Liberals have been beside themselves over the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert scandale. Inkwell has been silent. Where’s the beef? A guy attends White House press conferences under an assumed name. He lobs softball questions at the president’s spokesman (reporters do this all the time when there is a Democrat in the White House).
The whole mess is about as serious as the Brit journalist who tested Buckingham Palace security by getting hired as a footman under an assumed name. Getting a White House press pass for a day isn’t like getting security clearance. I love it that Democrats are so outraged that Gannon apparently posted pictures on the internet of himself as a gay escort. Isn’t that something for your friendly televangelist to fume over rather than the party of inclusion? Are exposes of gay lifestyles the wave of the future for the Democrats?
But there is some commonsense on the matter…
A blogger called Just One Minute ‘unburies the lead’ in an Editor and Publisher report on the recent meeting of the White House Correspondents Association’s board. It’s one of the few times we’ve seen journalists behaving sanely lately. Here’s the key quote: “I’m not sure we need to do anything,” said a board member. “I’m not comfortable in passing judgment on who is a journalist and who isn’t. My overriding view is that if I am going to make a mistake, it is going to be on letting people in rather than keeping people out.”
That pretty much says it all. Being a journalists is just getting a scribbling job, not being the conscience of the nation.