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The Power of the New Media, Jeff Gannon
Dispatched Into Irrelevancy
- By ANTHONY WADE
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- February 10, 2005
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- Never before has the new media flexed its muscles
collectively, so well, as in the recent case of a liar named Jeff
Gannon. Well, Jeff Gannon wasn’t actually his real name. That was
a lie too.
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- It is becoming all too obvious that the myth of a liberal
mainstream media is quite dead. This fantasy is held onto so
dearly by right-wingers because it is part of their talking
points. The reality is far easier to spot though. Talk radio is
dominated completely by the right wing machine, with such shrill
voices as Limbaugh and Hannity leading the pack. Then you look at
cable news see that if a man named Colmes is the only voice of
reason, then we are not in Kansas any more Dorothy. It is a matter
of story selection, panel composition, and host personalities.
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- Fox News is nothing more than an extension of the White House
and any fair evaluation of them must conclude that. A FAIR study
done last year found an overwhelming majority of the prime time
guests on the Brit Hume show, were right wing, while the tiny
minority of alleged democrats, were actually middle of the road
moderates. If it was only Fox we had to worry about, we would
still be ok. The real damage Fox News perpetrates on the
collective journalistic soul of this country is to make other
news, appear mainstream. Next to Fox, the other big networks
appear lefty, when in reality they also are lilting far to the
right.
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- The next big cable giant is MSNBC with its flagship show,
“Softball, with Chris Matthews”. Chris pretends to ask the tough
questions, but a mere glance at his panels will tell the truth of
the leanings of his show. In the run-up to the election, Ben
Ginsberg was a regular panelist offering analysis. Ben Ginsberg is
a republican election lawyer. On the democratic side, Mathews may
have Ron Reagan Jr., who is more moderate than democratic or
Andrea Mitchell, who is married to Alan Greenspan. This is the
mold of the shows that displays its inherent bias. The people on
the left are not strong lefty personalities, but rather are
moderates who approach topics, fairly. The people on the
right however, have an agenda, and that is to push the GOP talking
points at all costs. Last night Matthews had on Susan Molinari,
who could not stop gushing about the bold social security plan of
the president. Her counterpart tried to play fairly, and have a
rational discussion. The result was Molinari often shouting over
her opponent to get the GOP message through, while Matthews stands
by grinning. This is what media and reporting has come to in
latter day America. As if this was not bad enough, MSNBC will not
even portray equal amounts, of the disproportionate pundits.
Following the State of the Union, MSNBC had 11 republican guests
to only 2 democratic guests. One of those two democratic guests
was the aforementioned Reagan, the moderate. On the GOP side were
such strong personalities as Orrin Hatch, Rick Santorum and Pat
Buchanan. This is how they stack the shows.
- Following the Fox model, MSNBC went out and got themselves a
loud voice for their prime time PM slot. Joe Scarborough headlines
for MSNBC at ten o’clock. What did Mr. Scarborough do prior to
pretending to be a journalist? He was a member of Congress, for
the GOP. Offering no apology, Mr. Scarborough was also spotted in
the election run-up at a Pro-Bush rally, as a fan, not a
journalist. Hmm, I guess objectivity is not on the MSNBC agenda.
Joe routinely has on such vitriolic guests as Anne Coulter, to
fairly discuss the state of affairs in this country. Please.
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- Besides hosts and panels, story selection is paramount. The
owners of these mainstream media sources are all owned by pro-Bush
(because of his pro-deregulatory stance) folks who certainly
decide what is covered, and when. In the election run-up we saw
months of stories about the swift boat veterans, well after they
had been exposed as liars. The coverage of the debates was
horrific, expecting Bush to simply put a coherent sentence
together to declare victory for him while holding John Kerry to a
far higher standard.
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- Story selection and framing become crucial now, as we will see
panels and guests to discuss the folly of Bush’s social security
scam. People will sit at home and watch and think they are getting
news, and analysis. In reality they are being sold, a product.
That product is a bad deal for social security. Bush will send the
positive spin out through his talk radio propaganda machine and
then turn it over to Fox News. Soon, it will filter down to the
MSNBC of the world and eventually it will be difficult to
differentiate between what is real, and what is message. Unless,
you turn to the new media.
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- The new media is online. It is not pre-bought, packaged, and
sold. Tonight on Fox we see an “exclusive” interview by Sean
Hannity of Karl Rove. What ensues is twenty minutes of the most
ridiculous softball questions and pandering, whose sole purpose is
only to allow Bush unscripted minutes to pimp his positions, under
the guise of journalism. The amazing thing is that Hannity shares
his show with an alleged lefty, Alan Colmes, but Colmes was not
granted to share in this “exclusive”. This is not journalism, it
is propaganda. It is not an “exclusive”; it is a pre-planned pimp
session, where Rove got to sell the social security scam while
Hannity stands by playing the interested journalist. Hannity
offers no corrections, when Rove exaggerates or lies but instead,
plays blame the democrats. This represents the basest form of
journalism as it is really state-sponsored propaganda.
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- The new media is not for sale. The new media stood up recently
when a fellow calling himself Jeff Gannon started popping up at
White House press conferences. Gannon was often called on by Scott
McClellan, or even Bush, especially when the press conference was
not going well. Gannon would serve up the most biased, partisan,
ridiculous questions imaginable. Bloggers and new media took
notice and started digging. Turns out that Jeff Gannon was not a
journalist, he was just playing one for the administration. He was
representing a news agency that was also fake. Talon News, it
turns out was just a front for an organization called GOPUSA. So,
we have a fake journalist, working for a fake news agency, allowed
into every White House press briefing for the apparent sole
purpose of giving Bush or his representative a breather during
press conferences. Gannon’s resume on the Talon News site, stated
that he was a “graduate” of
the Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism. This
turned out to actually be a two day seminar. I had done an article
about this, found here:
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http://opednews.com/wade_012905_bush_whores.htm
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- and the very next day the Talon site had removed the resume.
It would not end there though. The tireless work of media matters
and bloggers everywhere, revealed more and more into this story.
It turned out that Jeff Gannon was not even Jeff Gannon. His real
name appears to be Jim Guckert and he is allegedly also involved
in gay-military escorts styled websites. Not withstanding his
personal peccadilloes, what is far more offensive is his goodbye
message left today on jeffgannon.com:
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- “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.”
-
- Spare us the sob story Jeff, or whatever name you want to go
by. You never were a reporter, THAT is the point Jeff. You lied
your way through life pretending to be a graduate of something
related to journalism when it was really a two day seminar. You
affiliated yourself with a partisan organization that then created
a fake news organization. You lied every day of your life and now
you expect anyone to feel bad for you? Please. You are not leaving
because of the welfare of your family; you are leaving because you
got busted.
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- Jeff Gannon was a liar and a plant by the Bush administration
in the White House press pool. His sole function was to set up
silly questions to allow the administration to pontificate about
topics they wished to discuss, under the guise of journalism. He
is only a microcosm of how this administration thinks it can
manipulate, or even create the news. Today it was revealed that
there will be a “Pentagon” channel available on the Dish Network.
That is right America; your government will produce the entire
network devoted to the military. They will package war and death
for you and bring it right into your living room. Welcome to
George W. Bush’s America.
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- Jeff Gannon is not the core of the problem, hell, he wasn’t
even Jeff Gannon. What he represents, is the embodiment of
state-sponsored journalism, more affectionately known as
propaganda. He represents what is totally wrong with the system
today. You want proof, look who is defending Jeff Gannon today.
Sean Hannity was quoted as saying that Gannon was, “a terrific
Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent.” The same
Sean Hannity who then went on to pretend to be a journalist by
allowing Karl Rove to read off his talking points in an
“interview”. Howard Kurtz on CNN actually painted Jeff Gannon as a
victim of the mean bloggers who investigated his personal life.
-
- Are you kidding me? Memo to Howard and Sean. The man’s name
was not really Jeff Gannon, he was lying. He was not a journalist,
he was lying. He worked for a fake news organization, he was
lying. Are you following me? A man with a fake name, fake
credentials, and working for a fake news organization was granted
free and unfettered access to the White House press pool, for the
apparent sole purpose of bailing out the President or his
representative. The story here is how the government planted a
fake reporter in their pool to further their propaganda efforts
against the people of this country. Let’s see if Sean or Howard
covers that story or if they are just whores for this
administration.
-
- The new media has spoken. Jeff Gannon is just a blip on the
radar that went out today. He is representative of something far
more sinister in this country. He is representative of a
government that thinks it can frame, create, or distort the truth.
You will see it over the next few months. Bush will be on the
road, pimping his social security scam. Word is out already that
he has refused to take any questions at his pre-arranged publicity
stops. He will not let anyone with a dissenting opinion attend any
such event. He then will talk at you for an hour about how
important it is for you to let him take two trillion dollars out
of the social security funds, and then will not even let any
reporter ask a question. Maybe he found out that Jeff Gannon would
not be there anymore for him to rely on.
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- There is power in the new media and that power, is the truth.
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Anthony Wade, a
contributing writer to
opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies
and abuses of the government. He is a 37-year-old independent writer
from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple
websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation
Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that
you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies
and excess.
Anthony Wade’s
Archive:
http://www.opednews.com/archiveswadeanthony.htm
Email
Anthony:
takebacktheus@gmail.com
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