Byrne. He is cutting edge in that regard. I think he's way behind, though, on what he is investigating.

Byrne tends to be utterly pedantic, utterly subservient to low-level Democratic scandals, and kind of unaware of both of these things.

So take the Gannon story here, which is an interesting, real story. Byrne makes a big deal out of the fact that Gannon didn't sign out at the same desk he signed into on a few occasions. Well, having worked at a place with many entries and exits, I've seen that people go in through some doors and out different ones. Or, here's a worse scenario: The sign in/sign out official screwed up.

I have a friend who worked in the Clinton White House. He told me that the security measures at the White House were just like any other human endeavor: flawed.

[seaan]

I would not call it "increasingly weird", until they have something to top the whole gay porn stuff that has already come out.

The new information just provides confirmation to what has been almost obvious from the start: Guckert was a political operative controlled by the White House. The new information does show more rule breaking, on the same order as his extended daily pass. But why would anybody be surprised that he spent more time in the White House than his cover ("press duties") would require?

Is there anybody, aside from Republican spinmiesters, who does not believe Guckert was a shill? Perhaps this bit of additional evidence might convince a few more people, but it does not really change the nature of the story.

[seaan]

Having said that, I also agree that this type of investigation is a good thing. Since mainstream journalists are falling down on the job, I'm happy to see citizens pick up the slack. Very relevant post for Dan’s central themes – it was just the phrasing of “increasingly weird” that got to me.

[seaan]

Having said that, I also agree that this type of investigation is a good thing. Since mainstream journalists are falling down on the job, I'm happy to see citizens pick up the slack. Very relevant post for Dan’s central themes – it was just the phrasing of “increasingly weird” that got to me.

[Larry]

I thought the real story here was that the logs apparently show him signing in one day and signing out the next. And while having a male prostitute sleep over would be no big deal in a more enlightened society, this was happening in "the people's house" under the eyes of an administration that has played the gay bashing card a little too often to accept that sort of peccadillo from their leadership.

Also the whitehouse security may be flawed but the secret service is supposed to be a cut above your average set of rentacops; and the number of cumulative mistakes seems a little high for an outfit that is charged with protecting the life of the leader of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen.

Having the politicals scooch around the requirement for deep background checking by repeatedly reissuing a temporary pass, fine. Having someone on a "temporary press pass" wandering around for hours, even on days when there were no briefings, letting him get by without signing out, repeatedly, having him wander around unescorted for hours, possibly overnight; not so good.

I will admit to a certain amount of schadenfreude in this case. However I do not think we have heard the last of mr. Guckert/Gannon/Bulldog

[Jim M]

One of the reasons this story is interesting, and probably the main reason it isn't getting regular media news play, is that it exposes the double-standards that the media is using in news. Again and again on various Bush administration scandals, we heard from the media that even though they were far worse than any Clinton-era scandals, the Bush scandals just weren't tittilating enough to get play. Now we've got a male prostitute with no press credentials and using an assumed name getting unprecedented continued press passes, being called on at press conferences (a rare occurence for most press people with this prez), and doing sleep-overs at the White House. Yet no play for the story, despite the tittilating aspects; media called on their hypocrisy.

[TomD]

The Jeff Gannon scandal is not what it's being made out to be; here's a different take on what's going on, one that answers some of the questions posted in previous comments:

http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/03/aggressive_verb.html

Now those extra hours in the White House make a whole lot more sense.

[Aeolus]

Love happens. Impossible to predict where, why, when, or with whom. But I think Susie's right. Somebody at the White House was head over heels (literally) in love with Gannon.