Saturday, February 19, 2005
Eason Jordan VS Jeff Gannon in The Oregonian
In the last 14 days, this is the only mention of Eason Jordan:
February 17th, 2005 from The Oregonian
February 17th, 2005 from The Oregonian
The New York Daily News reports that former CNN exec Eason Jordan is dating actress Sharon Stone. Word is the 46-year-old movie siren hooked up with the 44-year-old news executive during the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland.However, on February 19th on the Editorial page, yet, is this op-ed:
The 'Jeff Gannon' storyHere's Musing Minds on the subject:
It illustrates the far superior success of right-wing bloggers over lefties in getting mainstream media to jump on news
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Those inclined to accept right-wing mythology about the "left-wing mainstream media" should consider for a moment the sensational story of fake White House reporter "Jeff Gannon."
Never heard of him? That's not surprising. Mainstream news outlets have scarcely touched it. Yet it's been raging for weeks on left-leaning Web sites, which so far have been unable to elevate the story beyond the blogosphere.
Bloggers on the right, by comparison, have enjoyed spectacular success getting the supposedly leftist media to heed and advance their journalistic agenda. This creates a fertile new issue for industry researchers: Why is it that Internet bloggers on the left, compared with those on the right, have so much less demonstrable influence on mainstream journalism?
The "Jeff Gannon" story is a case in point. Try to imagine this scenario: John Kerry wins the presidency and appoints a press secretary who grants a White House press pass to a fake reporter with a fake name representing a fake news outlet. And what if this "Jeff Gannon," whose real name is James Guckert, gets called upon daily to lob softball questions at White House briefings?
And what if it turns up that Gannon/Guckert has an eyebrow-raising connection to the investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame?
And what if Gannon/Guckert was involved in setting up Web sites promoting homosexual prostitution? And what if racy nude photos of him start flooding the Internet?
The only thing imaginary about this scenario was the part about Kerry being president. Had it been Kerry whose aide allowed Gannon/Guckert such access to the president, just think of the furor. Conservative Web jockeys, in tandem with talk-radio shouters, would have created a frenzy thrusting the sordid story onto front pages across the land. At the very least, President Kerry's press secretary would be out of a job.
Bloggers on the left are no less bullies than those on the right. But it's possible that mainstream U.S. news organizations resent the liberal-bias tag so much that they're more susceptible to pressure from the right.
Whatever the case, the "Jeff Gannon" story is legitimate: On Jan. 26, at a time of heightened national security, a phony reporter with a pseudonym and ties to the Republican Party got to sit just a few feet from the president at a nationally televised news conference and was called upon -- ahead of dozens of actual reporters -- to ask an inanely sympathetic question.
How does something like this happen? Frustrated bloggers on the left would love to get the White House press corps -- leery, possibly lazy, but definitely not lefty -- to find out.
A Good Indicator of Media Bias – How the Media Defines BiasCome on, Oregonian, start doing the job we subscribers pay you to do!
It seems that the Gannon Story is gaining some traction in the MSM. Just to recap. Eason Jordan, the head of CNN news makes public statements that US troops are murdering journalists (just the latest in a series of similar statements). The other big recent media “story” is that of Jeff Gannon, who it seems, operates under a fictitious name and runs a small conservative blog, got access to White House Press briefings. That the media would be completely silent on the Jordan Story, and give any play to the Gannon story speaks volumes about the prism through which the MSM views the world
Mover Mike
