The Blogosphere's Over-Reaching on "Jeff Gannon"

The Des Moines Register dissects the conspiracy theories surrounding the notorious White House pseudo-journalist who goes under the name of Jeff Gannon. This story nicely shows how what began as a solid online investigation -- distributed journalism -- has morphed into some bizarre theorizing based on too few facts.

The verifiable facts of the "Gannon" case are strange enough. The weird theories don't add much but noise.

And they tend to draw attention from the still-serious questions that haven't been answered, such as to what degree the White House political operation was involved in planting "Gannon" in the pressroom in the first place -- part of a what looks like a systematic campaign to undermine serious journalism.

Could we get back to that, please?

Comments

[joe]

C'mon Dan, who except the catfish at the Democrat Underground (which ain't a blog) has ever heard these theories until some half-assed style reporter dug them up? Why turn on the blogosphere here, instead of questioning whether the reporter hyped the level of weird rumor-mongering so she could get a good story?

[jerry]

What are you talking about? The reporter, in the article itself, claims Rush Limbaugh played a big part in this story, and then goes on to discredit lefty bloggers for their conspiracy theories.

In truth, Rush Limbaugh has played no role in this story, the conspiracy theorists are NOT bloggers themselves, and the left wing bloggers are the ones that discovered the truth behind Gannon AND discredited the Gosch story weeks ago.

REDO!

[fandango]

It's the nature of political blogs, that there will always be some bad blogs online and competing for attention.

In blogging, editorial oversight comes over time, from readers. Readers naturally select blogs that report useful news and make predictions that come true. Good blogs rise to the surface given a little time.

Ripping into Blogs for reporting Gannon/Guckert is just plain stupid, no matter who does the ripping. All blogs are doing, is what they in fact always do.

sc

[Not a Yank]

The hard work of serious journalism? You guys sell advertisments.

[NYBri]

We at ePluribus Media knew from the very beginning that this was a complete dead end and repeatedly said so. To link all citizen journalism organizations together as nut cases gone wild doesn't help the cause.

[Alex Krupp]

I don't see how him being at the press conferences harms journalism. Are you now not a real journalist if you haven't gone to journalism school? I guess Peter Jennings isn't a real journalist then.

I do, on the other hand, see problems with the president consistently answering his softball questions, but that is another issue.

[Ran Talbott]

"Readers naturally select blogs that report useful news and make predictions that come true."

Readers will "naturally select" blogs that fulfill _some_ needs or desires of theirs. Which may or may not have anything to do with the accuracy of news or predictions.

At least some of the people who spend all of their time studying such things worry that readers will be more likely to seek out sources that reinforce their existing views, rather than challenge them. I'm sure most of the regulars here have seen some evidence of that, though it's hard to tell how large a segment of the population is seeking out those "echo chambers" instead of more-balanced and complete sources.

As for "Ripping into Blogs for reporting Gannon/Guckert", the Register article is about people claiming that Guckert is _Gosch_.

[Anna]

Ran, well put. We need to face the reality - and the consequences - of people's motivations, and work with what we've got.

Tangential question - the Des Moines article wraps it up with a, uh, mocking reference painting Operation Mockingbird (CIA influencing the press) as another out-there conspiracy theory. Please cut me some slack here, I am Sleeping Beauty still waking up from many years of apolitical slumber - but didn't this really happen? Frank Church holding hearings? (here)

what this reminds me of - and I hate to put in a good word for Nader, but sometimes you have to - was reading an article about him which illustrated just how wacky he was by reporting he was convinced he was being followed. Only as it turned out he was being followed...