The Propagannon team and ePluribus Media needs your help. I've been nominated to post this, but it comes from all of us.
We want to interview James D. Guckert. We want you to help formulate the questions.
It's unlikely Guckert will agree to answer us. But he may agree to the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC-TV or other major media outlets. We hope to encourage them to ask the questions.
We plan to distribute an enews release to 300+ of the most influential journalists/media in the U.S. with "questions America wants answered." We plan to link the release to this diary, and we're going to request - formally, publicly, and everywhere in the blogosphere - that the American free press do its job.
This is how "open source journalism" begins.
Please contribute questions you think the American news media ought to ask Guckert. Please confine your comments to the topic.
Thank you. We'll be listening. Hopefully, all of us will convince the American news media to listen too. And to ask. More below
Here are some questions to start. Feel free to re-phrase, re-write, re-focus and edit any of these, and please add to the list. Note that we've left plenty of room for thoughtful query lines - so enjoy yourself.
Please aim at "professional" questions - satire, sarcasm or "Gannon-style" questions won't help us here.
- Are you now or have you ever been an employee or contractor of the U.S. government or any of its agencies? If so, when?
- Are you now or have you ever been an employee or contractor of any partisan political organization? What was the nature of that professional relationship?
- Has any member of the White House staff ever suggested, requested or influenced the questions and statements you prepared for White House press briefings or interviews with government officials and spokespersons in your capacity as a "journalist" or "reporter?"
- Did you have any experience as a "journalist" or "reporter" before you began working for Talon News?
- Were you in fact an employee of Talon News?
- When you began working for Talon News, who made the first contact? Did you contact Talon? Did Talon recruit you?
- Who was your supervisor at Talon? Was that person also your editor?
In the news release, we'll highlight the "best" questions at the top, but we plan to include every question that's appropriate in the enews release. So be fruitful. The American news media is about to hear from you.
Update [2005-2-27 19:56:24 by doorguy]: This diary has been flagged at Romenesko, Poynter Institute's profesisonal journalist blog, and as a comment at Ameriblog. I'd like to encourage those of you who post regularly at MyDD, DU, etc., to post a link to this diary on those sites. The more contributions the better. It's also been posted at CJRDaily (Columbia Journalism Review)
URL: http://www.campaigndesk.org/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=149.
Thanks.