The Blogs in the Machine

"Who in the White House knew that Jeff Gannon was
an assumed name, was not a legitimate journalist and was merely a shill
for the Administration, for more than two years, nearly three years?"
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)

A very interesting article in today’s Financial Tiimes, titled "Blogs
in the machine" concerning the topic of the week – the intersection between
blogging and mainstream media. It covers the ground well, but doesn’t
really go anywhere.

One of the main persecutors of John Kerry was a blog called Talonnews.com,
whose editor also happens to run GOPUSA, described as a "conservative
news, information and design company, dedicated to promoting conservative
ideals".

The Washington correspondent for Talon was a man named Jeff Gannon, who
made himself conspicuous during White House press conferences for deflecting
difficult questions from other reporters by asking the softest of questions.
Gannon was a welcome guest on such conservative MSM outlets as Fox News,
and he “reported” on his website that John Kerry might be gay. It took
another blogger, Dailykos.com, to expose Gannon as a homosexual "escort"
named James Guckert, who had no journalistic credentials and advertised
his services on websites such as Militarystud.com. He had been refused
a press pass for Congress, but had no problem getting into the White
House.

We remember seeing this story the first time it washed through the news
cycle, but it wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen until Markos Moulitsas
(dailykos.com) caught the significance
of the story and held it up to the light of day.

from the Financial Times

original New Yorker article