I didn't think I'd have time to do an installment of this today. In addition to blogging and general political interests, I am a musician and I have a gig tonight.
But I slave to bring perspective so here's today's installment of the MSM coverage (or lack thereof) of all things Jeff Gannon.
Saturday, Feb. 26
Owner's Note: I did the search and posted the last diary about midday EST yesterday, 2/25. I'll include in this posting any additional information provided yesterday but not posted.
TV News Outlets Online
Oddly, MSNBC has posted an article with tomorrow's date on it. In its partnership with Newsweek, MSNBC has this article to promote: Politics: Gannon's Enemies List. Fox News has an online teaser promoting its show, Fox News Watch, which airs on Saturdays at 6:30pm EST. The blurb for today's show is:
Plus, we'll discuss the bizarre saga of Jeff Gannon (search) aka Jeff Guckert who worked as a White House reporter for two years.
Hey... It's a mention but that's about it and I won't be home to watch the show and see what is actually said. Moreover, I'm not sure I could bring myself to turn the channel to Fox News. ABC News posted a story late yesterday that includes this fabulous mention of the Gannon incident WAY down the page after a bunch of other grab-bag items:
The Los Angeles Times' Johanna Neuman writes about the colorful characters that have populated the White House press corps over time -- not just Jeff/James Gannon/Guckert -- who prompt the question: What is a journalist? LINK
The Wall Street Journal's Cooper and McKinnon do pretty much the same thing on B1.
Pretty weak, but it's a mention. As peace voter noted in the comments section of yesterday's Poopy Awards, CBS has posted Gannon-Guckert-Gate by David Corn (as originally printed in Corn's column in The Nation).
That pretty much rounds out the mentions of Gannon/Guckert in the online TV news outlets. CNN is now a two-time Poopy Award winner for utterly failing to have even the fluffiest of mention about the Gannon issue.
And now let's move on to the fabulous world of
Newspaper Outlets Online
I'll simply give you the publication and link to the article.
The New York Times: National Briefing - small mention of the Talon News website being taken offline. Pathetic.
The Washington Post: The Bush-Putin Mutual Admiration Society - yes, I know - the title wouldn't indicate there was anything Gannon-related; however, way down in the article you find this:
Meanwhile, Speaking of Press Corps
The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times sort of backed into the Gannon story this morning.
Christopher Cooper and John D. McKinnon write in the Wall Street Journal that "a steady evolution that has occurred in the White House briefing room in recent years. Once the clubby preserve of big-name newspapers and networks, it has lately become a political stage where a growing assortment of reporters, activists and bloggers function not only as journalists but as participants in a unique form of reality TV.
"The power of the presidency has always attracted offbeat characters to the White House briefing room. But the trend accelerated in the late 1990s, when cable outlets like C-SPAN began broadcasting the White House briefing in its entirety. That has drawn more fringe journalists seeking a forum to voice their points of view. The trend has been further fueled in recent years by the rise of alternative media, Internet news sites and Web logs that have given just about everyone who wants it a platform for punditry."
Johanna Neuman writes in the Los Angeles Times that "the White House press corps is not the thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite Americans might presume. Along with stars of the country's major media organizations, it has long included eccentrics, fringe players and characters of uncertain lineage."
Erstwhile reporter Jim Guckert, better known as Jeff Gannon, won entree into the White House by routinely getting day passes -- rather than the "hard passes," for which he did not qualify.
Neuman writes: "Marlin Fitzwater, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said in an interview that he created day passes in response to a federal court decision in the late 1970s requiring the White House to admit all journalists unless the Secret Service deemed them threats to the president or his immediate family.
"The lawsuit involved Robert Sherrill of the Nation, who was denied a press pass on the Secret Service's recommendation because, it turned out, he had punched out the press secretary to the governor of Florida.
Meanwhile, Eric Boehlert writes in Salon: "Ordinarily, revelations that a former male prostitute, using an alias (Jeff Gannon) and working for a phony news organization, was ushered into the White House -- without undergoing a full-blown security background check -- in order to pose softball questions to administration officials would qualify as news by any recent Beltway standard. . . .
"Yet most mainstream reporters have opted not to cover the story. Two of the television networks, as well as scores of major metropolitan newspapers around the country, have completely ignored it."
He draws an interesting comparison with the firestorm of coverage after Chattanooga Free Times Press reporter Edward Lee Pitts helped a National Guardsman craft a tough question posed to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Editor & Publisher writes that Talon News, the site for which Guckert worked, is going dark.
But: Jeffgannon.com, Guckert's personal site, is back up. He writes: "I'm baaaaaaack! If you thought I was going to slink away -- then you don't know much about me. Someone still has to battle the Left and now that I've emerged from the crucible, I'm stronger than before."
Yes I know - it's reporting more or less about reporting but at least it's more than two sentences. Also in
The Washington Post was this political cartoon:
Ahem. Now on with the roundup.
The Chicago Tribune: The new age of `news' - The first paragraph alone is worth quoting:
Fittingly for someone who fancied himself a journalist, it was a question that brought Jeff Gannon's downfall. It was an obviously slanted question, tossed like a softball to President Bush at a recent news conference. Gannon, who billed himself as a reporter for two conservative Web sites, asked Bush how he could work with Senate Democratic leaders "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality."
Cool. Sadly, however, that wraps it up for the online MSM newspaper outlets. The Washington Post and The New York Times have escaped today's Poopy Award. So, too, has The Los Angeles Times but only because it was referenced in The New York Times article. Both The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald become two-time Poopy Award recipients. I now have to add The Chicago Tribune as the newest recipient.
Other Media Outlets
Diary owner's note: These 'other' outlets are either smaller than what would be considered MSM or blatantly partisan on either side. I used the Google News Service to get a summary.
Dissident Voice: The James Guckert/James Gannon, Fake Reporter in the White House Question is Moot!
The St. Petersburg Times: The role of bloggers
Axis of Logic: Gannon/Guckert is the new Monica Lewinsky
The Conservative Voice: Opinion: Is Jeff Gannon, The New Matt Drudge
The Palm Beach Post: White House flack corps
Tallahassee Democrat: Gannon-gate: Where's the outrage? - I think someone posted this late yesterday in the comments section of RobertInWisconsin's diary entry Gannongate: A Conspiracy of Silence!
And that, folks, is what I found today. Cheers!