While the \u201cJeff Gannon\u201d story is still bouncing around the journalistic circles, it\u2019s clear that the hard questions about why Jim Guckert, Gannons\u2019 real name, got a day-pass to the White House pressroom for two years, without a legitimate news organization as his employer have not been answered. <\/p>\n
As an S.F. Chronicle editorial<\/a> put it, “It’s hard to say which is worse: That the White House had no idea who it was allowing to be within shouting distance of the president — or that it knew exactly who Jeff Gannon was and why he was there.”<\/p>\n Why isn\u2019t this story being dissected by the MSM (mainstream media) 24-7? I think Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix put it best<\/a><\/p>\n Of course, the difference is that if, say, a Gore or Kerry administration had brought in a gay hooker to act as a ringer at news conferences, it would have quickly exploded into the biggest story in the country. Fox News would devote hours upon hours to it. So would Rush Limbaugh. So would the Pat Robertsons and the Jerry Falwells and the James Dobsons. Needless to say, so would the Republican Party. And here\u2019s where the difference between liberal and conservative sex scandals, and how the mainstream media handle them, becomes clearly visible. When there\u2019s a scandal on the left, there is a built-in machine, already in place, to spew shock and outrage on a 24-hour-a-day basis, and the mainstream media naturally cover that. But when there\u2019s a sex scandal on the right, there\u2019s really no one to speak out. Do liberals really care that men are having sex with each other? Or that Jeff Gannon supposedly has been paid as much as $1200 for one weekend for the pleasure of his companionship? To ask these questions is to answer them: no, and no.<\/p>\n The paradigmatic example is the Monica Lewinsky story. You may recall that the investigation into Bill Clinton\u2019s sex life was driven not by the media, but by a $50 million official government investigation and a congressional witch-hunt led by the Republican majority. If the Bush White House really does become embroiled in a sex scandal \u2014 and, at this point, it looks like a genuine possibility \u2014 well, who is going to push this into the hyperstory realm? There simply are no liberal equivalents of Sean Hannity and Rush. Al Franken? Please. He\u2019d be laughing too hard to take this seriously. And Howard Dean is not likely to position himself as the Democrats\u2019 sexual inquisitor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u2019s clear to me that the single greatest media agenda setter are the right-wing talk organizations. Whether it\u2019s Fox New, Limbaugh or increasingly CNN, if they cover it, the MSM will. If they don\u2019t, it\u2019s a quieter story.<\/p>\n It\u2019s up to all of us to demand greater coverage. Howard Kurtz of The Post has treated this as a blogger story. In his online chat<\/a> earlier this week he identified the more important questions the Gannon affair raises, but he doesn\u2019t seem to have done much digging to find out what the story is.<\/p>\n And that all comes down to who screams loudest and longest. Here\u2019s Kurtz\u2019 email address<\/a>. Drop him a line. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the \u201cJeff Gannon\u201d story is still bouncing around the journalistic circles, it\u2019s clear that the hard questions about why Jim Guckert, Gannons\u2019 real name, got a day-pass to the White House pressroom for two years, without a legitimate news organization as his employer have not been answered. As an S.F. Chronicle editorial put it,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}