The blog
Mediacitizen has obtained
documents from the Standing Committee of Correspondents of the Senate Press Gallery which show that James Guckert ("Jeff Gannon") was unanimously denied accreditation to the Congressional Press Gallery. Even though
Scott McClellan thinks Guckert represented a legitimate news organization, the Congressional Committee thought otherwise. (more after the break)
Specifically, the Committee gave three justifications for its refusal:
Committee guidelines require that on-line publications "must charge a market rate fee for subscription or access, or carry paid advertising at current market rates." You have not demonstrated to the committee's satisfaction that Talon News has any paid subscribers, that paid client newspapers publish Talon News stories, or that it is supported by advertising.
The application for accreditation to the press galleries states that "members of the press shall not engage in lobbying or paid advertising, publicity, promotion, work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the Federal Government." Talon News has not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the committee that there is a separation from GOPUSA/Millions of Americans.com.
Gallery rules and the application state that the principal income of correspondents must be obtained from news correspondence intended for publication in newspapers or news services. The committee feels that paying a single reporter a "stipend" does not meet the intent of the rule.
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Not surprisingly, this contradicts what Bobby Eberle told the Houston Chronicle yesterday:
Eberle defended Talon News as a "straight news site." It has eight reporters and reaches about a half million subscribers every weekday, he said.
All volunteer reporters and nonpaying subscribers.
The site features flashing advertisements for conservative publications and causes, and includes links to other GOP and conservative sites that publish Talon News stories.
Evidently, Bobby, you don't charge for these advertisements, at least not at the market rate.
By having a separate news company, I take great pains to deliver the facts," Eberle said. "My vision for Talon News is not for it to be a destination site, it is to be a provider of news content to clients."
Non-paying clients. Doesn't sound like a news organization to me.
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According to the White House guidelines as reported by Eric Boehlert in Salon, to receive permanent accreditation (a "hard pass"):
a journalist must submit a letter confirming that he or she works for a legitimate news organization, lives in the D.C. area, and needs access to the White House for regular news stories. But before the White House will send the request along to the Secret Service for a background check, the journalist must also confirm having received accreditation to cover Capitol Hill. Without Hill credentials, the White House will not forward a hard-pass application.
Guckert had no such credential, so he never applied. Instead, for almost two years, he was admitted with a daily pass. An unnamed member of the White House press corps says that Guckert was the only reporter to be admitted day after day to the briefing room with only a daily pass.
Why is that? Because, according to Boehlert's article, after September 11, the White House, for security reasons, stopped using a kind of temporary press pass, called the "card index", which allowed the holder access for weeks or months at a time. The card index, like the current daily passes, didn't require the stringent background check of the hard pass. So essentially Guckert created his own "card index" pass and was eventually considered part of the permanent White House press corps, even attending the White House Correspondents' Dinner (one of the toughest tickets to get in Washington) last year. It's clear that Guckert received special treatment from the White House, but why?
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There's another question raised by the Standing Committee's documents - what was Guckert's source of income? It was only after Guckert's application was submitted that he was paid a stipend to cover "more than half of Mr. Guckerts (sic) income" so he could be considered a full-time employee of Talon News. So how did he pay his bills?
He was listed online as a court reporter in Wilmington, Delaware - was he still doing that? Or is the answer more intriguing, as suggested by minutes of the Committee's February 27, 2004 meeting:
Mr. Keenan said information has been requested about Mr. Guckert's role as executive director of the Free Speech Foundation in order to determine whether it would conflict with gallery rules regarding paid promotion, publicity, and advertising.
We already knew that the Free Speech Foundation was listed as the "Media Contact" for a website called ProBush.com which was sued (along with its owner Michael Marino) by former Sen. James Abourezk after it put his name on what it called a "traitor's list". Was FSF receiving income from other sources too? Enough for Guckert to live on?