Earlier this year, a White House reporter named Jeff Gannon was exposed as using an alias (his real name being James D. Guckert), having absolutely no journalism credentials, and reporting for a paper owned by a Texas Republican activist. That’s to say nothing of the fact that he used to advertise himself on the internet as a $200-an-hour gay male escort who proudly boasted that he was“8 inches and cut!” Yet, last year, “Gannon” harshly criticized Senator John Kerry for backing a “pro-gay agenda” and even wrote that Kerry “might someday be known as ‘the first gay president,’” citing his “100 percent rating from the homosexual advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign”
How this hypocritical and completely unqualified buffoon got access to the president, who has given a record low number of press conferences since the advent of television, is a mystery even Mr. Magoo could see through. But there will be no investigation. There will be no media circus and no special committees formed to investigate. And technically, there’s actually a fair chance no laws were broken.
But the most disturbing aspect of this story is how James Guckert describes himself at his official webpage, jeffgannon.com, as “A Voice of the New Media.” James Guckert, an unqualified journalist who writes for a politically motivated publication and cannot be trusted to factually report on something as basic as his very name, considers himself “A Voice of the New Media?” Is this how Guckert views the changes sweeping the journalism profession? How did it get this way?
For lack of a less ungodly over-repeated phrase, everything changed after 9/11. The media was drowned in a typhoon of patriotism and it didn’t take long for support of our country to make the obvious next step: support for our military force and our then-fledgling president. Then, somewhere along the line, questioning the president became seen as unpatriotic. In the words of Bush himself, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” The Bush administration used the media to make their case for war, bombarding the media with pro-war headlines, no matter how absurd. Mmm, Freedom Fries.
The anti-war effort, with little coordination and no central leadership figure, couldn’t do anything more to get media attention than hold protests, and the American public has seen so many stories about political protests we’ve become as desensitized to them as we have to horrific acts of violence that can be seen on any network crime drama.
Manipulating the media played a sizable role in Bush’s re-election campaign, as well. People seeking tickets to the Bush political rallies who could not be concretely identified as partisan Republicans (meaning, campaign contributors or volunteers) were told they could not receive tickets unless they signed an oath of loyalty endorsing Bush for re-election. This would ensure the president, when he appeared on the evening news, would have the full support of the crowd he’s speaking to.
What happened if these tightly-screened audiences were somehow infiltrated? A couple from Texas found out the hard way. Jeff Rank, a registered Republican, and his wife, Nicole, were granted tickets to Bush’s July 4 rally in Charleston, West Virginia. They entered the public grounds without incident. They then removed articles of outer clothing to reveal homemade T-shirts that read “Love America, Hate Bush.” When they refused to remove or cover up the shirts, they were arrested for trespassing. The charges were dropped less than two weeks later, because a city ordinance did not cover trespassing on Statehouse grounds. Charleston Mayor Danny Jones, said that the city officers who filed the trespassing charges were acting under orders from the Secret Service.
The pursuit of obedience wasn’t contained to the rallies themselves, either. During one of the president’s visits to Pennsylvania last July, six men along the motorcade route stripped down to thongs and piled on top of each other, recreating one of the infamous pictures of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. Less than two minutes after forming the pyramid, they were put in handcuffs and arrested for disorderly conduct. Of course, the state had no case for disorderly conduct and the charges were dropped once the men actually arrived inside a courtroom. But, thankfully, they were removed from the scene of the incident before they could cause further embarrassment to the president. Five of the six men have since filed lawsuits.
A week after Bush’s first presidential debate with Senator Kerry, in which Kerry was widely seen as defeating Bush by a humiliating margin, the president gave himself free exposure by announcing to news networks he was making a major policy speech. Then, during the live coverage, changed the subject to a campaign stump, rebutting things Kerry said during the debate.
The abuse of media continues even today. As Bush still never appears before groups of civilians, such as his Social Security reform “town hall meetings,” without having all the members screened. To this administration, it doesn’t matter if you actually have the full support of a crowd. What matters is, to the evening news cameras, you appear to have the full support. I hate sounding like a conspiracy nut, but this much is obvious to anybody that pays attention to hard news. The tragedy is how few people actually pay attention, or worse, those who do pay attention but remain apathetic.
I don’t mean to sound like the world will end if the line between news and government propaganda begins to blur. Far from it. Countless systems of government over thousands of years have used the media as their mouthpiece, and the average everyday John Q. was usually still able to live a meaningful, satisfying life. Compared to ages past, we’ve still got it pretty good.
But it’s not supposed to be that way. In America, things are supposed to be different. We as citizens depend on an independent media to bring us the facts upon which we base numerous decisions, not the least of which is whom we elect to represent us in the government. Without it, democracy cannot possibly prevail, and the American government is reduced to an Orwellian state. Narcissistic fake New York Times reporters like Jayson Blair can appear in any political or journalistic environment, but it takes a special kind of breeding ground to produce a James D. Guckert.
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