startribune.com
Last update: February 18, 2005 at 6:44 AM
Editorial: Phony journalist/Pimping for the White House
Published February 18, 2005
Heard about the Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert muck-up in Washington? If you
are an aficionado of the blogs, you've heard plenty. They're having a
field day with it. But underneath all the fun lies a serious problem
that hasn't got its due from the mainstream press: This White House
employs a lot more kinds of fakery than the budgetary smoke and mirrors
described in the editorial above.
Here's a summary: For more than two years, a reporter named Jeff Gannon
turned up at White House briefings and press conferences, where he
asked softball questions with a decidedly pro-Bush bent. For example,
at President Bush's Jan. 26 press conference, Gannon asked how Bush
could work with lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and
Sen. Hillary Clinton, "who seem to have divorced themselves from
reality."
Well, it turns out that "Jeff Gannon" is really Jim Guckert, and he was
a reporter for an online outfit called "Talon News," which was
associated with the online group GOPUSA. com, owned by Texas
Republicans. It also turns out that Guckert, in addition to reporting
for a phony Web site, has no real journalism training and is a
$200-an-hour gay prostitute. He ran numerous Web sites like
militaryescortsm4m. com. The photos of Gannon that were displayed on
those Web sites left nothing to the imagination about his physical
attributes.
So the question becomes, just how did this character get White House
press credentials, despite supposed post-Sept. 11 security
requirements? Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist who worked in
the Reagan and first Bush administrations, says that "if Gannon was
using an alias, the White House staff had to be involved in maintaining
his cover." In other words, the White House wanted him at those
briefings and wanted him to ask his softball questions, most likely to
divert attention when legitimate reporters were getting too pushy.
This is part of a pattern by Bush's minions to construct a phony
reality in news coverage. Consider:
=B7 To promote Bush's Medicare prescription bill, the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) paid for phony "newscasts" that were
distributed to television stations nationwide.
=B7 Columnist Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Department of
Education to promote Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.
=B7 Columnists Michael McManus and Maggie Gallagher were paid to
"advise HHS on the Bush administration's marriage policies."
=B7 Every Bush "town hall" forum during last fall's campaign was
carefully limited to supporters who would ask fawning questions. No
demonstrators -- indeed, no one wearing an offensive lapel pin -- were
allowed in.
=B7 The Bush Pentagon launched an Office of Strategic Influence to
provide "news" to foreign media. When it became known, it was shut down
in embarrassment.
The pattern is clear: This administration will do pretty much anything
to shape reality to fit its agenda.
Another powerful tool in its arsenal is intimidation. This is by far
the most vindictive administration since Richard Nixon's. Ask the wrong
question or write something the White House doesn't like, and your
access is cut off. Unfortunately, too many of the real journalists have
gone along meekly. As columnist Michael Kinsley observed, if this White
House said two plus two equaled five, there would be no shortage "of
media to report both sides of the question."
Once it was fairly easy to distinguish real reporters from hacks and
charlatans, objective news from partisan rant. That has become
increasingly difficult, thanks in part to a Bush White House that finds
the confusion useful, to its everlasting dishonor.
http://www.startribune.com/dynamic/story.php?template=3Dprint_a&story=3D524=
7250
.
|
