Jeff Gannon, Jim Guckert, and... Prostitution?

What matters is the continued hypocrisy from neoconservatives who are willing to demonize the homosexual community in one breath, and then flalsely defend it in the next.

Buy a clue, McGentrix; he is gay. But that doesn't matter.

Dookie, Cycloptichorn has made it abundantly clear that he does not wish to discuss Gannon's alleged homosexuality.

Anybody know how Gannon got so many scoops and such great access to "Our Leader"?

Perhaps it was his mad journalistic skills?

McGrentix:

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Dookie, Cycloptichorn has made it abundantly clear that he does not wish to discuss Gannon's alleged homosexuality.

That's why I listed what matters.

The neoconservatives silence is deafening regarding Gannon's posted pix of himself.

And yet they have no problem embracing the Swift Boat idiots and their AARP demonization campaign, whereas they accuse senior citizens of being against our troops, but for two guys kissing.

Amazing, really. Too bad Tico seems rather clueless to the whole situation.

But I would expect no less.

How did G/G get access to the WH when he didn't work for a news organization and had no published pieces?

How did he get in for years on a 'day pass' in violation of SS and WH policy?

How was G/G involved with the Thune campaign so closely in their smear of Daschle?

How did G/G receieve secret, confidential information about the Valerie Plame outing? Why hasn't he been called before Fitzgerald to talk about how he got this memo; one that he actually DID write an article about, as opposed to the reporters facing jail time who didn't even write any articles?

How did G/G get paid? Where did the money come from? What is the relationship between G/G and Bruce Eberle? Between Eberle and Karl Rove? We know the ties are there due to the direct-mail connection.

Principles, ethics in journalism



First published: Saturday, February 26, 2005

Sometimes advertisers create lines or scenes so memorable that they're cemented into the culture. Here's one: "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." That was Robert Young, who played Marcus Welby, M.D., with such credibility that a drug company hired him to put on a white lab coat and hawk its product in a commercial.

Dr. Welby came to mind the other day when some of us were kicking around the tale of Jeff Gannon, who wasn't really a journalist but played one in the White House. Actually, he wasn't really Jeff Gannon, either; his name is James Guckert, and he might still be in the White House briefing room if not for the fact that Gannon/Guckert didn't play his assigned role as well as Welby/Young played his.

Maybe you missed the story: Gannon/Guckert had been showing up at the White House for a couple of years, holding prized credentials issued by the White House and lobbing softball questions at press secretaries. He claimed to be a correspondent for a news agency called Talon News. But Talon, it now appears, doesn't really distribute much news. It's an offshoot of an organization called GOPUSA, which is an arm of a Texas-based Republican direct marketing and fund-raising firm.

Gannon's downfall came after President Bush called on him in a press conference a month ago, and Gannon asked a wildly partisan question. It's worth noting that reporters assigned to the White House sometimes wait years before they get to pose a question to the president; there aren't very many press conferences, after all, and there are dozens of arms still waving in the air when the president leaves the room.

But Bush picked Gannon, for some reason, who asked a question by first discussing two Democratic senators, and then saying, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

Reporters can ask some odd questions, you know, but in my years of covering politics I never heard one with quite such a blatant bias. Heads turned. And people suddenly started asking questions about Gannon. We learned not only about the Gannon/Guckert and Talon/GOPUSA name disguises, but also that pictures of Gannon/Guckert naked had appeared on Web sites, on which he offered himself as a $200-an-hour escort for gay men, and that some of his stuff on the Talon/GOPUSA Web site apparently amounted to White House press releases passed along as though they were real stories.

This isn't even the most significant fakery in the name of journalism recently. Only a few weeks ago, three different syndicated columnists were revealed to have accepted money from the Bush administration before they wrote pieces favorable to the President's policies. And we shouldn't forget those "video news releases" from the Department of Health and Human Services, aired in some local TV markets (not ours, thankfully), in which actors posing as Washington correspondents gave one-sided accounts of government policies, packaged to look like reports we watch on news shows.

I'm not here to rant about all these as cynical attempts by the Bush administration to manipulate press coverage. I can't speculate why or how Gannon/Guckert got those press credentials or who might have known that his paycheck was coming from a partisan. The Washington-based columnists are better positioned than I am to judge that stuff. What draws my attention to Gannon/Guckert and the greedy columnists and the fake correspondents is the opportunity to differentiate fair journalism from fraud, the good from the mock.

Two simple principles ought to guide anybody who claims to be a journalist in a free society: First, reporters must seek the truth and report it fully; second, they must act independently.

Columnists and commentators, hoping to guide our thinking to match their own, get a bit more leeway -- they get to have their own views, though not their own set of facts. They still have the responsibility of ethical and intellectual independence so they can be honest purveyors of opinion.

What got Gannon/Guckert kicked out of the White House was simply this: He didn't ask an honest question and write an honest story. He wasn't a journalist, and even though he tried to look like one and sound like one, he didn't play the role right by following the ethical principles that are our fundamentals. Some things take more than acting ability.

Rex Smith is editor of the Times Union.

Unfettered access to the White House despite no prior credentials whatsoever

Invited by the Bush Administration to the annual Christmas party before Talon News existed

Plagiarizing GOP and FOX talking points practically word for word - I thought people got sued for that?

Claiming to have had access to the Valerie Plame files (apparently the only journalist to make that claim), and then insinuating a redaction; which is it?

Asking the most idiotic and subjective questions to the press secretary and Bush at just the right moment, when all those other "hard" questions from actual journalists began to zero in on the truth.

What got Gannon/Guckert kicked out of the White House was simply this: He didn't ask an honest question and write an honest story. He wasn't a journalist, and even though he tried to look like one and sound like one, he didn't play the role right by following the ethical principles that are our fundamentals. Some things take more than acting ability.

So, by all means Tico, you go right ahead and defend what you consider to be journalistic integrity, because, as stated above, some things do take more than one's acting ability it would seem...

I do not believe there are any hard rules on that issue.

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I do not believe there are any hard rules on that issue.

Ah yes, but of course you don't...

How did G/G get access to the WH when he didn't work for a news organization and had no published pieces?

I do not have access to his full resume, but I'll assume that he did it the same way every other person does. Have you done any in depth research into Gannon's past reporting? Do you have any evidence that he was unqualified to gain access to the whitehouse?

How did he get in for years on a 'day pass' in violation of SS and WH policy?


He showed up every morning asking for one.

How was G/G involved with the Thune campaign so closely in their smear of Daschle?


He has a nose for news.

How did G/G receieve secret, confidential information about the Valerie Plame outing? Why hasn't he been called before Fitzgerald to talk about how he got this memo; one that he actually DID write an article about, as opposed to the reporters facing jail time who didn't even write any articles?

Source for this? I haven't seen the evidence about this beyond allegations.

How did G/G get paid? Where did the money come from? What is the relationship between G/G and Bruce Eberle? Between Eberle and Karl Rove? We know the ties are there due to the direct-mail connection.


Probably by the word like most reporters. paid for by the people publishing what he wrote about. Maybe Eberle was his friend from college. There is no connection between Eberle and Rove other that professional connections that may arise from their common interests and jobs.