A DU'er Broke the Gannon Story First - 2/18/2004

[Stephanie]

Our own DU'er grasswire first posted the Gannon/Talon story on her webdems blog on February 18, 2004. We were both posting on another board when she started this project, and I have watched over the past year as she discovered the story and worked it and passed tips to media watchdogs. Her larger goal is reform of the relationship between the WH and the WH correspondents.

Now that the Gannon scandal has broken wide open, let's give credit where it's due, and toast our own grasswire!

:toast: :yourock:

______________________________


http://webdems.blogspot.com/2004_02_01_webdems_archive.html

WebDems
Wednesday, February 18, 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?

______________________________

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. Damn fine job, grasswire!

:toast:

[ignatius 2]

47. Fantastic, a person was asking on here a few days ago

what can DU really do to make anything happen. Here is a wonderful example.

The more this vile regime is exposed, the closer we come to reclaiming our country from the hands of the neocons..

Great job!!!

[Robert Oak]

2. open source journalism...thank god, thank you n/t

[papau]

3. WOW - now that impressive - I like effective Dems! - Congrats to grasswire

YOU ROCK!!!!!

:toast:

:party:

:toast:

:thumbsup:

:-)

[tridim]

4. Wasn't DU also suspicious of his name long ago?

I seem to remember reading about that.. Something like "Jeff Gannon sounds like a porn name"?

[NewJeffCT]

19. Yes

I remember talk of a Freeper who asked softball questions at WH news conferences. I honestly don't remember the name, but I can put 2 and 2 together

[Career Prole]

5. Kudos to Grasswire!

:yourock:

[Botany]

6. Big Upps to you!

Grasswire I bet she is a liberal blogger too.


:beer:

[Wind Dancer]

7. Great job!

:toast: to grasswire! Thanks for posting!

[Old and In the Way]

8. Another reason why DU rocks!

Thanks Grasswire and Stephanie!

[Swamp Rat]

9. Yaay!

:yourock:

[Canuckistanian]

10. Yay, grasswire!

Three cheers! Raise your glasses! :toast:

[frictionlessO]

An incredible amount of thanks to you grasswire!!

And thanks Stephanie for being somewhat diligent about making sure she gets her cred as well!!

[KharmaTrain]

11. Keep Digging...Next There's The Eberles

These was the money behind Talon and in connected directly connected to Freeperland and a ton of other right wing sites as well as lots of political connections. This is where the crossover with Buckhead and others comes into play.

For a long time a lot of us suspected there's manipulation of the media going on by this regime. I thought more along that the media was being compromised through access or lack of it to important WH generated news events...supported by a clandestine and well funded network that pushed this regime's agenda through hate and xtian radio. Now we're starting to see some of the roots of this network coming to the surface.

Many, many thanks to all who have worked hard to keep this story active and bring more facts to light. Daily Kos had a great chronology of what happened up to this morning...and it'd be great if we could get a "sticky" here or set up shop in some forum area to keep this story going.

Cheers and thanks for all the great work.

[lala_rawraw]

12. Credit

Is not something anyone is interested in. I just spent a full day screaming bloody hell about the Cin. Enquire story. I am ready to quit man. So I fully give you credit... but apparently I don't count either, so not sure how much my credit is worth. Kuddos to you!!

[frictionlessO]

41. Lala! We love you! You'll get cred because you deserve it!

sometimes it just takes a while.

smile, you're part of Raw Story! Many of us wish we could be! lol...

peace and cred to you!:pals: :yourock:

[blm]

13. Many thanks and no surprise.... grasswire is known for her newsnose

and very much appreciated.

[burythehatchet]

14. Grasswire - always a must read.

:toast:

[lateo]

15. Kudos to you Grasswire!

Power to the people!

[LibertyorDeath]

16. Bravo grasswire! This is so Sweet

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

The Ramifications of this Story are immense.

To those at DU who keep posting "I'm sick of all these Gannon threads
a sincere GFY.

To the contrary there needs to be more. DU should HAMMER this till it bleeds.

[Threedifferentones]

17. Nice job grasswire!

[barb162]

18. totally cool!

[Downtown Hound]

20. Awesome!

Good job Grasswire!

[BurtWorm]

21. That is a worthy project!

:toast:

Cheers, grasswire!

[NewYorkerfromMass]

22. On Feb. 19, 2004 Dan Froomkin wrote:

"But the corps -- or at least the gang that hangs out in the basement of the West Wing, peppering McClellan with questions -- has a critic amongst them.

He's a fellow named Jeff Gannon, the "White House correspondent" for an outfit you've never heard of called Talon News.

On his own web site, jeffgannon.com, he has a section called "Behind Enemy Lines: Stories from inside the White House Briefing Room." The latest entry is "WH Press Corps Hits New Low." Last week, Gannon says, "The White House press corps showed there is perhaps no depth to which it will not sink in order to undermine a presidency."

Within the press corps, Gannon is known for asking softball questions. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A54006-2004Feb19¬Found=true

so I guess Gannon had been making waves for some time. I am not sure what tipped grasswire off, but Froomkin makes it sound like there was a bit of history by then.

[Stephanie]

23. I think grasswire tipped Froomkin

IIRC

[grasswire]

26. I'll tell you what tipped me off...

...it was Gannon's bragging on freerepublic.com. I've monitored that site nearly every day for eight years. I started following trails from his postings there.

I posted on my blog on Feb. 18, and tipped Froomkin to it that night. He wrote about Gannon and linked to my blog on Feb. 19, and he subsequently told me that he had some knowledge of Gannon before I tipped him.

My intention in exposing Gannon's dubious credentials was to illustrate the need to take away authority for the credentialing of reporters from the White House Press Office. This White House has abused that power by planting shills, punishing legitimate reporters who ask critical questions, and (arguably) endangering national security by allowing a ficticious and tainted character daily access to the WH.

Prior to the end of WW2, credentialing authority was held by the peer organization, the WH Correspondents Association, incidentally. This expose of Gannon illustrates the desperate need to separate the credentialing from the press office workings.

When I wrote the Gannon story on my blog, I proposed a Peoples Bill of Rights for Media-White House Transparency as a possible way to apply pressure for reform of the relationship between reporters and WH. I started a draft. I tried to get some interest in the story here on DU, with no luck. I contacted David Brock at Media Matters. No response. I contacted other influential sites. No response.

And yet here we are now. Never underestimate the ripple effect of your actions as netizens. Power to the people.

[frank frankly]

27. magnificent work, grasswire

you moved the world.

power to the people.

:yourock:

[understandinglife]

31. Superb efforts 'grasswire': thank you and....

....I very much hope that with what is now knonwn about the connections of the Eberle brothers, Gannon, "Buckhead," Hannity, ....that the massive corruption of the Bu$h theocratic neoCON regime will be exposed.

Peace.

TBO;24/7

[Stephanie]

33. Don't forget Plame

That's the REAL meat of this story. Someone leaked a secret memo outting Plame to Gannon, who bragged about it. Who did it? Why? They absolutely had to know he was a fake journalist with a fake name. So they were using him for a purpose.

[understandinglife]

34. I assure you, I never forget Ms Plame. (nt)

TBO;24/7

[NewYorkerfromMass]

32. Truly amazing work grasswire

I am in awe and full of gratitude for your efforts. I am also in awe that you could monitor freerepublic daily for 8 years, and maintain the greater part of your sanity. :)

We are certainly in a sticky wicket with the degradation of journalistic standards and the compromise of the integrity of the public trust that we have a fair and unbiased media. This story will without a doubt be a big part of exposing it, and may even be a watershed event.
Here's to you! :toast: ( a thousand times over)

[Misunderestimator]

45. Magnificent work... way to go, grasswire!!

Thanks. :toast:

[ComerPerro]

55. Yeah, I remember you outing him as a FReeper

and how hilarious it all seemed.

[bozeman]

24. great job Grasswire

[Stephanie]

25. Welcome to DU, bozeman

Bridger Bowl?

[grasswire]

35. Steph, did you see the link to TKE?

What a numbskull, to have that on his AOL page.

[Stephanie]

36. I didn't see it - what is TKE?

[grasswire]

38. Bush's fraternity

I discovered the link to a TKE home page when I began exploring Gannon's AOL home page today. KOS also has it in one of the threads over there. Gannon had it labeled "My Guys"

[MissMarple]

42. I thought George joined Delta Kappa Epsilon. DKE

I googled his name and it's on a TKE chapter page, but only as a general reference to fraternities.

I just didn't want to dismay any TKE's unnecessarily :D

[Stephanie]

44. Are we talking Harvard, or Yale?

It figures that a frat comes into play here -

[kath]

28. Wow - I knew that people here at DU and/or at TableTalk had been talking

about Gannon and his kiss-ass "questions" in press briefings, but I didn't realize that it has been a whole YEAR.

The lame-ass stories in the SCLM make it sound like Gannon just started up with his softball questions a couple of weeks ago. Sheesh.

[Stephanie]

29. We were talking about this at a small board called TAPA due to grasswire

And a lot of people from TAPA post at TT.

[cry baby]

30. Here's to Grasswire...

:toast:

[ultraist]

37. Standing ovation for Grasswire! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

[Disturbed]

39. Thanks Grasswire. DU Rocks!

Now, please follow the money.

I also beleive there is a trail to follow regarding the Dan Rather fiasco and Plame. All these Fascists are interconnceted.

[ClintonTyree]

40. Props to you, grasswire!!!!!!!!!!!

:toast: Keep up the good work, it's people like you that will return true Democracy to America. There's not enough toasts in the world kiddo............ :toast:

[donkeyotay]

43. So let me get this straight; you mean, there is a god?

I'm trying to catch up: fake reporter, SEX, media whore scandal, links to Rathergate, Plame, embarrassing questions, money trail...

How bout if I just pull this one teeny thread hanging. The WH corporate coup won't come unraveled, will it? Will it?

I love unintended consequences. Sooner or later the smallest little iceberg it going to sink the GOP crime family.

[realFedUp]

46. Great DUing grasswire! n/t

[Eric J in MN]

48. Yay grasswire. I hope "The Daily Kos" doesn't take all the credit (nt)

nt

[oasis]

49. Great work Grasswire. Kudos to you and to DU too.

:bounce:

[susu369]

50. Fantastic, grasswire

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thank you also Stephanie.

WOW -

[fooj]

51. Way to show them how it's done, Grasswire!

You should be proud! We certainly are!:toast: This one's for you!

[paineinthearse]

52. grasswire?

:toast: :yourock: :hug:

[Tinoire]

53. Grasswire RAAWWWWKKKKKKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

:yourock:

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

and so do you Steph, oh queen of PNAC!

[grasswire]

54. here's what's important

The example of Congress: there's a Standing Committee made up of journalists who do the credentialing for reporters who cover Congress.

This Standing Committee turned Gannon down.

Now compare to the WH -- the credentialing is done (now) by the WH press office.

Imagine if Congress itself had the authority to credential reporters covering it. Especially a Republican-controlled Congress.

Thank the earth they don't.

And the WH shouldn't.

Authority belongs with the profession itself. That's my campaign. This WH has abused the authority to credential reporters. Take it away!

[Paradise]

56. Damn straight! ( "let's give credit where it's due")

:toast: Congratulations grasswire! :toast:

[in_cog_ni_to]

57. grasswire, you rock!

:yourock:

[caligirl]

58. True patriot fighting for democracy in the trenchs/ thanks and

wouldn't it be nice if the press just ignored the President for awhile when he wants their attention?