Who is "Jeff Gannon"?  Apparently he's a "reporter", with White House press credentials.

I put "Jeff Gannon" in quotes, because some (Atrios and SusanG at Kos) are reporting that it's a pseudonym.  (And he kind-of confirms it, at FishbowlDC.)  Isn't it a little bit usual for people to get White House media credentials under a false name?

More importantly, I put "reporter" in quotes because, well, he doesn't appear to be:

• He is known for asking softball questions, such as:
  1. "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"  (In this question, he also used an erroneous characterization of Sen. Harry Reid, taken directly from The Rush Limbaugh Show.)
  2. "Considering that American soldiers are in Iraq fighting to give those people there the right to vote, the right to free and fair elections, don't you think we owe it to them to make sure their votes are counted back home?"
  3. "Do you see any hypocrisy in the controversy about the President's mention of 9/11 in his ads, when Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign issued this button, that says, "Remember Pearl Harbor"? I have a visual aid for folks watching at home."
  4. "Since there have been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard?  Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam?  Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam?  And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?  What was he doing after he was honorably discharged?"
• He has accused press colleagues of "working off [Democratic} talking points"...while using Bush administration press releases and RNC documents in his reports, verbatim and without attribution.  (Using press releases and partisan documents is no sin -- failing to attribute them as such while copying them in your reporting most certainly is.)
• "Jeff Gannon" appears to be one of two employees of Talon News Service.  Talon News has no physical workspace, nor does it have a newsroom.  The "editor-in-chief" of Talon News is one Bobby Eberle, who is also CEO of an organization called GOPUSA (which distributes Talon News.)  GOPUSA describes itself as "conservative news, information, and design company dedicated to promoting conservative ideals."  (They've also published this pseudonymous -- and anti-Semitic -- attack on George Soros.)
• Quoting from Kos:   "In May of 2004, Bruce Eberle, Bobby's brother, folded his Millionsof Americans.com conservative web site into GOPUSA. Bruce is CEO of Virginia-based Eberle Communications, a vast fundraising/direct mail/PR powerhouse that boasts such clients as Ronald Reagan (well, when he was alive, I assume ... although his death was actually great PR too), Operation Rescue, Ollie North and Paula Jones, and which illegally sold fund-raising lists to Ashcroft during his Missouri Senate run. Despite Bobby Eberle's denials to Media Matters, Talon News and GOPUSA are clearly one practical entity; his GOPUSA email address is listed as the administrative contact for Talon, and the two groups share a server and listserve."
• Gannon has White House press credentials, but, according to the National Journal, "the nonpartisan U.S. Senate Daily Press Gallery has rejected Gannon's repeated requests for congressional press credentials because of TalonNews' financial ties to GOPUSA."
• As recorded in his GOPUSA bio, "Gannon"'s sole journalistic credential (he also has a B.S. in Education from "the Pennsylvania State University system") is apparently his graduation from the "Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism."  Googling same didn't return any responses that weren't connected to "Gannon."  However, the Leadership Institute does run a two-day, $50 "Broadcast Journalism School", "for conservatives who want a career in journalism." 
  • The Leadership Institute is unabashedly partisan -- and is yet a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which are required to be nonpartisan by law.  The president of the Leadership Institute is Morton C. Blackwell, who is on the Executive Committee of the RNC, was a Reagan White House aide, and whose writings include "Anti-PAC Agitation is a Liberal Power Grab" and "Why Jesse Helm's (sic) is the Country's Favorite Conservative Senator."
• Gannon's Talon News bio -- and the bios of other Talon News associates -- have disappeared from the Talon website.
• Gannon's personal website describes him as "A conservative journalist embedded with the liberal Washington press corps."
• Perhaps most importantly, in an October 2003 interview with Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Gannon referred to an internal State Department memo that named Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA officer and suggested she was behind Wilson's selection for a CIA mission to Niger.  (The CIA, according to the Washington Post, says this is wrong.)  The Post cited him (according to Kos -- I haven't found a WaPo article explicitly saying this) as having the only access to that memo.  (However, Gannon's question to Wilson assumes knowledge that had only been hinted at up until that point by Novak et al.)  Talon News says that Gannon is on the subpoena list in the Plame investigation.

There's lots more journalism being committed over at dKos -- go here for the big roundup of everything.  Media Matters is also on top of it.

Comments

[Ayelet]

Wow. I was not aware of Jeff Gannon, et al until reading your post and am now appropriately incensed. Who the hell are these imposters and how much are they receiving from BushCo?

[geoffrey7]

Two questions being asked all over the world about Jim/Jeff-Gannon/James Dale Guckert right now:

1) how did he get access to the White House in any way?

2) how did he get access to the confidential CIA memo regarding Valerie Plame?

Answer:

Which high-level republican(s) responded to his escort services and had sex with him, obviously sometime prior to 28 Feb 2003, as per http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/gannon-in-white-house-briefing-room.html ..?

Pretty obviously, he blackmailed someone at the highest levels to get his access PRIOR TO THE CREATION of the Talon shill service.

Who was it?

Keep asking, who was it?

WHO had sex with Jim/Jeff-Gannon/Guckert?

Is he a Skull & Boners ..?

Did they have gay sex IN the White House ?! What a thrill that would be. Kinda makes ''renting'' out out the Lincoln bedroom really tame ... or gives it a whole new meaning.

Fill the echo chamber with it. This is a security problem equal to TREASON.

Was/is he running a gay escort service for washington politicians, as hinted by news reports compiled at http://nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com/2005/02/plausible-scenario-gay-prostitute.html ..?

''Prostitution is illegal.''

''Solicitation is illegal.''

''Extortion is illegal.''

''Bribe-taking, or bribe-giving, by public officials is illegal.''

''Leaking confidential government documents is illegal.''

''And covering up criminal behavior is likewise illegal.''

WH press access a cover as gay pimp for White House closet gays?

You decide:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/16/155840/912