Tiassa
02-25-05, 03:40 PM
Sorting Through The Mess
Making heads and tails of the Gannon controversy
I just don't get it. The idea that salacious details give legs to a story isn't so puzzling, but there are still troubling questions about the heart of the Jeff Gannon controversy that I just don't get.
Let's start with media coverage:
What's also curious is that last December another media controversy erupted over the role a journalist played in posing a controversial question to top White House officials. It involved a reporter for the Chattanooga Free Times Press, Edward Lee Pitts, who helped a National Guardsman craft a tough question posed to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarding the lack of body armor for U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq. Rumsfeld's at-times-cavalier response created a small firestorm. ("You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.") The revelation that Pitts was involved in formulating the question, and the debate over whether he overstepped a journalistic boundary, soon became a story onto itself in the mainstream press. Unlike Guckert, who was criticized for bending the rules to toss softball questions to administration officials, Pitts was accused of bending the rules to ask a question that was too hard.
Although the Pitts story lasted for only one 24-hour news cycle, it was covered by virtually every major news outlet, including ABC, CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle -- the very same news organizations that, three weeks into the Guckert saga, have failed to acknowledge the story even exists.
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/)
The detailed discussion, inasmuch as there is one, of media coverage is intriguing. To the one, certain gaps in coverage are not lost on me. To the other, though, is that every day I'm surprised to hear the story still alive in the headlines.
Street-level scuttlebutt:
• Gannon is accused of a pattern of softballing the administration allegedly to break the rhythm during difficult periods. This talk goes so far as to accuse Gannon of being a plant.
• From this came an undignified wave of muckraking. Yes, Mr. Gannon/Guckert's past is morbidly humorous in juxtaposition to the present scnadal, but these are the details keeping the story alive.
• Mr. Guckert is also behaving just a little strangely, apparently having told a news industry journal that he would not respond to the press anymore, later complaining that nobody was calling him, and now his website reportedly--I have not yet visited the page--offers a link to simplify media requests.
• Talon News, Mr. Guckert's employer, asserting itself as a legitimate news agency, has taken itself offline.
• Democrats are calling for an investigation at least of Mr. Guckert's daily access. Questions here apparently surround the propriety of allowing a conflict between press credential and legal identification, and also the propriety of constant daily passes, which allowed Guckert access to White House press events without the usual background checks.
So here's the problem: that first point isn't entirely clear yet. With the daily opportunities to show the pattern of softballing, media outlets are merely repeating the same "divorce" question that started this whole ball rolling. For instance, I have always thought a particular question about homosexuals at a press conference in which Bush also admitted responsibility for the yellowcake lie was a mighty convenient floater. It was out of place and out of rhythm. Show me a pattern of things like that and yes, this story has legitimate legs. Barring that, however, I just don't get it.
Look, any time the media gets around to covering its own lack of attention to a story, too much attention has been given. Yes, it is inadvisable to run editorial content regarding events not covered in a given newspaper's news content. But not a day has gone by during this story's news life that hasn't brought a "new" (whatever that means) detail.
Nonetheless, I haven't been paying any attention to Ann Coulter; is she driving the current "liberal media" response?
• • •
John Aravosis, over at Americablog.com, says, "It's difficult to explain," and asks, "What more do we need for this story to be reported on seriously?"
The litany of assertions put together for Eric Boehlert's article at Salon.com runs several paragraphs--too long to cite here. But starting with the notion that--
Ordinarily, revelations that a former male prostitute, using an alias (Jeff Gannon) and working for a phony news organization, was ushered into the White House -- without undergoing a full-blown security background check -- in order to pose softball questions to administration officials would qualify as news by any recent Beltway standard
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/)
--we are told that as of yesterday (Feb. 24), ABC has not given any coverage, nor has CBS News. NBC's broadcast enterprise touched the story thrice. Fox News mentioned the name "Jeff Gannon" five times in over five-hundred hours of programming, and Matt Drudge has touched the story once. MSNBC's Hardball has put only one segment of one show to the issue; Countdown has been more aggressive. "Only CNN has covered the story with any kind of consistency among the 24-hour news channels".
In terms of print, the short list of newspapers that have "effectively boycotted the White House press office scandal" includes:
• USA Today
• Los Angeles Times
• Miami Herald
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Detroit Free Press
• Cleveland Plain Dealer
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Indianapolis Star
• Denver Post
• Oakland Tribune
• Philadelphia Inquirer
Leo Wolinsky, of the Los Angeles Times, admits, "It's a bit late," and acknowledges that his paper was slow to recognize the degree of public interest.
That's a very telling notion: public interest. What, however, is the news interest?
My question is whether the "lack" of coverage may have something to do with journalistic responsibility. Unclear to me at this time is whether or not pseudonyms are so legitimately troubling at the White House, and whether or not Gannon was part of anybody's concerted effort on behalf of the President, or that he even had a pattern of representing himself so poorly and coincidentally as the initial allegation would have us believe.
Without those aspects, at least, this story isn't news, and if news outlets--for instance, the Times--are only catching up because of public interest in scandal (e.g. sales and ratings concerns), perhaps their initial judgment to not give the story much attention bears wisdom.
The appropriate order:
• Bring me the accusation
• Bring me the proof
• Then, and only then, bring me the head of Jeff Gannon.
Anything else is a violation of journalistic principle, and just because Gannon pitched such principles out the window doesn't mean everyone else gets to. After all, isn't that sort of the point of crucifying the poor guy in the first place?
Mr. Aravosis can hold himself answered, as far as I am concerned.
____________________
Notes:
Bohelert, Eric. "See no Gannon, hear no Gannon, speak no Gannon". Salon.com. February 25, 2005. See http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/
Making heads and tails of the Gannon controversy
I just don't get it. The idea that salacious details give legs to a story isn't so puzzling, but there are still troubling questions about the heart of the Jeff Gannon controversy that I just don't get.
Let's start with media coverage:
What's also curious is that last December another media controversy erupted over the role a journalist played in posing a controversial question to top White House officials. It involved a reporter for the Chattanooga Free Times Press, Edward Lee Pitts, who helped a National Guardsman craft a tough question posed to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarding the lack of body armor for U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq. Rumsfeld's at-times-cavalier response created a small firestorm. ("You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.") The revelation that Pitts was involved in formulating the question, and the debate over whether he overstepped a journalistic boundary, soon became a story onto itself in the mainstream press. Unlike Guckert, who was criticized for bending the rules to toss softball questions to administration officials, Pitts was accused of bending the rules to ask a question that was too hard.
Although the Pitts story lasted for only one 24-hour news cycle, it was covered by virtually every major news outlet, including ABC, CBS, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle -- the very same news organizations that, three weeks into the Guckert saga, have failed to acknowledge the story even exists.
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/)
The detailed discussion, inasmuch as there is one, of media coverage is intriguing. To the one, certain gaps in coverage are not lost on me. To the other, though, is that every day I'm surprised to hear the story still alive in the headlines.
Street-level scuttlebutt:
• Gannon is accused of a pattern of softballing the administration allegedly to break the rhythm during difficult periods. This talk goes so far as to accuse Gannon of being a plant.
• From this came an undignified wave of muckraking. Yes, Mr. Gannon/Guckert's past is morbidly humorous in juxtaposition to the present scnadal, but these are the details keeping the story alive.
• Mr. Guckert is also behaving just a little strangely, apparently having told a news industry journal that he would not respond to the press anymore, later complaining that nobody was calling him, and now his website reportedly--I have not yet visited the page--offers a link to simplify media requests.
• Talon News, Mr. Guckert's employer, asserting itself as a legitimate news agency, has taken itself offline.
• Democrats are calling for an investigation at least of Mr. Guckert's daily access. Questions here apparently surround the propriety of allowing a conflict between press credential and legal identification, and also the propriety of constant daily passes, which allowed Guckert access to White House press events without the usual background checks.
So here's the problem: that first point isn't entirely clear yet. With the daily opportunities to show the pattern of softballing, media outlets are merely repeating the same "divorce" question that started this whole ball rolling. For instance, I have always thought a particular question about homosexuals at a press conference in which Bush also admitted responsibility for the yellowcake lie was a mighty convenient floater. It was out of place and out of rhythm. Show me a pattern of things like that and yes, this story has legitimate legs. Barring that, however, I just don't get it.
Look, any time the media gets around to covering its own lack of attention to a story, too much attention has been given. Yes, it is inadvisable to run editorial content regarding events not covered in a given newspaper's news content. But not a day has gone by during this story's news life that hasn't brought a "new" (whatever that means) detail.
Nonetheless, I haven't been paying any attention to Ann Coulter; is she driving the current "liberal media" response?
• • •
John Aravosis, over at Americablog.com, says, "It's difficult to explain," and asks, "What more do we need for this story to be reported on seriously?"
The litany of assertions put together for Eric Boehlert's article at Salon.com runs several paragraphs--too long to cite here. But starting with the notion that--
Ordinarily, revelations that a former male prostitute, using an alias (Jeff Gannon) and working for a phony news organization, was ushered into the White House -- without undergoing a full-blown security background check -- in order to pose softball questions to administration officials would qualify as news by any recent Beltway standard
Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/)
--we are told that as of yesterday (Feb. 24), ABC has not given any coverage, nor has CBS News. NBC's broadcast enterprise touched the story thrice. Fox News mentioned the name "Jeff Gannon" five times in over five-hundred hours of programming, and Matt Drudge has touched the story once. MSNBC's Hardball has put only one segment of one show to the issue; Countdown has been more aggressive. "Only CNN has covered the story with any kind of consistency among the 24-hour news channels".
In terms of print, the short list of newspapers that have "effectively boycotted the White House press office scandal" includes:
• USA Today
• Los Angeles Times
• Miami Herald
• St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Detroit Free Press
• Cleveland Plain Dealer
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Indianapolis Star
• Denver Post
• Oakland Tribune
• Philadelphia Inquirer
Leo Wolinsky, of the Los Angeles Times, admits, "It's a bit late," and acknowledges that his paper was slow to recognize the degree of public interest.
That's a very telling notion: public interest. What, however, is the news interest?
My question is whether the "lack" of coverage may have something to do with journalistic responsibility. Unclear to me at this time is whether or not pseudonyms are so legitimately troubling at the White House, and whether or not Gannon was part of anybody's concerted effort on behalf of the President, or that he even had a pattern of representing himself so poorly and coincidentally as the initial allegation would have us believe.
Without those aspects, at least, this story isn't news, and if news outlets--for instance, the Times--are only catching up because of public interest in scandal (e.g. sales and ratings concerns), perhaps their initial judgment to not give the story much attention bears wisdom.
The appropriate order:
• Bring me the accusation
• Bring me the proof
• Then, and only then, bring me the head of Jeff Gannon.
Anything else is a violation of journalistic principle, and just because Gannon pitched such principles out the window doesn't mean everyone else gets to. After all, isn't that sort of the point of crucifying the poor guy in the first place?
Mr. Aravosis can hold himself answered, as far as I am concerned.
____________________
Notes:
Bohelert, Eric. "See no Gannon, hear no Gannon, speak no Gannon". Salon.com. February 25, 2005. See http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/25/gannon_coverage/