Posted on 02/26/2005 9:43:35 AM PST by TheOtherOne
Fear and Loathing in the Press Room
For the last two years, the Old Media figures at the White House thought of me as a gadfly, a right-winger with an agenda, harmless, someone to be ignored.
From time to time there were grumbles among some of the reporters and one or two confrontations, but there was never a serious attempt to remove me from their midst. During my tenure I developed some good friends there who welcomed the refreshing perspective I brought to the briefings and respected my courage for asking the questions that I did.
It wasn’t until I asked “The Question” that everything abruptly changed. Initially, my colleagues had no reaction to the query posed to President Bush. It wasn’t until Rush Limbaugh drew attention to it that there was any interest at all. But that was enough to get a liberal group dedicated to attacking conservatives in the media to mobilize. It was horrified that the relentless string of hostile and a few downright disrespectful questions had been broken. My greater sin in their eyes, however was that I dared to suggest that two Senate Democratic leaders held an illogical view of the economy’s weakness and the strength of Social Security.
Immediately the questions about how I got into the briefing room began to be asked. After all, I had “no journalistic credentials” despite the fact that I had written over 500 articles for Talon News over a two-year period. I must be a plant, because there simply cannot be a conservative journalist walking on the hallowed domain of the Fourth Estate built over an old swimming pool.
I feel badly for my colleagues who became the target of these same people on the Left who harshly chastised them for allowing a traitor operate among them. How could they stand idly by while Jeff Gannon breached the ideological barrier that kept conservatives out of the White House briefing room?
The well-funded liberal attack machine, Media Matters, filled with operatives from the DNC and failed Democratic campaigns incited activist bloggers to wage a full-scale jihad against me. All sorts of personal information about me, including my Social Security number was published on the internet. Threats against me as well as my family led to my voluntary resignation in the belief that would bring it to an end, but the bloggers were aiming for my total destruction.
They dug deep for dirt, dredging up things long past and erecting a fantasy world worthy of a Vince Flynn novel. What they found is domain names and sexy pictures from which sprung rumors and conspiracy theories. Based on some of the emails I’ve received, many of these people were conflicted with hatred for my politics and tingling they experienced while viewing pictures said to be me.
Criticism of my work and my journalistic background is fair game, but the intensive scrutiny into my personal life, especially things from the past have startled many in the journalistic community. Now Democrats in Congress are demanding that the White House do more thorough investigation into the personal lives and sexual histories of reporters. Is this what they want, to give the Bush administration a mandate to make this kind of information relevant to the vetting process for journalists? What kind of reaction would there have been if the White House has announced such a plan two months ago?
If I had been a liberal reporter with the salacious past now attributed to me, I would be the Grand Marshall of the next Gay Pride Parade as well as a media darling, able to give softball interviews. But because I am a conservative, they continue to try to smear me with allegations of behavior that they otherwise would vigorously defend.
This episode is so rich with irony that it will take me many columns and a book to deal with it all. What is most telling about the Left is how quickly it was able to abandon its sacred principles of free speech and privacy to attack someone it disagreed with. The justification for this was based on erroneous characterizations of my reporting.
This is not to say that I have not made mistakes in the past. Like all of us have at one time or another, I made poor choices and exercised bad judgment. But I believe in a forgiving God who changed my life. It was through that renewal that I went on to have a career as a reporter and further blessed to become a White House correspondent.
The Left always celebrates second chances, except when it comes to conservatives. The only exception to that rule is when a conservative goes over to the dark side, like David Brock did. I have received many emails exhorting me to betray my “handlers” and expose their plans, citing him as the example to follow.
At the heart of all this is the further erosion of the Old Media. The Left is engaging in “21st Century McCarthyism” in an effort to blacklist conservative journalists in order protect their domination of the media. These people may have exposed some of my human failings but they have also revealed their own hypocrisy. The damage to me is done, and it wasn’t fatal. But we are only beginning to see the effect of Gannongate on the Old Media and the Left.
Copyright © 2005 Jeff Gannon.com -- All rights reserved.
I thought she was open, but quiet about her life. Was she really outted?
You didn't forget to donate did you? . . . or did you miss that page on the new JeffGannon.com.
I'll give him this...he's entertaining.
The headline class was a whole nuther weekend of journalism school. Jeff had no time for that....his weekends were packed.
He doesn't deny the "salacious past". Wonder why not. It will be a cold day in hell before I'll jump to defend a gay prostitute, regardless of his politics.
They're much more INTELLIGENT???
That is one of the most ridiculous assertions I've ever read on this forum.
Patently, and demonstrably false.
Maybe you should have just been accused of raping someone, say 20 years ago, and then the liberals would defend you at all cost. Will Clinton EVER be asked about Juanita?
LOL! Yeah, my check's in the e-mail.
posted here, different title:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1350437/posts
Also see:
The Official Jeff Gannon Blog Post
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1351507/posts
Why? Faulty fingertips? Oh, I see - "journalists" don't have to use proper grammar any more, even homosexual, pseudonymous ones.
BYE BYE
You are disturbed.
Gays even bashed and outed Andrew Sullivan years ago when he had the integrity to discuss gay promiscuity. They will eat their own, pun intended.
This piece is a little too self-centered - - the aim of the attacks is not to smear "Jeff Gannon," but rather, to smear Republicans and the Bush White House. Gannon just makes for some handy ammo. He's just a pawn. In reality, the Democrat attack machine couldn't care less about Gannon. It is "total destruction" of Bush that they seek.
Well said. Gannon or whoever he is has become a synonym for the rabid left media being prepared to defend what is left of its turf, meaning the right to turn Democratic press conferences into love fests and Republican ones into verbal wars.
The guy is on our side. I hope he changes and repents of that lifestyle, and that eventually owns up to it better than he has so far, but he has still been wronged. Any other reporter with that same baggage would be lionized if they were of the Bolshevik/Democrat/Fascist perspective.
So I'm with him, with reservations, and I wouldn't touch any website of his with gloves on.
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