Reporting on reporters
It’s been more than two years since Jeff Gannon (birth name: James Dale Guckert) resigned from Talon News, a conservative Web site for which Gannon served as White House correspondent. At the time, some theorized that Gannon was liberally granted press access in order to ask softball questions of White House
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officials. Others were taken aback by nude pictures of Gannon that appeared on male escort service Web pages. A few questioned his lack of journalism education and experience.
Well, Gannon’s back, and he has his claws out.
“I’m not going away,” Gannon tells Yeas & Nays. “I’m here. These people created me, and now they’re going to have to deal with me.”
Gannon will release his book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report,” on Sept. 4. The book chronicles his experiences at the White House and what he believes is the media’s liberal bias.
On syndicated columnist Helen Thomas: “She’s little more than a heckler.”
On NBC’s David Gregory: “He’s a show-boater.”
On Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank: “Why does anyone take him seriously?”
But don’t expect Gannon’s book to be a tawdry tell-all. Gannon says that he “deals with” his personal life in the book but adds, “My story is just a small part of it.” And besides, he’s not quite sure what all the fuss was about anyway. “It’s all irrelevant,” he says. “None of it had anything to do with my work as a reporter. … I have nothing to expose besides liberal media bias.”
Gannon says that because his book is not a saucy exposé, most major publishing houses were less interested in his manuscript. As a result, he’s elected to self-publish “Great Media War” to “maintain total control of the product.”
He hopes his book will allow readers to learn about the real Jeff Gannon.
“There have been 35 books printed that reference me in some way, and my book renders them all inoperative,” he says. “That’s how wrong these people have gotten Jeff Gannon.”
Also, don’t think Gannon will apologize to anyof his critics.
“In my mind, I was the most honest reporter [in the White House press corps] because I was absolutely transparent with regards to my [conservative] perspective,” Gannon says. “My work has never been discredited.”
Gannon says he didn’t interview anyone for the 250-page book, which took him five years to write. Instead he’s relying on public transcripts and records for supporting evidence.
