White House Press Corps Dismisses "Gannongate"
By Sherrie Gossett | March 17, 2005

Well, it's official. The White House Correspondents' Association has weighed in on "Gannongate," saying "individual episodes" should not prompt a crackdown on credentialing. That was a reference to a conservative reporter, Jeff Gannon, heavily criticized for asking anti-Democrat questions. Matt Drudge reported on February 28 that in a resolution adopted at a meeting in Washington that morning, the association said it "stands for inclusiveness in the credentialing process so that the White House remains accessible to all journalists We hope that individual episodes do not obscure the broader principles of a fair and evenhanded credentialing process."

The resolution explained that since 1914, the White House Correspondents' Association has operated independently of the White House and the White House credentialing process. "We intend for the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) to remain independent of that process," they wrote, adding that the process serves the goal of a free and full exchange of information.

"We wanted to err on the side of inclusion," Steve Scully of C-SPAN told the L.A. Times. Scully serves on the executive board of the WHCA. "Once you start dictating who is a journalist, you go down a slippery slope."

This is not surprising. The WHCA did not launch this crusade against Gannon. (It was launched by the left-leaning Media Matters for America.). In fact, if you look at C-SPAN clips of White House press briefings, it seems that established and well-known reporters often chuckle and grin good-naturedly when Les Kinsolving, Jeff Gannon and others writing for online news services ask loaded questions. It seems this presence has always been part of the White House press room "culture" and that it has livened up the proceedings.

Sarah McLendon, who described herself as a "citizen journalist," ran her McLendon News Service out of her own cluttered D.C. apartment. The elderly McLendon once lobbed this softball at President Clinton: "Sir, will you tell us why you think people have been so mean to you?" AIM editor Cliff Kincaid noted that the media had long tolerated not only McLendon but liberals such as Helen Thomas and Naderite Russell Mokhiber, who once asked White House spokesman Scott McLellan if President Bush had violated the sixth commandment when he launched the Iraq war.

Johanna Neuman of the Los Angeles Times was one of the few reporters who put the story into appropriate context. Her story, dated February 27, said, "…the White House press corps is not the thoroughly screened and scrubbed journalistic elite Americans might presume. Along with stars of the country's major media organizations, it has long included eccentrics and fringe players."

Neuman explained, "Marlin Fitzwater, former press secretary to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said in an interview that he created day passes in response to a federal court decision in the late 1970s requiring the White House to admit all journalists unless the Secret Service deemed them threats to the president or his immediate family." That lawsuit, Neuman wrote, involved Robert Sherrill of The Nation, who was denied a press pass on the advice of the Secret Service, because he had punched out the press secretary to the governor of Florida.

Since then, Neuman explained, the White House press corps has attracted an "array of unusual personalities." She cites Naomi Nover of "Nover News Service" whose work no one ever saw published. "Lester Kinsolving, conservative radio commentator, wore a clerical collar to White House briefings in the Reagan years," she notes, "His loud voice and off-beat, argumentative questions often provoked laughter."

There were plenty of people in the mainstream media willing to hawk the non-story of Gannongate to an audience not versed in White House press room history. It's a shame more reporters did not make the effort to place the story in historic and factual context, as Neuman did.

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/2761_0_2_0_C/
(For whoever asked last time for a source.)
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I still cannot believe a security breach like this is not one of the biggest stories...

http://win20ca.audiovideoweb.com/ca20wi ... n_300k.wmv

Rundown of this scandal that no one seems to give two shits about:

1. Jeff Gannon is outed as a gay prostitute while posing as a member of the White House Press Corps.

2. Congress demands an investigation.

3. Reports surface linking Gannon with the Franklin scandal.

4. Gannon announces via a Moscow newspaper that he has tapes of top US leaders involved in homosexual and possibly pedophilia activity.

5. The Congressional bill to investigate "Gannon-gate" suddenly dies in the Judicial Committee AND the White House press corps declares the issue dead and buried

WTF!?!?!!?!!?!?!

What not even RMers are touching this one either?

I've never heard of this until 16 seconds ago.

I'll work on my outrage though.
:pounds fist:

6th Commandment; Verse 13: "Thou shalt not kill."


im confused as hell here, i thought everyone wanted a seperation of church and the govt?

Is all that stuff in the bill maher video? I hadn't heard anything about the tapes of homosexual activities before, and I can't watch the video at work.

Some of it is. Gannon saying he's got tapes is very new. The whole story is a minimum of 3 weeks old.

Off topic. The fact that this has gotten no coverage, and we ALL know if this were Clinton, and Carville had trained some gay prostitute and positioned him in the WH Press Corp. there WOULD be torches and an angry mob involved.

This doesn't surprise me. I've asked many people if they knew who Jeff Gannon/Guckert is and everyone replies "WHO?" I just cannot believe a scandal this big is not being covered by the mass media.

i know it was off topic, doesnt mean its not just as confusing though, i thought the anti bush people were so against the church being involved, but then they throw that out there? seems a bit hipocrictical

Your right it does seem a bit "hipocrictical".

But onto Gannon-Gate your feelings on why this hasn't been covered?

i think no matter what a person does in their spare time away from work is their business, unless its unlawful and or affects their job in a way that it cant be done properly

the fact that he's gay and could be a male prostitute, i dont see how it would affect it, but im sure somewhere down the line one could bring up an example

Last time I checked prostitution was illegal in this country. Last time I checked you needed FBI/Secret Service background checks to get into the White House.

Last time I checked gays weren't even allowed near Bush.

was he actually arrested and charged, or is this just alleged, or did he admit it and just hasnt been caught?




ok, this one i can see



thats gay men dont like bush, get it straight

He operated the site, he was on it, 8 inch cut as I recall was a direct line from his naked profile. If he's on the site that is for wealthy homosexual men, one can only come to the conclusion that he was as well a prostitute. An investigation into it would have bought up charges, but that's dead in the water now, for some unkown reason...

8 inches...that lucky bastard


but honestly....so he was on an adult site, and he was looking for compainship (whether male or female) big deal. so he's a bit of a freak when it comes to sexual relations.

guess ill never run for anything with the skeletons in my sexual closet

He was trained by GOPUSA.com, he somehow got pass FBI/Secret Service background checks using an alias, was working for a male prostitution web site, which he operated, he infiltrated the WH Press Corp. and lobbed Democrat bashing questions at both McLellan and Bush. To top it off Bush himself even called on him to ask a question. We all know how this Administration manages the news and who is able to ask what and when.

Honestly, if James Carville had trained some guy to be put in the WH Press Corp. and that man not only got pass security clearences to ask questions but was a gay prostitute for wealthy men are you telling me this wouldn't be the biggest story ever during Clinton's Administration.

oh, so noones allowed to bash democrats, just republicans?

im sure if you did enough investigating, most of the govt has ties to something or other, and no im not talking about just the bush admin, i mean the congress and senate