Right Wing Media Flak: Worst Case Scenario

[IJ Reilly]

Talon News "reporter" lifts from GOP documents verbatim for "news reports"

Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, who accused his colleagues in the press corps of "work[ing] off of the talking points" provided by Democrats, has used Bush administration and Republican National Committee (RNC) documents and releases in his Talon "news reports" verbatim and without attribution. In at least two of his articles, Gannon lifted more than half of the text directly from GOP "fact sheets." Moreover, as Media Matters for America has pointed out, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh proclaimed that Gannon repeated a fabricated assertion of Limbaugh's in a question he asked of President Bush at a January 26 press conference.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501280001

[mactastic]

Add a 3rd commentator who took money to push Administration policies without disclosing the fact to their readers to the list...

I'll post the entire Salon article since I know how some of you feel about registrations.
One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. "I needed to draw this bright line," Horn tells Salon. "The policy is being implemented and we're moving forward."

Horn's move came on the heels of Wednesday's report in the Washington Post that HHS had paid syndicated columnist and marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher $21,000 to write brochures and essays and to brief government employees on the president's marriage initiative. Gallagher later wrote in her column that she would have revealed the $21,000 payment to readers had she recalled receiving it.

The Gallagher revelation came just three weeks after USA Today reported that the Education Department, through a contract with the Ketchum public relations firm, paid $240,000 to Armstrong Williams, a conservative African-American print, radio and television pundit, to help promote Bush's No Child Left Behind program to minority audiences.

To date, the Bush administration has paid public relation firms $250 million to help push proposals, according to a report Thursday in USA Today. That's double what the Clinton administration spent on P.R. from 1997 to 2000. Shortly after Williams' contract came to light, the Democrats on the Committee on Government Reform wrote a letter to President Bush demanding that he "immediately provide to us all past and ongoing efforts to engage in covert propaganda, whether through contracts with commentators, the distribution of video news releases, or other means." As of Thursday, a staffer on the committee told Salon, there had been no response.

Horn says McManus, who could not be reached for comment, was paid approximately $10,000 for his work as a subcontractor to the Lewin Group, a health care consultancy hired by HHS to implement the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative, which encourages communities to combat divorce through education and counseling. McManus provided training during two-day conferences in Chattanooga, Tenn., and also made presentations at HHS-sponsored conferences. His syndicated column has appeared in such papers as the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News and the Charlotte Observer.

Horn, who has known McManus for years, says he first learned about the payment on Thursday. In the wake of the Gallagher story, he asked his staff to review all outside contracts and determine if there were any other columnists being paid by HHS. They informed him about McManus. Horn says the review for similar contracts continues.

Horn insists that HHS was not paying Gallagher and McManus to write about Bush administration initiatives but for their expertise as marriage advocates. "We live in a complicated world and people wear many different hats," he says. "People who have expertise might also be writing columns. The line has become increasingly blurred between who's a member of the media and who is not. Thirty years ago if you were a columnist, then you were a full-time employee of a newspaper. Columnists today are different."

The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates -- not scholars -- from the pro-marriage movement. "They're ideological sympathizers who propagandize," says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women's rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the "extreme religious right."

Horn denies the charge: "It's not true that we have just been selectively working with conservatives." According to news accounts, the administration seeks to spend $1.5 billion promoting marriage through marriage-enrichment courses, counseling and public-awareness campaigns.

In 1996, McManus co-founded Marriage Savers, a conservative advocacy group, which, among other things, urges clergy not to conduct a marriage ceremony unless the couple has had lengthy counseling first. "The church should not be a 'wedding factory,' but a training ground for strong marriages to go the distance -- for life," McManus wrote.

In his April 3, 2004, column, McManus wrote, "The Healthy Marriage Initiative would provide funds to help those couples improve their skills of conflict resolution so they might actually marry -- and be equipped to build a healthy marriage. Those skills can be taught by mentor couples in churches for free. But for the non-religious, counselors would be paid."

A year earlier, McManus assured readers that funds provided for the Healthy Marriage Initiative "could be used to teach skills to improve communication and resolve conflict that would make the relationship happier and lead to a healthy marriage." He based that assessment on comments made by HHS's Horn, who, indirectly, served as McManus' boss -- although that relationship was never revealed to readers.

What liberal media?

[blackfox]

Slightly OT, but reading the Wash Post Article mentioned, I noticed that Ms Gallager, a marriage "expert" is not married. I just found that funny for some reason.

Carry on.

*edit* I guess she is married...curious she was referred to as ms. hmm

[miloblithe]

I wish we could catch the administration all the unethical and illegal stuff they do, impeach, and jail them.

[IJ Reilly]

Gallagher was on the NewsHour last night, defending herself. I thought she made some good points in her own behalf, but she certainly had a hard time complying with the NewsHour's normal rules of decorum, which is that you make your point, and then shut up and let others make theirs (especially when the moderator urges you to yield). She kept blowing through one stop sign after another, much to the obvious frustration of the usually unflappable Gwen Ifill.

Anyway, the Gannon case is quite different. He seems to be nothing more than a hack, and a pure undiluted hypocrite besides. And he gets invited to join the White House press corps? Now, that says something about the standards being set by the press office.

[pseudobrit]

I seem to recall the WH saying Armstrong Williams, when the story involving him broke, was the only opinion they'd purchased.

[IJ Reilly]

I don't know that they've paid Gannon anything. He's a willing volunteer hack.

[mactastic]

MMFA also has an interesting rundown on who makes up Talon News here. (http://mediamatters.org/items/200501280006)

Can you imagine the right wingnuttery outrage if Democratic activists were linked to any media organization? They might even consider it proof of a liberal media bias...

[IJ Reilly]

In fact they are nothing but Republican political activists. Has anyone with this type of background and lack of credentials ever been invited to join the White House Press Corp before? (Anybody who hasn't checked out the linked article should do so -- it kind of takes your breath away.)

[mactastic]

Slightly OT, but reading the Wash Post Article mentioned, I noticed that Ms Gallager, a marriage "expert" is not married. I just found that funny for some reason.

Carry on.

*edit* I guess she is married...curious she was referred to as ms. hmm

Well, we now know that Judith Miller, an 'expert' on marital fidelity during the Clinton impeachment, was seeing a married man, so I guess practicing what you preach isn't a requirement for the 'morals' crowd.

[Thomas Veil]

I wish we could catch the administration all the unethical and illegal stuff they do, impeach, and jail them.Let me see...the only thing actually keeping Congress from launching an impeachment investigation is...

is...uh...

...um...

...Can I get back to you on that?

[pdham]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200501280001


While I think it sucks that media outlets are so lazy now-a-days, and it is especially disheartening when it happens regarding party politics, the practice of lifting info directly from media packets (fact sheets, bio pages, press releasses) is not that uncommon. In this case it may have something to do with a bias of the organization, but in general it has more to do with money and ease. In that the republicans are in power and they spoon feed (as every admin does) the press their info. If the press wants to increase profit margins they listen and use that info, unfortunately sometimes verbatim.

Paul

[pseudobrit]

While I think it sucks that media outlets are so lazy now-a-days, and it is especially disheartening when it happens regarding party politics, the practice of lifting info directly from media packets (fact sheets, bio pages, press releasses) is not that uncommon. In this case it may have something to do with a bias of the organization, but in general it has more to do with money and ease. In that the republicans are in power and they spoon feed (as every admin does) the press their info. If the press wants to increase profit margins they listen and use that info, unfortunately sometimes verbatim.

I've seen similar things done in syndicated newspaper automobile reviews (never read a negative one yet!).

I expect a little more integrity and hard work from someone who gets to sit in the same room with real journalists and ask the president questions.

The fact that he can't be bothered to write his own propaganda is what I find most troubling.

It shows even the eager ********ters lack the conviction and work ethic to spend more than 15 minutes on their cause.

If it weren't sharply indicative of the state of our democracy, I'd be insulted by the laziness.

[IJ Reilly]

What's more, Talon apparently exists for the sole purpose of making Republicans look good and parroting support for their policies. They aren't a news organization by any reasonable definition of the term, yet they've been invited to join the White House press corps. This one goes beyond laziness (which I acknowledge exists in the media), crossing well over the line to propaganda and disinformation.

[pseudobrit]

This one goes beyond laziness (which I acknowledge exists in the media), crossing well over the line to propaganda and disinformation.

I agree, but what I find troubling is that this laziness is inherent even in the propagandists.

Even bona fide dictatorships, with their iron grip on information distribution, put more effort into brainwashing the public.

To me, it's symptomatic of the larger problem in society: democratic apathy. The Bush administration doesn't even bother to cover-up its blatant lies and deception because they're confident no one will care enough to do anything about them; they've been proven right.
Likewise, administration and party hacks don't even bother to write their own copy for propaganda efforts.

[Xtremehkr]

It's not a stretch to say that Americans have become fat, spoiled and lazy.

But the level of apathy is becoming a threat to everything that led to such a comfortable lifestyle.

[mactastic]

Not sure who's doing the scrutinizing besides unnamed 'critics' but...
The Bush administration has provided White House media credentials to a man who has virtually no journalistic background, asks softball questions to the president and his spokesman in the midst of contentious news conferences, and routinely reprints long passages verbatim from official press releases as original news articles on his website.

Jeff Gannon calls himself the White House correspondent for TalonNews.com, a website that says it is "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers." It is operated by a Texas-based Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, a website that touts itself as "bringing the conservative message to America."

Called on last week by President Bush at a press conference, Gannon attacked Democratic Senate leaders and called them "divorced from reality." During the presidential campaign, when called on by Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Gannon linked Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, to Jane Fonda and questioned why anyone would dispute Bush's National Guard service.

Now, the question of how Gannon gets into White House press conferences is coming under intense scrutiny from critics who contend that Gannon is not a journalist but rather a White House tool to soften media coverage of Bush. The issue was raised by a media watchdog group and picked up by Internet bloggers, who linked Gannon's presence in White House briefings to recent controversies over whether the administration manipulates the flow of information to the public.

These include the disclosure that the Education Department secretly paid columnist Armstrong Williams to promote its education policy and the administration's practice of sending out video press releases about its policies that purport to be "news stories" by fake journalists.

McClellan said Gannon has not been issued -- nor requested -- a regular "hard pass" to the White House, and instead has come in for the past two years on daily passes. Daily passes, he said, may be issued to anyone who writes for an organization that publishes regularly and who is cleared to enter the building.

He said other reporters and political commentators from lesser-known newsletters and from across the political spectrum also attend briefings, though he could not recall any Internet bloggers. McClellan said it is not the White House's role to decide who is and who is not a real journalist and dismissed any notion of conspiracy.

Nonetheless, transcripts of White House briefings indicate that McClellan often calls on Gannon and that the press secretary -- and the president -- have found relief in a question from Gannon after critical lines of questioning from mainstream news organizations.

When Bush called on Gannon near the end of his nationally televised Jan. 26 news conference, he had just been questioned about Williams and the Education Department funds, an embarrassment to the administration. Gannon's question was different.

"Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the US economy," Gannon said. "[Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

As it turned out, Reid had never talked about soup lines. That was a phrase attributed to him in satire by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show.

Last year, during the presidential campaign, Gannon's comments could be even more pointed. In a Feb. 10, 2004, briefing with McClellan, for example, Gannon rose to deliver the following:

"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?"

David Brock, the former investigative journalist who made his name revealing aspects of former President Bill Clinton's extramarital affairs, said he was watching last week's press conference on television and the "soup lines" question sparked his interest because it "struck me as so extremely biased." Brock asked his media watchdog group, Media Matters for America, to look into Talon News.
Link (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/02/02/white_house_friendly_reporter_under_scrutiny?pg=full)

[mactastic]

From Dkos:
Oh man, reality is truly stranger than fiction.
"Jeff Gannon", the White House press propagandist "correspondent" for the fake "Talon" news service, turns out to be using a nom de plume.

A group of dKos diarists have been peeling away the layers of Gannon's fake persona, summarized by World O'Crap. In one of those diaries, this revelation is made by Radically Bitter: Among the domains owned by Gannon/Guckert are these:

jeffgannon.com
Hotmilitarystud.com
Militaryescorts.com
Militaryescortsm4m.com
In case this isn't clear enough, those last three are gay sex-themed names. Suddenly, his picture looks appropriately in character.

Weird stuff. And yet this guy gets a daily WH press pass.

[IJ Reilly]

Yikes. Is this source good, or are tinfoil hats required?

[Thomas Veil]

From Dkos:

Oh man, reality is truly stranger than fiction.
"Jeff Gannon", the White House press propagandist "correspondent" for the fake "Talon" news service, turns out to be using a nom de plume.

A group of dKos diarists have been peeling away the layers of Gannon's fake persona, summarized by World O'Crap. In one of those diaries, this revelation is made by Radically Bitter: Among the domains owned by Gannon/Guckert are these:

jeffgannon.com
Hotmilitarystud.com
Militaryescorts.com
Militaryescortsm4m.com
In case this isn't clear enough, those last three are gay sex-themed names. Suddenly, his picture looks appropriately in character. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

Actually, the aforementioned David Brock (himself gay) said in one of his books that the right contains quite a few closet gays who manage to convince themselves that their lifestyle doesn't contradict their political beliefs. Guess you can make yourself believe anything.

[zimv20]

oh my.

http://www.jeffgannon.com/


The voice goes silent.

Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News.* In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life.

Thank you to all those who supported me.

[Thomas Veil]

Way to stand and fight, Jeff! :D

[IJ Reilly]

Way to stand and fight, Jeff! :D

Or should we say, "Jeff." Whatever his name is, he's a first-order coward.

I wonder how much (not whether) his keepers in the White House Press Office had to do with getting this major embarrassment back into the, um... closet.

[IJ Reilly]

The complete rundown on James K. Guckert aka "Jeff Gannon" can be found here:

http://www.americablog.org/

On the one hand, this guy's privacy is being invaded by bloggers digging out all sorts of details about his life. But on the other, I have to wonder how a non-journalist working under a false name could be granted pass to White House press conferences. Don't they screen people?

This story is not over, that's for certain. It's starting to get picked up by the major media outlets.

[mactastic]

This is just too weird. And not only is this outing going on, apparently this guy is tied into the Valerie Plame stuff. The more that comes out about this, the creepier it gets. And if the allegations are true, the WH has been seriously over the line WRT journalists. The implications between the Williams et. al and the possibility that the WH may have been using a plant in their press briefings are grave indeed.

[IJ Reilly]

I'm not sure I get the Plame connection, but the implication is that Guckert/Gannon was the conduit for the information about her that ended up in Robert Novak's column.

[MacSA]

Add a 3rd commentator who took money to push Administration policies without disclosing the fact to their readers to the list...

What liberal media?

Some of the things the Bush Administation are getting away with is just astonishing... and no one seems to bothered about it.

[Thomas Veil]

Some of the things the Bush Administation are getting away with is just astonishing... and no one seems to bothered about it.I know. So many Americans were willing to call Clinton a draft dodger (which he was), a sleazebag and a criminal. And now we have a real draft-dodging sleazebag criminal in the White House, and nary a word. No impeachment proceedings, no internal investigations...nothing.

In-****ing-credible. :mad:

[mischief]

Let me see...the only thing actually keeping Congress from launching an impeachment investigation is...

is...uh...

...um...

...Can I get back to you on that?

I'll field that one:

What's keeping Congress from initiating Impeachment is the fact that it must be initiated by the House. The House is now so Red you could swear they were all stinking drunk or about to catch fire. :mad:

Simple method to prevent impeachment of a potentially volatile President: Gerrymander and pump out the propoganda such that you control the House by the time he starts wearing the Napoleon hat in public.

[mactastic]

I'm not sure I get the Plame connection, but the implication is that Guckert/Gannon was the conduit for the information about her that ended up in Robert Novak's column.

I'm not sure I quite understand the implications of his involvement in the Plame affair either, but I'm hearing that you don't get a WH press pass, even a day pass, without a background ckeck that would have revealed Gannon as Guckert. And the WH isn't in the habit of issuing press passes to people who have either aliases or internet issues. In addition, his journalistic 'credentials' seem to come from a $200, 2 day seminar held by a right-wing organization. All big fat red flags that would have come out in any background check.

What that seems to be leading toward is that someone at the WH assisted Guckert/Gannon in obtaining those press passes. So... who got Guckert/Gannon in at the WH? It can't just be a doorman, it's somebody with the clout to go around the mandatory background checks.

I'm suspecting Rove's fingerprints are on this one somewhere. It probably can't be tied to him, but I would guess he's either involved, or someone wanting to emulate him is.

[IJ Reilly]

I can certainly envision a rather impressive conspiracy scenario involving someone in the White House passing the Plame information onto Guckert/Gannon with the proviso that he not use it himself but pass it along to someone who would (Novak). Information laundering. This gives everyone in the White House "plausible deniability" if asked by the investigators whether they passed the information to Novak. I don't want to get too invested in ideas like this, though. We just don't know and quite possibly never will. The Guckert/Gannon thing is fetid enough on its face. I'd like to hear a lot more about that.

The current defense is that "anyone" can obtain a so-called "soft pass" for a White House briefing. Is that really true? Does the WH perform any sort of routine background check on reporters requesting passes? If so, would they ordinarily admit people operating under an alias? For his part, Guckert/Gannon is saying only that he applied for the pass using the "name on his driver's license." But of course that begs the question of what name he has on that license. Maybe a left-wing blogger should attempt to obtain a soft pass to a WH press briefing and see how far he gets.

Another curious tidbit that turned up in one of the blogger's research is Guckert bragging about having already attended a WH briefing, back in 2002 or so. True or not? Under what name? I hope someone is pouring over CSPAN tapes at this very moment to find out.

[Thomas Veil]

I'm suspecting Rove's fingerprints are on this one somewhere. It probably can't be tied to him, but I would guess he's either involved, or someone wanting to emulate him is.According to John Dean in the book "Worse than Watergate", Rove is very much rumored to be the source behind the Plame leak.

It sure does sound like his style of politics, doesn't it?

[mactastic]

The current defense is that "anyone" can obtain a so-called "soft pass" for a White House briefing. Is that really true? Does the WH perform any sort of routine background check on reporters requesting passes? If so, would they ordinarily admit people operating under an alias? For his part, Guckert/Gannon is saying only that he applied for the pass using the "name on his driver's license." But of course that begs the question of what name he has on that license. Maybe a left-wing blogger should attempt to obtain a soft pass to a WH press briefing and see how far he gets.
Salon (http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/10/gannon_affair/index.html) (subscription or day pass only) was asking that very same question...
The Talon News fiasco raises serious questions about who the White House is allowing into its daily press briefings: How can a reporter using a fake name and working for a fake news organization get press credentials from the White House, let alone curry enough favor with the notoriously disciplined Bush administration to get picked by the president in order to ask fake questions? The White House did not return Salon's calls seeking answers to those questions.

The situation "begs further investigation," says James Pinkerton, a media critic for Fox News who has worked for two Republican White Houses. "In the six years I worked for Reagan and Bush I, I remember the White House being strict about who got in. It's inconceivable to me that the White House, especially after 9/11, gives credentials to people without doing a background check."

Gannon reportedly did not have what's known as a "hard pass" for the White House press room, which allows journalists to enter daily without getting prior approval each time. Instead Gannon picked up a daily pass by contacting the White House press office each morning and asking for clearance. Mark Smith, vice president of the White House Correspondents Association, says it's up to White House officials to decide whom they want to wave in each day. "They don't consult us." If they had, Smith says, he would have been "very uncomfortable" granting Gannon the same access as professional journalists.

And the association never would have backed a reporter using an alias. Says Pinkerton: "If [Gannon] was walking around the White House with a pass that had a different name on it than his real name, that's pretty remarkable." Smith, who covers the White House for Associated Press radio, says he "could have sworn" that he saw credentials around Gannon's neck with the name "Jeff Gannon" on them.

"Somebody was waving him into the White House every day," notes David Brock, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, an online liberal advocacy group that led the way in raising questions about Gannon and Talon News.
Emphasis mine.
Talon's unusual access to the White House has upset journalists at other small outlets who don't enjoy the same privileged connections. "We're a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 22,000 and I'm pretty sure we couldn't get a White House press pass," says Mike Hudson, editor of the Niagara Falls Reporter in Niagara Falls, N.Y. "How does Gannon, which isn't even his real name, get past security?"
All of which begs the question, "Who are they issuing credentials to?" asks Hudson at the Niagara Falls Reporter. "Could a guy from [Comedy Central's] 'The Daily Show' get press credentials from this White House?"
God, I'd love to see Rob Cordry asking McClellan questions...

[IJ Reilly]

God, I'd love to see Rob Cordry asking McClellan questions...

I don't know who that is, but Al Franken would be my choice for this stunt. He should apply under an assumed name, which might as well be "James D. Guckert" since nobody else seems to be using it at the moment.

This interview on MSNBC is of interest. Another vote by a veteran White House correspondent for the impossibility of Guckert getting into a briefing under an alias without the complicity of the WH staff.

http://mediamatters.org/static/video/milbank-countdown.mov

Yes, Rove. I'd wager his fingerprints are all over this or would be if he wasn't smart enough to wear gloves.

[mactastic]

Rob Cordry is the bald Daily Show 'correspondent'. Edit: Here's (http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/corr_corddry.jhtml) his bio. I'd say his credentials are on par with Guckert's ;)

And it sounds like Franken will be busy running for the vacant Senate seat (http://www.kstp.com/article/stories/S6198.html?cat=64) in his native Minnesota.

Ok, nevermind... I guess his announcement was that he's NOT running for the soon-to-be-vacant seat.