03-07-2005, 08:49 PM
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#21 (permalink)
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Banned
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Some mainstream press coverage, in the heartland:
Quote:
<A href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kansascity.com%2Fmld%2Fkansascity%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F11076197.htm&btnG=Google+Search">http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/11076197.htm</a>
Posted on Mon, Mar. 07, 2005
Democrats ask White House for documents on conservative blogger
BY ELANA SCHOR
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the House's top Democrat for homeland security, has found an unlikely place in need of his protection: the White House press room.
Thompson and four colleagues, all senior congressional Democrats, have petitioned Bush administration officials to release classified documents about James D. Guckert, a conservative activist who was a daily fixture at White House press briefings.
Calling himself Jeff Gannon, Guckert asked President Bush questions at televised news conferences as a representative of Talon News Service, which was a Web site affiliated with Texas Republican Bobby Eberle.
"Any time there's a situation like this, where there are plants or presumed plants in the White House press corps, whatever story comes out of the White House is tainted," said Lanier Avant, Thompson's chief of staff.
"We want to remove that stain."
Soon after his true identity was revealed, Guckert shut down his personal Web site that he had been using to repackage Republican press releases as news stories. Talon News Service also shut down last month.
Avant said the congressman did not believe Gannon's presence to be an isolated incident of misconduct in the White House media operation, but that Thompson was not opposed to the certification of bloggers, writers for Web journals, on an individual basis.
Monday marked the first White House press briefing that a blogger, for www.mediabistro.com, was officially permitted to attend.
"The test will be, is that reporter producing some objective, newsworthy matter that's not slanted to one political ideology or another?" Avant said.
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