Posted: 12 February 2005 By: Jemima Kiss
Email: jemima@journalism.co.uk
Bloggers are claiming success for their part in exposing 'fake' White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, an unqualified reporter who had White House access and apparently posted Republican propaganda as news stories.Web-based campaign group Media Matters for America became suspicious at a 'soft question' Mr Gannon put forward at a White House press briefing. Investigations by the group revealed that Mr Gannon had lifted chunks of writing from Republican party and White House press releases.Two Democrat representatives are calling for an official investigation into claims that Mr Gannon also had access to a confidential CIA document involved in the Valerie Plame scandal - an undercover agent whose name was leaked.Mr Gannon worked for the Talon News agency, run by Bobby Eberle. Mr Eberle is also president of Texas-based Conservative campaign organisation GOPUSA Media Matters revealed that Jeff Gannon was a pseudonym used by James Guckert, and the story was picked up by a network of bloggers, including DailyKos and Eschaton They discovered that James Guckert was the registered owner of JeffGannon.com - along with Hotmilitarystud.com, Militaryescorts.com and Militaryescortsm4m.com.Blogger, political consultant and former journalist John Aravosis has used his blog to 'synthesize the mounds of data' unearthed by bloggers in the GannonGuckert episode.The mainstream press are still missing the big story, said Mr Aravosis, because the more salacious parts of the story are 'too personal' to report."An anti-gay conservative GOP writer has had clients dealing with gay escort services and gets immediate access to the family-values president of the United States and internal CIA documents concerning one of the biggest scandals of this administration. No story there!"Mr Aravosis told dotJournalism that bloggers were better placed to investigate Mr Gannon's background than mainstream journalists."Mainstream journalists can't afford to tick off the White House, but those of us in the blogger world couldn't care less about what George Bush thinks of us," he said."We know we won't be getting passes to the White House any time soon."In an interview with Editor & Publisher , Mr Gannon would not say whether he saw the confidential CIA files. He said that the sexually oriented sites were registered by him five years ago for a private client, and denied that anyone in the White House press office had planted or suggested questions to him.Mr Gannon resigned from Talon News on 8 February. A message on his site states that he has decided to return to private life out of consideration for his family.More news from dotJournalism: Disgraced NY Times reporter beaten to his own domainMore coverage:Blog coverage:
Photo of the White House.Credit:  dcJohn
A lack of thorough and consistent measures to pick the White House press corps members has led many to question the reason a little-known conservative reporter had access to sensitive documents and the President of the United States.

Jeff Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, has been operating under an assumed name while attending White House press briefings. Gannon/Guckert was a reporter for the news service Talon News, a website believed by some to be a branch of the GOPUSA, up until his recent resignation due to the incidents surrounding him.

The spotlight was originally cast on Guckert when called upon in a January 26 news conference. He asked President George W. Bush how he could work with Democratic congressional leaders "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality." Bloggers, seeing this as a "softball" question almost immediately began to question Guckert’s credentials and motives.

Guckert supposedly had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a CIA operative as well, which adds more fuel to the fire of the Justice Department’s investigation of the release of her name.

Bloggers revealed James Guckert's real name, and that he was the registered owner of JeffGannon.com, Hotmilitarystud.com, Militaryescorts.com, and Militaryescortsm4m.com.

The accusations that Guckert has no degree in journalism, reports through a small organiztion funded by a larger conservative news outlet, operated under an assumed name, and is directly linked with pornographic domain names, have many questioning how exactly he received a press pass in the first place.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan, when questioned about this event, stated that Guckert did not have a regular White House press pass but was cleared on a day-by-day basis to attend briefings and used his real name. McClellan defended Guckert’s clearance saying that, "He, like anyone else, showed that he was representing a news organization that published regularly and so he was cleared two years ago to receive daily passes just like many others are."