t r u t h o u t || The Jeff Gannon Experience

The Jeff Gannon Experience

By WilliamPitt

Thu Feb 10th, 2005 at 08:32:42 AM EDT :: Media

The blogosphere has been erupting over the last several days over the story of Jeff Gannon, a White House reporter for something called Talon News. The story has gone from irritating to infuriating to outrageous, and has lately parked itself squarely in the realm of the truly bizarre.

How did an obvious Republican operative from an unheard-of news outlet who uses a psuedonym - yeah, 'Jeff Gannon' isn't even his real name - and who looks as though he runs a gay prostitution ring in his spare time ever get credentials to cover the White House? Was this mystery man a key player in the exposure of CIA agent Valerie Plame?

Let's take a look...

Some more basic information on Gannon has been collected on the Demopedia pages at DemocraticUnderground.com.

The MediaMatters blog takes a look at how having so obviously friendly a GOP operative in the press pool helps White House spokesman Scott McLellan and the administration:

"Go ahead, Jeff": Talon News "reporter" Jeff Gannon is McClellan's lifeline during briefings

Talon News "reporter" Jeff Gannon's softball questions often steer White House press secretary Scott McClellan away from more difficult inquiries raised during White House press briefings; on several occasions, McClellan has turned to Gannon for his questions after other press corps members have asked pointed questions on controversial topics. In reviewing White House press conferences from the past year, Media Matters for America has noted numerous instances in which Gannon's lobs -- leading questions that often include false assumptions favorable to the Bush administration -- have allowed McClellan to move to friendlier turf, away from having to answer questions on such issues as the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment; the Bush administration's relationship with former Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi; the growing trade deficit with China; and President Bush's Texas Air National Guard record.

-----

The incredible research community over on DailyKos has connected Jeff Gannon to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, one of the most disturbing ruptures in national security to be seen in recent decades. Read on:

Plame Leaked by Fake News Source? Overview: Part IV
by SusanG
Sun Jan 30th, 2005 at 06:41:05 PST

White House-credentialed fake news reporter "Jeff Gannon" from fake news agency "Talon News" was cited by the Washington Post as having the only access to an internal CIA memo that named Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA agent. Gannon, in a question posed to Wilson in an October 2003 interview, referred to the memo (to which no other news outlet had access, according to the Post). Gannon subsequently has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury looking into the Plame outing.

The precise wording of the question posed in the subject interview is:

"TN: An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?"

These facts have led the Kos community to research the following questions:

1. Who/what is Talon News?
2. Who/what is Jeff Gannon and how did he get credentialed for the White House?
3. How is this "reporter" and "news agency" being used to disseminate information?

The thread on this at Kos has a great deal of background and additional data that is required reading.

-----

Walt Starr, a member of the forums at DemocraticUnderground, has posted a thread pinpointing several places where Gannon bragged about outing CIA agent Plame on the forums of FreeRepublic.com. Gannon, ever the master of subtlety, posts on FR as 'Jeff Gannon.' Starr writes:

Gannon/Guckert seems pretty proud that he was involved in outting Plame. If this guy was paid by the White House, he's a co-conspirator in this one. Here's evidence from Guckert himself preserved for us on FR.

He's all over this thread about it.

Three posts here.

More here and here.

You might want to save those threads to your hard drive if you are pursuing this angle. The fellows at FR have a way of disappearing threads that cast an ill light on the faithful. Great work, Walt.

-----

A post on AMERICAblog delivers this story into the Oort Cloud of utter strangeness:

Holy crap
by John in DC - 2/8/2005 07:03:51 PM

Let me say again, holy crap.

The blogosphere has dug up some really really really creepy stuff about that pseudo-reporter with the pseudonym who the White House lets ask all the softball questions about their briefings. His pseudonym is Jeff Gannon, and well, the folks at DailyKos, and Eschaton, have been doing a little digging around on him.

It's a long and sordid tale, but let me give it to you in a nutshell. Mr. Gannon's home page is JeffGannon.com. Well, JeffGannon.com is owned by a person and company that owns the following Web addresses as well:

Hotmilitarystud.com
Militaryescorts.com
Militaryescortsm4m.com

And for those of you who are really straight or really clueless, "m4m" is a gay online term for men who are looking to have sex with other men, and "escort" means prostitute. And being a military escort is also against the Uniform Code of Military Justice in at least two different ways, if not more.

Now, I'm not one to judge how folks like to get their jollies (assuming no children are involved and it's consensual), but then again, I don't suck up to the family values agenda like Mr. Gannon does. I've been through Gannon's archives, and it's a horrendous accumulation of religious right suck-up pieces on gay issues. Some are concerned that perhaps it's not fair to hit him with the gay card, if he is gay. Well, take a look at some of the stories from Gannon's Talon News Service: here, here, here Talon is promoting "ex-gays," defending Bush on gay marriage, and Gannon himself writing a story defending Santorum on his man-dog-sex commments about gays. There are lots more, you get the picture.

Oh, and speaking of pictures, they found photos too.

The big issue here is whether the White House has been knowingly opening its doors to a pseudonymous male hustler (or pimp) so he'll pose softball questions to the president. If that's the case here - and in all fairness, we still need to hear from Gannon - it's not just creepy, it's outrageous and an incredible violation of the country's trust, and just as importantly, White House security. Do these people do a background check on anyone?

-----

Kos himself has laid out the bottom line on this:

The bottom line
by kos
Wed Feb 9th, 2005 at 15:31:47 PST

Why should we care about Jeff Gannon?

A potential male prostitute gets White House credentials using a fake name, provides McClellan a welcome ideological lifeline during press conferences, and somehow gets access to classified CIA documents that outs an undercover CIA operative.

-----

Rep. Louise Slaughter (NY-28) has called on Bush to explain how such a person could be allowed into the highest realms of White House media access:

Rep. Slaughter Calls on President Bush to Explain Emerging White House Briefing Room Scandal

Washington, DC - Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (NY-28), long time champion of media reform and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Rules, sent a letter to President George W. Bush today asking him to explain how discredited "reporter" Jeff Gannon was credentialed as a member of the legitimate media by the White House.

The letter follows:

Wednesday, February 9, 2005

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

In light of the mounting evidence that your Administration has, on several occasions, paid members of the media to advocate in favor of Administration policies, I feel compelled to ask you to address a matter brought to my attention by the Niagara Falls Reporter, a local newspaper in my district, regarding James "JD" Guckert (AKA Jeff Gannon) of Talon News.

According to several credible reports, "Mr. Gannon" has been repeatedly credentialed as a member of the White House press corps by your office and has been regularly called upon in White House press briefings by your Press Secretary Scott McClellan, despite the fact evidence shows that "Mr. Gannon" is a Republican political operative, uses a false name, has phony or questionable journalistic credentials, is known for plagiarizing much of the "news" he reports, and according to several web reports, may have ties to the promotion of the prostitution of military personnel.

Several weeks ago when it was revealed that radio/TV host Armstrong Williams had received payment from your Administration in exchange for his vocal support of the 'No Child Left Behind' initiative, I was stunned. For years now I have been leading the fight in Congress for fairness and accountability in the media; the Williams revelation only underscored the need for a media that has integrity, is balanced and expresses the local interests and concerns of its consumers.

Since that time, two more members of the media have been found to have received money from your Administration in exchange for their vocal, yet undisclosed support of Administration policies.

And just this morning we have learned that "Mr. Gannon" has resigned his post at the, so called, Talon News amid growing concerns over his controversial background and falsified qualifications. In fact, it appears that "Mr. Gannon's" presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your Administration.

Mr. President, I am sure we both agree the White House Press Corps is an honored institution in America that should be beyond the scope of partisan meddling, and that a free and independent media is the cornerstone of our success as a democracy. Likewise, I am sure we can both agree the American people have the right to expect that journalists who question their President everyday are experienced, independent, and perhaps most importantly, unbiased in their approach.

I was already concerned about what appears to be an organized campaign to mask partisan propaganda as legitimate news by your Administration. That we have now learned this same type of deception is occurring inside the White House briefing room itself is even more disturbing.

That is why I am asking you to please explain to the Congress and to the American people how and why the individual known as "Mr. Gannon" was repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press corps?

Mr. President, your Administration has driven the so-called "values" debate in this country. But the most important value for those of us in public service should always be honesty and integrity, particularly when considering the manner in which we conduct our affairs of state.

I would appreciate your prompt response on this matter.

Respectfully,

Louise M. Slaughter
Ranking Member, House Committee on Rules

---

It should be noted that the very first blog to pick up on the dubious nature of Talon News was WebDems, way back in February 2004:

Netizens, start your engines.

Now that the four-year-old Bush AWOL story has broken through the mainstream media filter, now that Washington journalists are widely characterized as cowed, intimidated and bullied by a White House that threatens to deny them access -- now is the time to begin this blog.

Would you be surprised to learn that (as White House reporters are browbeaten daily) a seat in the fourth row of the WH briefing room is occupied by a volunteer for a rinky-dink right-wing "news service" whose reporters include a personal trainer, a scout camp director, an aerospace employee, and a high-school student? This volunteer, credentialed by the White House, is a denizen of the barely credible web forum freerepublic.com. Read down; this gets worse.

Let's take a look at the bogeyman of credentialing practiced by this Bush White House. Let's go back to the fourth-row seat designated for the news service mentioned above -- Talon News Service.

The nine volunteer "reporters" of Talon News Service are available for your inspection at Talon. The roster includes (as mentioned above) a high-school student who cites as favorite reading the fundamentalist Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest; a "reporter" who dutifully lists his work history as "cleaning my family's bar" and sometime camp director; a personal trainer; an aerospace engineer; and a couple of self-proclaimed freelancers.

The Talon reporter assigned to cover the White House is Jeff Gannon, whose product from this plum position is a one-minute daily webcast on Talon's site and a weekly broadcast over the radiofreerepublic.com network. Freerepublic.com is the faded home-base of the Clinton haters; a message board where some dirty tricks against liberals are hatched (the recent bogus photo of Kerry and Fonda originated there) and a whole lot of blind Bush-kissing continues. Freerepublic's shrill, extremist rallies in Washington attract only a handful of people.

Talon News Service is obviously a silly and kooky wannabe outfit. And yet a precious seat in the fourth row of the White House briefing room is Gannon's. He boasts on freerepublic about asking questions designed to elicit "gasps" from the real correspondents.

How and why did Talon gain permission to access White House briefings while the same White House threatened denial of access to correspondents from media giants NBC and CNN and The Washington Post? And doesn't Talon's inclusion cement the critical need for reporters to be credentialed through peer review?

-----

In one last twist of the Bizarro World knife, this story has also made it onto the pages of the New York Daily News, complete with a photo of 'Gannon' in his underwear. One almost pities him...almost...

Bush press pal quits over gay prostie link

BY HELEN KENNEDY
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

On his TalonNews Web site, Gannon had written that liberals were out to get him because he's a white conservative man who owns a gun, drives a sport-utility vehicle and is a born-again Christian.

Yesterday, however, he abruptly quit, and all of the stories he wrote were erased from the Web site. A great many were on gay issues, including one detailing John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" that was headlined mockingly, "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."

-----

Like I said...almost.

'Dirtbag' doesn't even begin to encompass this fellow, and if this is the kind of 'journalist' the Bush White House likes to keep around, it is no small wonder why the entire national journalism infrastructure is rotting faster than the pier pilings in Boston Harbor.

Someday, someone will explain to me how a guy with a fake name and a background in prostitution was allowed by the Secret Service and God knows who else to sit twenty feet away from the President of the United States. Oh, wait. Never mind. They knew he was there all along.

Thank God for the bloggers.

The Jeff Gannon Experience

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