Talon News reporter "Jeff Gannon" lobs White House spokesman Scott McClellan a question at a Feb. 1 press briefing.
Posted on 02/11/2005 6:45:45 AM PST by KidGlock
Giving "Gannon" a pass
Questions remain about how a fake reporter working for a fake news operation got White House press credentials without a background check.
By Eric Boehlert
Feb. 11, 2005 | Before abruptly quitting his post this week as White House correspondent for the GOP-friendly group Talon News, Jeff Gannon enjoyed unfettered access to White House briefings.
He gained that access not by going through the normal full background check most journalists face when obtaining a "hard pass," the ultimate White House credential, but rather by getting day passes, which require only an abbreviated background check.
According to one current member of the White House press corps, Gannon was the only reporter to skirt the rules that way, obtaining daily passes month after month for nearly two years.
"Why did the White House circumvent the process for him?" asks the White House reporter.
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(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Talon News reporter "Jeff Gannon" lobs White House spokesman Scott McClellan a question at a Feb. 1 press briefing.
Half of Clinton's West Wing staff avoided background checks.
How is Eason Jordan getting a free pass? When the MSM answers that, I will care about Jeff Gannon. If I were the White House, I would admit someone to replace Gannon immediately. Hell, I would admit ten people to replace Gannon or Gucker or whatever the hell his name is.
Obviuosly the guy was a Rove plant, lets be real. According to DU he is also Bush's lover, so why wouldn' he get a pass?
This is a pretty pathetic and lame attack by the lefties. A conservative reporter of a conservative news org getting a pass from a conservative adminstration...the horror!!!
"According to one current member of the White House press corps, Gannon was the only reporter to skirt the rules that way, obtaining daily passes month after month for nearly two years."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000798573
Several reporters pointed to Russell Mokhiber, editor of Corporate Crime Reporter, who has been attending press events through a daily press pass for several years. Some say he is as partisan as Gannon in his questions, but often with a left-leaning approach. One reporter called him "the ideological flip-side of Gannon."
jeez, that took all of 30 seconds.
And many punks in the Clinton administration got perfunctory background checks. A gaggle of national security risks.
And quite frankly, the press briefing room needs people like Jeff Gannon and Russell Mokhiber, just to shake up the cynical and lock-step old-school media types.
You are so correct. DeDe could never had gotten one and I doubt if Stephy could have either. Colonel Craig Livingstone may have passed them up though.
Why so much attention on Gannon and so little on Eason Jordan?
Exactly what is a fake reporter and a fake news operation?
I read his reporting on their operations website. Seemed real to me.
ROFL!
AND, you did it in your jammies. :)
got White House press credentials without a background check.
He gained that access not by going through the normal full background check most journalists face when obtaining a "hard pass," the ultimate White House credential, but rather by getting day passes, which require only an abbreviated background check.
So he got around the background check by going through a background check. Man this guy is sneaky!
Sentence #1: A lie. Gannon didn't have unfettered access to the WH.
Selective editing on your part. The article did not say unfettered access to the WH, it said unfettered access to White House Briefings. You're usually pretty good about sticking to exact phraseology. You let this one slip.
Well over 300 of them.
Actually I just left the word briefings off accidentally. He didn't even have unfettered access to White House Press Briefings, considering that he had to apply daily for a pass.
I know that Gannon is considered friendly and as such is getting a pass from most Freepers. My quesiton is, if he were hostile to this administration, would we be so easy on the situation? I think not.
I wonder if today Jeff Gannon applied for a day pass if he would receive one? I bet he wouldn't.
Jeff Gannon told Wolf Blitzer last night that he applied for his WH press pass under his real name.
I also don't imagine why I'd be mad at a liberal getting a press pass under a different name. Lots of them changed their names. Mike Wallace. Larry King.
He hasn't done anything wrong, except ask a decidedly conservative question of the president. Why should I be angry with him? We put up with those questions, on the other side, every day.
WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: WHAT IS A REPORTER?
Thu Feb 10 2005 20:49:03 ET
White House spokesman Scott McClellan On Thursday challenged liberal media activists, who are currently feigning outrage over events surrounding "Jeff Gannon," to examine the definition of reporter in the new century.
"In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it's not an easy issue to decide or try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the issue of advocacy journalism," McClellan said.
"Where do you draw the line? There are a number of people who cross that line in the briefing room.
"There are a number of people in that room that express their points of view, and there are people in that room that represent traditional media, they represent talk radio, they're columnists, and they represent online news organizations."
Developing...
Actually, we know for a fact. He got checked under his legal name.
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