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Fake reporters

33 comments on Fake reporters

Fake reporters

: In her column yesterday, Maureen Dowd said that even Nixon didn’t do what Bush is doing with fake news:

They flipped TV’s in the West Wing and Air Force One to Fox News. They paid conservative columnists handsomely to promote administration programs. Federal agencies distributed packaged “news” video releases with faux anchors so local news outlets would run them. As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with “news” articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home, but you have to look hard for the disclaimer: “Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense.” The agencies spent a whopping $88 million spinning reality in 2004, splurging on P.R. contracts.

Even the Nixon White House didn’t do anything this creepy. It’s worse than hating the press. It’s an attempt to reinvent it.

Ah, well, actually, Nixon did it, too… I have a story to tell I don’t think I’ve told here before…

When I finished my freshman year at Claremont in California and before transferring to Northwestern to go into journalism, I was told that someone was hiring young reporters to cover the presidential campaign. Spending the summer in California covering an election — who could pass that up? So I went on the interview.

It turned out that it was the Committee to ReElect the President, aka CREEP, that was trying to hire young “reporters” carrying credentials for a made-up news agency to get press access to all of the other side’s campaign appearances; they were to record the speeches and events and report back to the Nixon campaign.

Of course, I said no.

33 responses to “Fake reporters”

  1. triticale Avatar
    triticale

    The extra E in that acronym always bothered me, but Lileks hadn’t introduced the equally accurate “crep” to the vocabulary so we had to put up with it.

  2. JRK Avatar
    JRK

    Oh my gosh! “They flipped TVs in the West Wing and Airforce One to Fox News”! Good golly Miss Dowdy, what a revelation. Pulitzer committee, take note. Foxgate! Isn’t it an impeachable offence to watch Fox? And in the White House? Have they no shame? Watta lede!

  3. rzklkng Avatar
    rzklkng

    These old dogs don’t learn new tricks, do they?
    Read this about Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Scalia oppossing the FOIA in the post-Watergate Ford Administration and then think about what is likely to happen regarding this enhancement to the FOIA legislation, compelling the Executive Branch to comply.

  4. Jos Bleau Avatar
    Jos Bleau

    You don’t have to pay reporters for fake news when they’ll make it up for free. Question? Ask Dan Rather & Mary Mapes & Eason Jordon & …

  5. fakenews Avatar
    fakenews

    Hypocracy trumps fake news.
    The MSM is going out of its way to leave “Gannon’s” sexuality out of this story. The Republicans are obsessed with the “sexuality” of every*thing* from Spongebob to Buster the bunny, but “Gannon” is getting a pass. “Gannon” didn’t just use a fake name to get press credentials; he is a gay prostitute and a pornographer. “Gannon” ran an escort Web site that featured nude shots of himself and listed his prices for “dates.” If any of this had happened during a Democratic administration, we’d be hearing about it on the floor of the Congress.
    Why is no one asking whether “Gannon” was blackmailing someone in the administration in order to get press credentials?

  6. Jos Bleau Avatar
    Jos Bleau

    Actually, fakenews, that happened to a Democrat during a democratic administration. Congressman Barney Frank’s lover was arrested for (and convicted of) running a gay prostitution ring out of their shared apartment in DC 10 or 12 years ago.
    He was run out of Washington by right wing noise machine right? And the very same same people who are fuming about Gannon were today were up in arms back then too, right?

  7. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    This White House seeks to block out info that doesn’t conform to their vision of how the world should be. Bush doesn’t like what he sees in the newspapers so doesn’t read them.
    Just how irresponsible that is can be seen when this admin gets itself involved in difficult parts of the world where they really have no idea what’s going on. Local journalists and journalists who have worked there for some time will have a much better idea than some intel report.

  8. Jimmy Robinson Avatar
    Jimmy Robinson

    Of course Barney Frank’s “Hot Bottom” lover was not given press credentials, access to the White House, and the ability to ask softball questions to Dee Dee Myers or the President himself, so it’s not a very good counterexample.

  9. John Thacker Avatar
    John Thacker

    As CNN reported, the Pentagon produces Web sites with “news” articles intended to influence opinion abroad and at home.
    Ah, she means like Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe, and Radio Free Afghanistan, and all those other US-government run propaganda? Wasn’t aware that Bush invented all those.

  10. John Thacker Avatar
    John Thacker

    Jimmy–
    On the bright side, this Gannon guy did manage to avoid a fake story about National Guard documents. He also didn’t curtail his reporting on Saddam’s atrocities in order to suck up to Saddam and get influence with him. The “real” credentialed journalists have done a bad enough job as it is.
    Besides, how much do you want the Administration digging into whether someone is a “real” journalist before giving them credentials? What makes someone a “real” journalist anyway? Most of the definitions you draw would disqualify bloggers.
    Seems like Gannon just went about making himself a journalist so that he could ask partisan friendly questions. Did the White House actually arrange for him to do this, or did they just grant a temporary press credential when he asked?

  11. Jos Bleau Avatar
    Jos Bleau

    So its Ok that Dee Dee’s straight lover (and later husband) was given white house credentials and lobbed softball questions at her? She did marry the NYT’s chief white house correspondent while she was on the job, you know. Its just when the reporter is gay that that’s bad?
    And a gay prositiute in a position to blackmail government officials is what’s bad about Gannon, I’m being told agian and again. How is that different in the Barney Frank case? Especially since you don’t have any actual, you know, evidence that Gannon was actually doing any of the things that say he might have done? What’s next, will you hold up a list of 100 ‘confimed queers’ and demand a senate investigation into gays in the press?
    And were the same people who are mad about Gannon mad about Deedee’s press corps lover and the Barney Frank? What were they saying back in the day

  12. pr Avatar
    pr

    Last night on NBC Nightly News with Brian “Racoon Eyes” Williams, Gannons sexuality, videos and the websites were mentioned. What was not mentioned is how many other reporters use pseudonyms…

  13. John Thacker Avatar
    John Thacker

    Tood Purdum is only another example of the endless parade of former Democratic staffers (George Stephanapoulus, Chris Matthews, etc.) who have been hired by “legitimate” media. He’s an important case because he was Dee Dee Myers’s lover and then husband while covering the White House for the New York Times— and he had a permanent press pass, not a day pass.
    So you’re free to be very partisan if you work for a wealthy large media corporation (you can be conservative too, like Novak or work for a conservative media corporation), but not if you’re a lowly blogger or otherwise not a “real” journalist.

  14. Cdawg Avatar
    Cdawg

    Off topic, I know, but did anyone catch The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart talking about blogs the other day? Hilarious, and as usual with a little bit of subtle truth to it.

  15. Jon Avatar
    Jon

    It sounds like the next generation of CREEP is blogging over at CPAC right now.

  16. EverKarl Avatar
    EverKarl

    I suppose I should just have this on a macro by now, but for you newbies:
    Take a look at past and present denizens of the White House Briefing Room.
    The idea that Gannon was in any way unique is laughable. The briefings are often frequented by loons with an ideological agenda.

  17. JV Avatar
    JV

    Jeff,
    Thanks for taking us back to Nixon. I was too young. Now how about taking us back 1989 & the Bush Reagan White House & an article in the Washington Times. Do have any inside info on that story? Craig J. Spence.

  18. big dirigible Avatar
    big dirigible

    Mr Jarvis –
    Unfortunately you seem to be stuck with the worst commentators in all of blogdom. Here, you give us a personal account of an extremely interesting and generally unknown little piece of history – exactly the point at which blogs should shine; matters of personal knowledge and expertise unavailable on the pages of the MSM. But it’s simply ignored – the usual drones just go on with the usual droning. (Someone at least did mention CReEP).
    Your little anecdote seems to sum up Nixonianism quite well. I remember Nixon as pretty, ahh, unique, but I didn’t know about that particular perversion. Stories like that could get a guy on my tiny blogroll (but don’t get excited, I only have about two readers).
    big dirigible

  19. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    Jeff, please, please put on the top of your page “Unfortunately stuck with the worst commentators in all of blogdom.”
    Those who don’t get it, screw’em and us regulars will love you even more. And there is an element of truth, that we are the worst most ungrateful commentators around, but it’s a testament to your site that it’s the only one that hosts genuine disagreement rather than the echo chambers of Atrios or Roger L Simon.

  20. gregburton Avatar
    gregburton

    Jeff – What’s amusing me the most about this Dowd piece is that the matter of CREEP planted “reporters” came up during the Lewinsky matter – one of said “reporters” being Lucianne Goldberg. While I can understand most commentators not actually remembering the Nixon years, I would think most could remember the Lewinsky players.

  21. Dishman Avatar
    Dishman

    It’s a pleasure to disagree with you, Franky.
    MoDo’s commentary is rich. Next thing you know, she’ll go after Brit Hume for “dowdifying FDR”.

  22. No One You Know Avatar
    No One You Know

    The Gannon flap is not nearly as bothersome as paying black commentators to punch up No Child Left Behind on the air. Apparently the Bush administration thinks that one black person’s opinion spoken or written opinion will appeal to all minorities, so it’s worth paying $700,000 for such commentary. I think at least Nixon was too cheap to do something like that. Maybe I can convince the administration that I speak for all women or all dog owners and retire early.

  23. Sissy Willis Avatar
    Sissy Willis

    I tuned in to CNN this afternoon for “Inside the Blogs,” a new feature on Judy Woodruff’s “Inside Politics” [via Hugh Hewitt] and was pleasantly surprised. Blog Reporter Jacki Schechner reads blogs for a living and did a great job reporting on the buzz out here in the sphere. Not taking sides, she and her fellow blog reporter (didn’t catch his name) covered the bases from left to right in a refreshingly fair and balanced manner. Even so, Schechner reported with obvious delight your own demolition of Maureen Dowd’s hollow claim that “even Nixon didn’t do what Bush is doing with fake news,” noting that as a tad you happened to have been interviewed by Nixon’s re-election commitee for a fake news job:
    CNN is starting to get it

  24. owl Avatar
    owl

    Jeff just proved that Nixon was creative.:)
    Since I don’t think there is anything left to accuse Bush of ….why not give a test and only issue passes to 6 liberals? Say, for about 25 years? Yes, just like that exalted UN, journalism as practiced, needs to be reinvented, Ms Dowd. I personally love the Gannon story as the ultimate Poetic Justice. Just to see the shock on their collective faces.

  25. HH Avatar
    HH

    And of course in the name of the Drug War, the Clinton admin. put across PR messages on television quite regularly.

  26. carsonfire Avatar
    carsonfire

    Well, I sure am glad to know that Democrats never try to spin news in their favor or give stories to friendly reporters. Or try to obscure what they really want by using false language, or pretend to be for things at a local level, when they’re really for the exact opposite once they get re-elected.
    Oh, wait, they do. It’s just that when they do it, it’s for their shining and pure ideological reasons. It’s only seedy and corrupt when the other side does it to promote their gay-hatin’ bible-thumpin’ black-lynchin’ children-starvin’ agenda (all stereotypes spun by Democrats and their own willing media accomplices, of course — irony knows no bounds).

  27. owl Avatar
    owl

    Seems the NYTs is stuck on the fake news and fake reporters. Frank Rich has taken it on today and seems to be mighty interested in Gannon’s sexuality.
    Wonder if this “pro” wants to continue down that path. A fake might start digging into the past of all the so-called real ones. Echoes of the past? These articles make me think they are scared to death, spending this much energy to trash one little man, trying to get Bush.

  28. Honest Injun Avatar
    Honest Injun

    There is no Claremont College in California, either Jarvis is lying or his memory is going, neither of which bodes well for the truth.
    There are the “Claremont Colleges” but anyone who went to one would specify which i.e., Pomona, Scripps, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Claremont (at that point) Men’s College, now Claremont McKenna College – I would know; I went to one in the 70s when there was much less esprit de Claremont than there is now..
    Jarvis, isn’t this memory slippage a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? How can we trust you if you can’t even get the name of the school you supposedly went to right?

  29. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Oh, give me a friggin’ break. When I attended the college in 1971-72, it was called Claremont Men’s College. That, by the way, was one of the reasons I left: it was all men and Scripps mixers or Pitzer artsy events were, well, not conducive to a social life. The other reason I left was that I decided not to follow the path of most CMC students: to law or business school. I transferred to Northwestern. Sometime later, the school began accepting women (bad timing on my part) and it had to solve its name problem without tearing up all those letter sweaters and car-window stickers. So they used the name of a major donor and called it Claremont McKenna College. I casually refer to the college as Claremont, which has never — until this moment — caused the slightest confusion for anyone who knows it. You’ll note that none of the other colleges in the Claremont group has Claremont in its name (though we often thought that Harvey Muddites might have preferred such a name). So except to the obnoxiously anal, it seems quite clear.

  30. LT Avatar
    LT

    Franky
    I have news for you dude. The president of the United States doesn’t depend upon newspapers for summary of whats happening in the world, and he certainly doesn’t create policy, or make decisions based upon info contained therein. He gets the info from staff advisors, committees, and different intelligence agencies. if you believe that a few journalists working in an area of the world are more knowledgeable than people employed by the United States for supplying intelligence, you are sadly, sadly mistaken. I mean, not to mention that most NEWS has a right or left slant to it also. I’ll use the example of CNN not disclosing evidence of Saddam’s atrocities in Iraq. Good thing the president wasn’t depending upon them, as you suggest, for intel.
    LT

  31. Honest Injun Avatar
    Honest Injun

    Actually, there is also Claremont Graduate School, and a Claremont School of Theology. And now there’s the Claremont Institute, a right-wing “think” tank not affliiated as far as I know, with any of the schools.
    Sorry but I was there during the changeover from CMC to CMC :) I never heard one person during either era, including CMC students, refer to the school as” Claremont. ”
    So it did lead to a bit of confusion that has been exacerbated by Mr. Jarvis continuing to refer to CMC as “Claremont” – but I would ask Mr. Jarvis not to tar my school (I did not go to CMC, but my school was one of the Claremont Colleges) with the CMC label which is, as he notes, now primarily a business school.
    How hard would it be Mr. Jarvis, to type out the full name of the school you went to? “Claremont McKenna College” — Mr. Jarvis, you did it once you can do it again:)
    And I must apologize for being so “anal” but after the CMC professor was arrested for self-inflicted hate crimes, the national press kept calling it “Claremont College,” not realizing that there is more than one school, so again, we were all tarred because of one school’s (Mr. Jarvis’ school) insane professor.

  32. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Injun:
    Get a life, huh? Jeesh.

  33. JYW Avatar
    JYW

    If not creep; then who?