"Jeff Gannon" : What was he doing at the WH?

[Moses]

Conservative Reporter Resigns Amid Controversy
by David Folkenflik <br>
 <br>All Things Considered, February 9, 2005 · A reporter for the conservative news site TalonNews.com resigns. The reporter, who went by the pseudonym Jeff Gannon, drew critical attention at President Bush's Jan. 26 press conference when he referred in question to Democrats "who seem to have divorced themselves from reality" on the issue of retooling Social Security.
Liberal bloggers have disclosed that Gannon, who has little previous journalism experience, was easily granted a coveted White House press pass -- even though he did not work for a traditional or established news organization. He also routinely asked "softball" questions at press conferences. There are also allegations that Gannon is linked to Web sites with homoerotic themes.

Gannon spoke with NPR's David Folkenflik the day before he resigned. He says he is open about his conservative point of view, but that he is just as valid a journalist as other reporters in the White House press corps.

 <br>

[Moses]

Hannity on Gannon: "a terrific Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News"

Conservative radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have cited Talon News, the online "news" organization that appears to be more of a Republican political advocacy group than a media outlet, and its former Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent, Jeff Gannon, as sources on their radio broadcasts.

In addition to citing both Talon News and Gannon on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, Hannity has referred to Gannon as "a terrific Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News," and according to a program summary on the website for San Francisco radio station KSFO, which carries Hannity's show, Gannon was a guest on the February 10, 2004, edition of the program. The program summary for that broadcast states: "Sean spends a moment with Jeff Gannon, Washington Bureau Chief for Talon News.com. Jeff talks about his daily meetings with White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan [sic]." Media Matters for America demonstrated that Gannon has served as a lifeline for White House press secretary Scott McClellan at press briefings and that Gannon copied GOP documents and releases verbatim and without attribution for use in his articles.

Here are three other instances in which Hannity cited Gannon or Talon News as a source on his radio show:

* HANNITY: He's [radio host Mike Webb] apparently a liberal talk show host known for his disdain of the president and the Bush administration. And a report says that he called for the death penalty for the president and the Secretary of State [sic: Defense] Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes. He apparently denied a report last week by Talon News, but the Internet site -- and said yesterday that they have a tape that proves that this host, Mike Webb, made the statements on the air. [The Sean Hannity Show, 5/27/04]

* HANNITY: And apparently they're also, according to Jeff Gannon, the -- Talon News -- this woman, Mary Mapes, this Dallas producer [involved in the controversy over memos about President Bush's National Guard service], is under pressure for the [CBS] network, and now there's doubts about their authenticity has taken place. Let me tell you what that means. That means everything's going downhill. And you watch. There's going to be somebody that has to take the fall here, and it's not going to be uh, it's not going to be [CBS anchor] Dan Rather. [The Sean Hannity Show, 9/7/04]
* HANNITY: Now, Jeff Gannon, who is a terrific Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News, actually shot me an e-mail today, and he's about to break a story in an exclusive about these CBS documents. [The Sean Hannity Show, 9/10/04]


On the September 23, 2004, edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, host Limbaugh cited Talon News as "our source" for a story about an email sent by progressive group MoveOn.org to its supporters linking the prevalence of hurricanes in Florida at the time to global warming and the Bush administration's environmental policies. The article, titled "MoveOn: Bush to Blame for 'Extreme' Hurricane Season," has been removed from the Talon News site (along with all other archived Talon "news reports" since the organization came under scrutiny) but is available here, in Google's cache. After citing Talon News, Limbaugh read excerpts of the article and concluded: "This is total BS. ... f global warming were actually happening, there would be fewer hurricanes."

As Media Matters noted, Limbaugh bragged that a quote he fabricated had surfaced in a question Gannon asked of Bush at a January 26 White House press conference. Limbaugh said he was "flattered and honored and proud to have a point made by this program represented in the press conference and asked by a reporter." Limbaugh later falsely claimed that Gannon's question was "accurate."

— J.C.

Posted to the web on Wednesday February 9, 2005 at 7:24 PM EST

---

Contacts:
Jeff Gannon
 more » [e-mail]
Call in to "Jeff Gannon's Washington" on Rightalk, Thursdays 3-4 p.m.
1-866-884-TALK
Sean Hannity
 more » [e-mail]
ABC Radio Networks
 more » [e-mail]
ABC Radio Networks
Talon News
 more » Talon News
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Copyright © 2004-2005 Media Matters for America. All rights reserved.

[Moses]

Plame & Propagannon: Joe Wilson Speaks Out
by SusanG

Wed Feb 9th, 2005 at 11:45:52 EST
(From the diaries -- kos )

....How did the interview with Gannon come about, given that it was a small-time conservative news outlet?

Gannon called me and identified himself as the White House Correspondent from Talon News, a conservative news organization.  He wanted to do a wide-ranging interview on my position on the war as well as the Niger mission and the leak.

While I had never heard his name or the name of his organization before, I was happy to do it.  I have long felt that it is readers and viewers of conservative media who could benefit from a more balanced discussion of what is at stake in our policy and the actions of our government.  At one point I recall Gannon as saying he was a traditional conservative (distinguishing himself from the neoconservatives, who in my judgement have totally captured our foreign policy).  Speaking to the Times and other mainstream media is fine but those readers and viewers are generally better informed and often of the same perspective.  It is those on the other side to whom we need to address the issues even more than to those with whom we already share views.

....Were you struck immediately during the course of the interview by the fact that he discussed the internal memo?

As to the memo, I knew nothing about it other than a Post journalist had told me there was one circulating which he characterized as having been written by somebody who was not at the meeting where I was asked if I would be willing to go to Niger. The fact is Valerie was not at that meeting. Neither she nor I had any ulterior motive in this.  It was not until almost six months later that I began to speak out on the war question and even when I did, I always believed that WMD was a legitimate reason to be tough on Saddam.  The trip to Niger is only relevant because of the 16 words and the fact that the only evidence to support the yellowcake charge the US turned over to the IAEA (as they were required by Article 10 of USUN 1441) were those forged documents relating to Niger.  The only information the British apparently shared with the IAEA was a trip to the region by an Iraqi diplomat a couple of years previously.  As it turned out, the CIA had told both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the White House almost four months before the State of the Union address that it believed the British had "stretched" or "exaggerated" the yellowcake allegation.  All of that was in the Senate report but unfortunately, was overlooked by the mainstream media.

Back to the memo, when Gannon mentioned it to me, I told him I knew nothing about it but
repeated that my wife was not at the meeting at which the subject of a trip to Niger was broached with me. I may have mentioned that I had heard that there was a memo out there but had no other knowledge about it. I still don't.


.... I was wondering if you were concerned about having your words twisted or taken out of context in order to add fuel to a smear campaign.

I understand what you meant by landmines, but frankly, when somebody presents himself as a journalist, even one with a conservative bent, I don't(or didn't) think that landmines (or entrapment) would be what he was about.  Most journalists who have interviewed me will tell you that I am careful with my use of words any way, and I certainly try to be. Clearly, I was mistaken in that assumption, given the smear campaign that was waged against me, based on lies and distortions of what I said and wrote.  <br>
That said, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated and silenced by the liars, our democracy will not survive.  We have to continue to confront them.  <br>
My complaint is not so much about the smear campaign as it is about the laziness of so-called objective journalists who failed to even do basic research. If Susan Schmidt, the Post reporter, had bothered to call the CIA or check the written record, she would have learned that mere days after the Novak article appeared, the CIA (under the guise of an unnamed senior intelligence official) told Newsday that Valerie was not responsible for the decision to send me to Niger. The CIA repeated the same thing to every reporter who bothered to ask over the subsequent year.

If reporters had bothered to read the Senate report, they would have learned that not only
the White House but also the Senate Select committee itself was told by CIA management nearly four months before the State of the Union address that American intelligence did not believe the British claim. Unless the press is prepared to work at it we will continue to be bamboozled by administrations, and people like me who are prepared to speak out will become rare species indeed.

....Why do you think he was on the subpoena list with such other prominent media players when he was so small time?

I have never seen the list. Didn't even know it was public information. Remember that the case is between the USG and whoever leaked Valerie's name.  Although our names are tied to it, we are not victims, the government is.

I didn't understand why Novak used her name in the first place and I don't understand the smear campaign other than as an attempt to provide a proactive defense if a crime was committed. As to my alleged incompetence, the Senate Select intelligence report makes my bona fides for the trip clear. I had a track record, having made a previous trip to Niger on behalf of the government in 1999 to look into uranium related matters. But the truth is an unfortunate victim in this matter.

My knowledge of Africa and of Niger is almost unparalleled in US policy circles. This was not an inquiry into nuclear weapons but an inquiry into mining practices in Africa.  And, whatever the administration and its hired guns try to say, the fact remains, the White House acknowledged the day after my article appeared in the Times that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union."  Within days, Stephen Hadley offered
his resignation and Condi did a mea culpa since, lo and behold, they "found" memos from the CIA saying not to use the information months before the State of the Union.

When did the interview with Gannon actually take place? It was published October,28, 2003, but we're trying to nail down the precise date you talked to him.

I don't recall but it couldn't have been more than a week earlier.

On the Daily Show on July 24, 2003, you showed a letter from Bush/Cheney '04 asking you to participate in the re-election campaign. What was the date on that letter?

The date of the letter was after the appearance of my article on July 6, 2003. The point of my showing the letter was to make a joke about bygones being bygones since Cheney had signed a letter asking me to be a co-chairman of the DC committee to reelect Bush/Cheney.

As far as you are aware, was your wife's name and status "common knowledge" inside the beltway as claimed by Clifford May in the National Review Online on Sept. 29, 2003?

If it was common knowledge that could only be because the conspiracy to leak her name was broader and deeper than currently understood.  I have only laid eyes on May once in my life, we are not habitués of the DC cocktail circuit (I think we have been to two so-called A list parties in seven years here and one of those was to celebrate the Declaration of Independence.) When the leak occurred nobody in our circle of friends or colleagues outside Valerie's place of employment knew what she did for a living.  If our closest friends and family (my brother did not know) were unaware, the only way our political adversaries would know is if somebody from the administration spread the story.  <br>
In March 2003, you published an article in The Nation and appeared on CNN. Did these have repercussions from inside the administration?

Not to my knowledge.  The first article I wrote appeared in the San Jose Mercury News in October, 2002.  Brent Scowcroft called me after it appeared and asked if he could take it over to the White House and share it with officials there.  I subsequently got a letter from President Bush's father (Bush 41) saying he "agreed with almost everything I wrote.  My Nation article was an attack on the Neoconservatives and on the signatories of the PNAC for their misguided notions of an American Empire and how to propagate democracy around the world.

Approximately when did Chris Matthews contact you to say, "Rove says your wife is fair game?" Was it before or after Novak's July 14, 2003, article?

It was after.  I think the date was July 21, 2003.  The date is in my book, The Politics of Truth, which I recommend to everybody.  It describes my career in American diplomacy as well as the way in which the 16 words and the subsequent leak played out.  <br>
What do you think of the process of research that's going on at Daily Kos on this issue? How does it fit into your view of the role of citizens versus the role of official media in information gathering and reporting?

I think that in the absence of a responsible national media, the blogs play an important role in trying to shed light on various issues, including the bona fides of so-called White House correspondents as well as tackling questions overlooked or ignored by the national journalists.  I also believe that the nature of the profession has changed to the detriment of good investigative journalism.  No longer is there a quest for the truth so much as there is this apparent need to present both sides of an issue even if one is nothing but lies and distortions.  Giving the same value to fiction as to fact in the interest of so-called fairness is to mislead the American people and the press has become party to that.

[Moses]

Latest in Gannon scandal



Posted by Evan on February 9, 2005 @ 2:40PM

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) is calling for an official probe in light of "mounting evidence that your Administration has, on several occasions, paid members of the media to advocate in favor of Administration policies," and due in no small part to the Gannon scandal. At the same time, AmericaBlog (who's currently seeking assistance) is busy assembling the various facts about GOP-friendly reporter, Jim Guckert (alias: Jeff Gannon).

Below is just a sample of Gannon/Guckert in action at a 2004 White House press briefing. Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan was, as the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin put it: "getting hammered with questions about the 9/11 commission and the possible inappropriate juxtaposition of a visit to a 9/11 memorial with a fundraiser." And then along comes white night Jeff Gannon with administration-blessed access:

McClellan: "Go ahead, Jeff."

Gannon: "Thank you. First of all, I hope the grand jury didn't force you to turn over the wedding card I sent to you and your wife. (Laughter.) Do you see any hypocrisy in the controversy about the President's mention of 9/11 in his ads, when Democratic icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign issued this button, that says, 'Remember Pearl Harbor'? I have a visual aid for folks watching at home."

McClellan: "You're pointing out some historical facts. Obviously, Pearl Harbor was a defining moment back in the period of World War II, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was strongly committed to winning World War II and talked about it frequently."

Gannon: "So you think it certainly is valid that the President does talk about it and --"

[Moses]

Jeff Gannon Reverses Course, Quits as Talon News 'Reporter', Says Media Matters for America

2/9/2005 4:59:00 PM

---

To: National Desk, Political Reporter

Contact: Melissa Salmanowitz of Media Matters for America, 202-756-4109 or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- After two weeks of controversy over his presence at White House press briefings, Talon News "reporter" Jeff Gannon abruptly resigned today, according to Media Matters for America.

Media Matters for America sparked the Gannon firestorm on Jan. 26 by detailing Gannon's tendency to lob "softball" questions for White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Media Matters has also shown that Gannon's "news" stories often consist of little more than reprints of Republican talking points, and that Talon News itself is more of a partisan political organization than a news outlet.

Today, in the wake of increased scrutiny prompted by Media Matters' work, including criticism by real reporters of his presence at White House press briefings, Gannon posted the following message on his personal Web site: "The voice goes silent. Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life."

Media Matters for America President and CEO David Brock noted: "Mr. Gannon's conduct during White House press briefings suggests that his true role is that of a partisan operative rather than an independent journalist. Gannon's announcement is welcome, but we will be watching to see who, if anyone, Talon News replaces him with."

Media Matters for America's revelations about Gannon included uncovering instances of Gannon's "news reports" lifting extensively and without attribution from an Republican National Committee "fact sheet," a White House "fact sheet" and directly from President Bush; the fact that Talon News is virtually indistinguishable from a Republican activist Web site known as http://GOPUSA.com; and the fact that Gannon and Talon/GOPUSA.com head Bobby Eberle have both attempted to organize political events via the right-wing online forum FreeRepublic.com.

On Jan. 31, Brock sent a letter to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan detailing Gannon's and Talon's partisan ties and lack of journalistic qualifications and urging McClellan to consider revoking Gannon's White House press credentials.

News outlets including The Boston Globe, Editor & Publisher, and The Washington Post followed up on the Gannon controversy, quoting real journalists who questioned the presence of a political operative posing as a reporter at White House press briefings and disclosing the fact that Gannon's application for a congressional press pass was rejected. Gannon and Talon News were also the subject of intense research and activism conducted by participants in online forums such as DailyKos.com, among others. ---

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Media Matters for America is the first organization to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation every day, in real time. For more information, visit www.mediamatters.org.

www.usnewswire.com/

-0-

/© 2005 U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/

[Moses]

Jayson Blair Would Be Proud[/size]
Posted by Trevor Gleason

Journalists - can't live with them, can't run gigantic misinformation campaigns without them.

Talon News is a news organization which gives off no signs of being anything but fair, balanced, and completely objective in its journalistic approach. Except maybe for the giant ad for Ann Coulter books on the front page. And the fact that its headlines all redirect you to the GOPUSA website. Oh, and that their own "news" seems to be word for word copies of White House speaking points. So I assume it makes perfect sense that their reporter Jeff Gannon, with his White House media pass, is always on hand to lob nice easy questions at Bush and to criticize the Democratic leadership (admittedly, in Jeopardy format). With such a high level of journalistic integrity required in the White House press core, I can only hope that Gannon has a seat reserved next to the reporter from The Onion.

[Moses]

Best reporter to watch the speech with: Jeff Gannon, White House News Correspondent, Talon News

The elite media has attacked Jeff Gannon as a Bush-friendly hack with no media credentials who routinely lobs soft-ball questions at the administration during White House press briefings. Our soft-ball question: what's so bad about that? When the Swift Report wants to know what the White House is thinking, we go straight to the source: Gannon's website Talon News. Case in point, Thursday morning's post-speech analysis. Having been up till the wee hours toasting the president, we couldn't remember much about the State of the Union by the morning after. Gannon set us straight with a single headline: "Bush Details Ambitious Second Term."

[Moses]

www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/10/gannon_affair/print.html



Talon News reporter "Jeff Gannon" lobs White House spokesman Scott McClellan a question at a Feb. 1, 2005, press briefing.

Fake news, fake reporter

Why was a partisan hack, using an alias and with no journalism background, given repeated access to daily White House press briefings?

---

By Eric Boehlert



Feb. 10, 2005  |  When President Bush bypassed dozens of eager reporters from nationally and internationally recognized news outlets and selected Jeff Gannon to pose a question at his Jan. 26 news conference, Bush's recognition bestowed instant credibility on the apparently novice reporter, as well as the little-known conservative organization he worked for at the time, called Talon News. That attention only intensified when Gannon used his nationally televised press conference time to ask Bush a loaded, partisan question -- featuring a manufactured quote that mocked Democrats for being "divorced from reality."

Gannon's star turn quickly piqued the interest of many online commentators, who wondered how an obvious Republican operative had been granted access to daily White House press briefings normally reserved for accredited journalists. Two weeks later, a swarming investigation inside the blogosphere into Gannon and Talon News had produced all sorts of d**ning revelations about how Talon is connected at the hip to a right-wing activist organization called GOPUSA, how its "news" staff consists largely of volunteer Republican activists with no journalism experience, how Gannon often simply rewrote GOP press releases when filing his Talon dispatches. It also uncovered embarrassing information about Gannon's past as well as his fake identity. When Gannon himself this week confirmed to the Washington Post that his name was a pseudonym, it only added to the sense of a bizarre hoax waiting to be exposed.

On Tuesday night, the reporter who apparently saw himself as a trailblazing conservative "embedded with the liberal Washington press corps" abruptly quit his post as Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent for Talon News, that after earlier taunting those digging into his past that he was "hiding in plain sight." Contacted by e-mail for a comment, Gannon referred Salon to the message posted on his Web site: "Because of the attention being paid to me I find it is no longer possible to effectively be a reporter for Talon News. In consideration of the welfare of me and my family I have decided to return to private life. Thank you to all those who supported me."

The Gannon revelations come on the heels of the discovery that Bush administration officials signed lucrative contracts for several conservative pundits who hyped White House initiatives and did not disclose the government's payments. The Talon News fiasco raises serious questions about who the White House is allowing into its daily press briefings: How can a reporter using a fake name and working for a fake news organization get press credentials from the White House, let alone curry enough favor with the notoriously disciplined Bush administration to get picked by the president in order to ask fake questions? The White House did not return Salon's calls seeking answers to those questions.

The situation "begs further investigation," says James Pinkerton, a media critic for Fox News who has worked for two Republican White Houses. "In the six years I worked for Reagan and Bush I, I remember the White House being strict about who got in. It's inconceivable to me that the White House, especially after 9/11, gives credentials to people without doing a background check."

Gannon reportedly did not have what's known as a "hard pass" for the White House press room, which allows journalists to enter daily without getting prior approval each time. Instead Gannon picked up a daily pass by contacting the White House press office each morning and asking for clearance. Mark Smith, vice president of the White House Correspondents Association, says it's up to White House officials to decide whom they want to wave in each day. "They don't consult us." If they had, Smith says, he would have been "very uncomfortable" granting Gannon the same access as professional journalists.

And the association never would have backed a reporter using an alias. Says Pinkerton: "If [Gannon] was walking around the White House with a pass that had a different name on it than his real name, that's pretty remarkable." Smith, who covers the White House for Associated Press radio, says he "could have sworn" that he saw credentials around Gannon's neck with the name "Jeff Gannon" on them.

"Somebody was waving him into the White House every day," notes David Brock, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, an online liberal advocacy group that led the way in raising questions about Gannon and Talon News.

Earlier this week, when asked about Gannon's access, White House press secretary Scott McClellan essentially threw up his hands and said he has no control over who is in the press room and whom the president calls on during his rare press conferences. "I don't think it's the role of the press secretary to get into the business of being a media critic or picking and choosing who gets credentials," he told the Washington Post.

"That's like [McClellan] saying, 'I'm chief of staff at a hospital and when a patient dies in surgery and it turns out the guy operating wasn't a doctor ... [it's] not my business to be a medical critic,'" says Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who has written extensively about the inner workings of the Bush administration. "Nobody is asking him to be a media critic. They're asking him to make sure people in the press room -- the ones using up precious time during extremely rare press conferences -- are acting journalists, honest brokers dealing with genuine inquiry to get at the truth."

Suskind questions the White House's explanation that Bush had no idea who Gannon was when he called on him during the press conference. "Frankly, my sense is that almost nothing happens inside the White House episodically. They are so ardent with their message discipline. It all happens for a reason."

And it's not as if finding out the connection between Talon and GOPUSA was difficult. The Standing Committee of Correspondents, a group of congressional reporters who oversee press credential distribution on Capitol Hill, did just that last spring when Gannon approached the organization to apply for a press pass. "We didn't recognize the publication, so we asked for information about what Talon was," says Julie Davis, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun who is on the committee. "We did some digging, and it became clear it was owned by the owner of GOPUSA. And we had asked for some proof of Talon's editorial independence from that group ... They didn't provide anything, so we denied their credentials, which is pretty rare," says Davis. She adds, "There's limited space, and particularly after 9/11 there's limited access to the Capitol. Our role is to make sure journalists have as much access as possible, and to ensure that credentials mean something."

[Moses]

Talon's unusual access to the White House has upset journalists at other small outlets who don't enjoy the same privileged connections. "We're a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 22,000 and I'm pretty sure we couldn't get a White House press pass," says Mike Hudson, editor of the Niagara Falls Reporter in Niagara Falls, N.Y. "How does Gannon, which isn't even his real name, get past security?" Hudson wrote to Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., asking her office "to look into how a partisan political organization and an individual with no credentials as a reporter -- and apparently operating under an assumed name -- landed a coveted spot in the White House press corps."

Slaughter, a vocal critic of the administration's pundit payola practices, wrote to the White House on Monday urging Bush "to please explain to the Congress and to the American people how and why the individual known as 'Mr. Gannon' was repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press corps."

Until this week, what little was known about Gannon was vague. But several Web sites he is connected with provide some possible clues. Introducing himself to readers of his ConservativeGuy.com Web site, Gannon once wrote, "I've been a preppie, a yuppie, blue-collar, green-collar and white collar. I've served in the military, graduated from college, taught in the public school system, was a union truck driver, a management consultant, a fitness instructor and an entrepreneur. I'm a two-holiday Christian and I usually vote Republican."

When the recent controversy erupted, Gannon positioned himself as more of an ardent right-winger, not to mention ardent Christian. On JeffGannon.com he wrote, "I'm everything people on the Left seem to despise. I'm a man who is white, politically conservative, a gun-owner, an SUV driver and I've voted for Republicans. I'm pro-American, pro-military, pro-democracy, pro-capitalism, pro-free speech, anti-tax and anti-big government. Most importantly, I'm a Christian. Not only by birth, but by rebirth through the blood of Jesus Christ." Posting on the right-wing FreeRepublic.com, Gannon, while working as a White House reporter, once urged fellow Freepers to stage a demonstration outside Sen. John Kerry's headquarters and chant Jane Fonda's name and throw DNC medals, a reference to the Vietnam ribbons of honor Kerry threw away during an antiwar demonstration in the early 1970s.

As a would-be reporter, Gannon often copied entire sections from White House press releases and pasted them into his stories, according to an analysis done by Media Matters. This despite the fact he once ridiculed legitimate journalists for "working off the talking points provided by the Democrats."

According to his bio on Talon's Web site (which has now been removed), he's a graduate of the "Pennsylvania State University System," which could mean anything from Penn State to a much smaller state-run school such as West Chester University. He also noted that he's a graduate of Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism -- which is a two-day, $50 seminar run by Morton Blackwell, a longtime Republican activist who co-founded the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and has said that those on "the ultra left harness hate and envy in their quest for unlimited power." Blackwell's journalism seminar aims to "prepare conservatives for success in politics, government and the news media," according to the institute's Web site. The classes are also designed to "bring balance to the media."

It was Blackwell, serving as a Virginia delegate to the GOP convention this summer, who handed out purple bandages in an effort to make fun of Kerry's Vietnam War wounds. They read: "It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it?" Blackwell also served as a mentor to a young field organizer who is now Bush's deputy chief of staff. (Karl Rove called Blackwell just days after winning the 2000 election to thank him for his help.)

What likely forced Gannon to quit Talon News Tuesday were the revelations uncovered by bloggers such as World O' Crap, AmericaBlog, Mediacitizen, Daily Kos and Eschaton, along with their readers, about Gannon's past. For instance, bloggers uncovered evidence suggesting that the person and company that own the Web site JeffGannon.com also registered the gay-themed sites hotmilitarystud.com, militaryescorts.com and militaryescortsm4m.com. And according to this online research, that company, Bedrock Corp., is owned by a man named Jim Guckert, leading to speculation that Guckert and Gannon are one and the same. Bedrock is based in Wilmington, Del., where Gannon apparently is from.

As for Talon, its Web site says it is "committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news coverage to our readers." The site is run by Bobby Eberle, a Texas Republican Party delegate and political activist who also runs GOPUSA.com, which touts itself as "bringing the conservative message to America." As Media Matters documented, "In addition to Eberle's dual role as the head of both entities, both domain names TalonNews.com and GOPUSA.com are registered to the same address in Pearland, Texas, which appears to be Eberle's personal residence. The TalonNews.com domain name registration lists Eberle's e-mail address as [e-mail] ... Talon News apparently consists of little more than Eberle, Gannon, and a few volunteers, and is virtually indistinguishable from GOPUSA.com ... GOPUSA's officers and directors show a similar lack of journalism experience, but plenty of experience working for Republican causes." After Media Matters highlighted the background of Talon's "news team," Talon quickly yanked their bios from the site.

There is evidence that ownership of both Talon and GOPUSA changed hands Monday, just as the Gannon controversy was growing. More recently, many archived stories, including some dealing with the issue of homosexuality and defending the ban on gay marriage, were scrubbed from the Talon site. Eberle at Talon and GOPUSA did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Last year Gannon and Talon made a blip on the Beltway radar over an interview Gannon did with former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, whose wife, Valerie Plame, was exposed as a CIA agent by conservative columnist Robert Novak. That potentially illegal disclosure prompted an independent counsel investigation. Gannon apparently attracted investigators' attention when, in the interview with Wilson, he referred to an unclassified document that may have been distributed to conservative allies in the press to bolster the administration's case that it was Wilson's wife who suggested he be sent to Niger to investigate the claim that Iraq tried to purchase uranium, or yellowcake, from the African nation.

It's likely Talon and Gannon would have remained obscure had the swaggering reporter not popped his now famous question to Bush. The details surrounding the Jan. 26 press room incident are telling, as they highlight the elasticity Gannon and other partisan advocates often use in their "reporting." Gannon asked Bush, "Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy." He continued, "[Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton 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 said you're going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

Reid never made any such comment about soup lines.

That afternoon conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh crowed that Gannon's question was "a repeat, a rehash, of a precise point I made on this program yesterday." However, Limbaugh conceded that Reid had "never actually said 'soup lines.'" That was simply Limbaugh's exaggerated characterization of Reid's concerns. Gannon either heard that phrase on Limbaugh's show or read it in Limbaugh's online column and then inserted it into his loaded question to Bush. On Feb. 2, with Gannon under fire for his lack of journalistic ethics, Limbaugh suddenly flip-flopped and told listeners that Gannon's question about Reid and soup lines "was an accurate recitation of what the Senate Democrat leaders had said." Then, in a Feb. 7 article in the Washington Post, Gannon finally conceded the quote was made up, but suggested he had nothing to apologize for.

All of which begs the question, "Who are they issuing credentials to?" asks Hudson at the Niagara Falls Reporter. "Could a guy from [Comedy Central's] 'The Daily Show' get press credentials from this White House?"

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About the writer
Eric Boehlert is a senior writer at Salon.

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