Fake Reporter for the Fake News in Staged Press Conferences

So frigging stupid:

White House-credentialed fake news reporter “Jeff Gannon” from fake news agency “Talon News” was cited by the Washington Post as having the only access to an internal CIA memo that named Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA agent. Gannon, in a question posed to Wilson in an October 2003 interview, referred to the memo (to which no other news outlet had access, according to the Post). Gannon subsequently has been subpoenaed by the federal grand jury looking into the Plame outing.

Opinion:

Bloggers who “uncovered” Mr. Guckert’s true identity have been accused repeatedly of “digging into Gannon/Guckert’s personal life.” No one dug into his personal life. He made it available by posting it online… himself. This was all public record. Gannon/Guckert posted all of this on the World Wide Web. No “digging into his personal life” was required. He wasn’t followed around and photographed. His phone wasn’t tapped. No one went through his trash. Gannon/Guckert, himself, made all of this information public. Every last shred of it.

Update: (from NYT via DailyKos)

Two Democrats in Congress are pressing for investigations into how a Washington reporter who used a pseudonym managed to gain access to the White House and had access to classified documents that named Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. operative….The Democrats, Representatives John Conyers Jr. of Michigan and Louise M. Slaughter from Rochester, wrote yesterday to Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent prosecutor appointed in the Plame case, seeking an investigation into how the reporter, James D. Guckert, who used the name Jeff Gannon, had access to classified documents that revealed the identity of Ms. Plame.

Besides the ethical violations – let’s make it really clear that:

Some guy used a fake name to get into the White House and read classified documents.

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One response to “Fake Reporter for the Fake News in Staged Press Conferences”

  1. Terrance Heath Avatar

    It’s amazing. In this day and age, people still don’t understand that when you put something out on the internet it’s there forever. Even if you yank it down, it’s cached somewhere just waiting to be re-discovered….

    That’s just one reason why I’ll never run for public office…

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