Fascinating set of letters over at Romanesko's
place, arguably the most influential gathering place for journalism discussions. Lots of good ones, but I'm particularly struck by this one:
From LAURA CHAPIN: Kelly McBride is wrong and shouldn't allow herself to be deceived by the right-wing spin. Gannon/Guckert's problem wasn't that he was a conservative, it's that he used an alias to obtain a press pass for a fake news organization that served as a surrogate for a Republican political operation.
I'll give you an example of a slightly wacky conservative who regularly and legitimately attends White House press briefings: Les Kinsolving, who has a column for the Baltimore Sun as well as a radio show. Les once asked Joe Lockhart if the stains on Monica Lewinsky's dress were proof the President didn't practice safe sex, so didn't that send the wrong message to our young people? Les has every right to be there, and frankly he livens up the place (and is much missed these days due to a recent heart attack from which he is recovering at home).
Gannon/Guckert is simply a bully whining he got punched back. So-called conservatives are using bigotry against gays as political currency (for proof, see the recent RNC outburst shellacking Harry Reid for 'ties to the homosexual community'), and sometimes bigotry bites back. If not for the hypocrisy, it wouldn't have been an issue.
This one is good too:
From PAM ROBINSON: [...]
I have read much more about the Gannon/Guckert situation in recent weeks than Eason Jordan, primarily because, at least what I've seen, the latter story seems to consist of more he said/he said, while the Gannon/Guckert story is a marvel of good, basic reporting: people noting his copying of GOP documents and using them in his "reporting", to finding the link to a Republican organization, to using his email address to uncover his real name, to finding his AOL page, to discovering the gay "escort" pages. The bloggers have acted as real journalists, just as Woodstein did back in the day. What have most -- not all, the Boston Globe being a particular exception -- of the mainstream press done? Ignore it or, when it became too big to ignore, criticize bloggers.
Like I said, interesting stuff.