Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Jeff Gannon Is No Jeff Gannon
At the Daily Kos diaries, Susan G. has been conducting an "investigation" into the mysterious background of Talon News "Reporter" Jeff Gannon. Mr. Gannon (a name which Susan correctly guessed was a pseudonym as he pretty much just admitted in an interview with Fishbowl DC at Media Bistro: "It's definitely my reporter's name, and beyond that, I don't see how relevant anything else is.") has recently been exposed as nothing more than an Administration mouthpiece by Media Matters: ""Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, who accused his colleagues in the press corps of "work[ing] off of the talking points" provided by Democrats, has used Bush administration and Republican National Committee (RNC) documents and releases in his Talon "news reports" verbatim and without attribution. In at least two of his articles, Gannon lifted more than half of the text directly from GOP "fact sheets.""
With help from other Kos contributors, Susan has done some sensational work, and has just posted a new diary entry, "Plame & PropaGannon: Dots Connect: Part IX" (Diary): "Talon News registers its domain name March 29, 2003. The site goes live April 1, 2003, and on April 3, 2003, the pseudonomic "Jeff Gannon," with no journalism experience and with a $50, two-day seminar at a right-wing propaganda institute under his belt, is seated four rows away from where the most powerful - and most guarded - person on the planet makes his pronouncements."
Pnionline.com reports that "Jeff is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University System and holds a Bachelor of Science in Education." That information was attributed to Mr. Gannon's official bio at Talon News, which seems to have mysteriously vanished (link). Pnionline.com also reports that one of Mr. Gannon's reports on the Daschle and Thune Senate Race in South Dakota was given a link by the Daschle v. Thune blog, a blog that was maintained by a paid Thune staffer.
The earliest story by Mr. Gannon that I could find was from January of 2003 for GOPUSA News, which owns all of his Websites.
On February 10, 2004, Mr. Gannon asked these interesting questions at a White House briefing (link to a Freeper thread, a Website Mr. Gannon posts at nearly every day): "Since there have been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America's racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else's medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting? What was he doing after he was honorably discharged?"
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