Full Press on the Free Press
There have been a rash of stories on the recent discoveries that several press commentators were on the take from the Bush administration, including Armstrong Williams (who received over $200K outright to promote No Child Left Behind in his columns and comment slots on TV debate programs) and Maggie Gallagher (to promote the administration's traditional marriage agenda). A new scandal is coming to light that is just beginning to reach the major news outlets concerning the credentials of one Jeff Gannon and the Talon News Service for which he worked. This whole thing started with this rather brazenly softball question lobbed to President Bush during his press conference (bold emphasis added):

Thank you. Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. [Senate Minority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] was talking about soup lines. And [Senator] Hillary Clinton [D-NY] was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?

Since then, several diarists at Daily Kos have been doing research on "Mr. Gannon" ("Jeff Gannon" is actually a pseudonym; the "reporter's" real name is J.D. Guckert ) and Talon and have dug up some very interesting and troubling dirt, and they've just issued a news release summarizing this story. Here are the highlights:

In his Talon News profile, Guckert claimed he had a degree in Education from the “Pennsylvania School System.” His only journalistic “experience” was attendance at the Leadership Institute Broadcast Journalism School. The Leadership Institute describes its mission as increasing “the number and effectiveness of conservative public policy leaders” and to “place conservative leaders in the public policy process.” Guckert’s “training” at the Leadership Institute was a two-day seminar, tuition for which was $50.

Despite his lack of journalistic experience, Guckert used an assumed name and was granted access to the elite White House Press Corps. His application for a press pass to the House and Senate galleries was rejected because Talon News shares ownership with GOPUSA.com and did not meet press pass standards. Yet somehow he was still given a daily press pass to White House Briefings for over two years.

In a press briefing on Feb. 10th, White House Press Secretary McClellan claimed that Guckert was granted White House access because he “showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly.” (emphasis added).

However, Talon News came into existence on March 29, 2003. It was granted White House Press Corps access just four days (approx. 96 hours) later. During that four-day time period, Talon News published a total of nine “stories.”

During briefings, Guckert’s questions frequently revealed not only his conservative bias, but also a possible coordination with White House Press Secretary McClellan. Guckert’s questions were frequently leading, unabashedly partisan, and at times inflammatory. Moreover, Guckert apparently had unprecedented access, and even claimed at one point to be “entertaining the Prime Minister of Great Britain.”

The researchers at DailyKos discovered another issue that suggested close coordination with the administration. According to the Washington Post, Guckert may have had access to a leaked internal CIA memo which revealed the identity of Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife, then an undercover CIA operative. In fact, because of his possible tie to the leak, Guckert was one of a small number to be subpoenaed to testify in the federal grand jury investigation into the matter.

The NYTimes reports that two Democratic Representatives are leading the charge to investigate this matter further:

Representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Louise M. Slaughter from Rochester wrote yesterday to Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent prosecutor appointed in the Plame case, seeking an investigation into how the reporter, James D. Guckert, who used the name Jeff Gannon, had access to classified documents that revealed the identity of Ms. Plame.

Until Wednesday when he resigned, Mr. Guckert worked for TalonNews.com, a Web site operated by Robert Eberle, a Texas Republican. Mr. Guckert said in a March 2004 interview with his own news service, in which he was referred to as Mr. Gannon, that the classified document had been "easily accessible." The two Democrats questioned how a person with "dubious qualifications" had access to such a document. The Democrats also wrote to the Secret Service seeking an explanation of how someone using a pseudonym was cleared to enter the White House daily press briefings as well as a presidential news conference last month. They said in their letter that allowing such a person in "appears to deviate significantly from heightened security measures you have employed recently."

The issue here shouldn't just be focused on the actions of one man, Gannon/Guckert, but on what's looking like a systematic attempt to propagandize what little information comes from this famously tight-lipped administration. Without a press/media that is free to ask questions and is inquisitive, the American public cannot fully comprehend the true nature of an issue, whether it be Iraq, Social Security, or the budget.



What's even scarier is that even while this funnel of information to the press is tightening, information from original sources is being squeezed as well. Salon's War Room blog has the skinny on a recent poll of scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

When asked to respond anonymously to a survey regarding their work that was conducted by the watchdog groups Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists, some scientists received memos from higher-ups ordering them not to answer, even from home and on their personal time.

The results of the anonymous survey suggest why certain agency leaders might not have wanted the scientists' opinions to become public. Some 400 of the 1400 biologists, ecologists and botanists responded -- despite the intimidation -- and many of them reported that scientific data at U.S. Fish and Wildlife has been polluted by politics.

Forty-four percent of those who work on endangered-species issues said that they have been ordered to avoid findings that would require greater protections for wildlife. And one fifth of the agency's scientists who responded to the survey revealed that they have been personally directed to alter or omit technical information from scientific documents.