Jeff Gannon Returns -- As National Press Club Activist/Blogger!

Former White House correspondent Jeff Gannon is now blogging at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. -- and is something of an activist there, serving on two committees. I asked ace reporter Joe Strupp at E&P to interview him yesterday and also find out how this came to pass.

Among other things we learn that Jeff has no full-time position at a news outlet, but as he explains, "for a single person, blogging can be profitable." He also denies all those gay escort charges. Since he is on the committee that invited "newsmakers" to speak at the club, one wonders if it was Gannon who invited Rev. Jeremiah Wright to appear there.

Strupp writes:

Since 2006, Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, has been a member in good standing at the Press Club and currently serves on two committees, according to the organization. He also blogs on the Press Club Web site, as well as on his own online page, with a lot to say recently about the new book by his old source, White House ex-spokesman Scott McClellan, and rumors about his relationship with McClellan.

"I am not going to go away in the face of adversity," Gannon, 51, told E&P, referring to the negative attention he received in 2005 when questions about his press access to presidential briefings were raised. "Sticking up for free speech is a particularly good thing to do."

Gannon was forced to resign his job with Talon News in the Spring of 2005 after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to several gay sex Web sites.

Press Club rules require that a new member be sponsored by at least two current members in good standing. Gannon said Rick Dunham, then with BusinessWeek and now a Houston Chronicle reporter, was one of his sponsors. He said he could not remember the other.

"My goal was to expand our membership into blogging and multimedia," Dunham, who was press club president in 2005, recalls about why he sponsored Gannon. "He was one who could do that."

Currently, Gannon serves on the press club's New Media Committee and Newsmakers Committee. The latter decides which "newsmakers" to invite to some Press Club events.

"He is an active member of the club, there is no reason he can't be on any of the club's committees," said Cary O'Reilly, a Bloomberg News reporter and chair of the Newsmakers Committee. "We need everyone we can get."

Sylvia Smith, press club president and a reporter for The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Ind., declined to comment on Gannon's membership, saying, "I don't want to comment on any club members."

But Dunham said Gannon is very active in the club: "I have not heard any bad developments with him in my time at the press club."

Gannon calls charges that he was a male escort "unsubstantiated rumors. That is outrageous."

Jeff said he plans to continue such blogging efforts on both sites, noting "I am doing more commentary and analyzing and not really reporting. I am going to be writing a lot about [the presidential campaign]. How the traditional media is actively campaigning for Barack Obama."

He stressed he could return to White House coverage anytime he wants: "There is no reason why I couldn't go there, it is just not the territory I am covering."

Here is link.

*
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq. He is editor of Editor & Publisher.

Comments

[RRK70]

OK, to sum things up, the National Press Club has had Jeremiah Wright speak as well as fugitive Larry Sinclair, and now republican shill and gay escort "Jeff Gannon" aka Dale Guckert is found to be a NPC committee member!

http://www.bloggernews.net/116292
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/feb/17/pressandpublishing.usnews1

I don't know what concerns me more: the fact that the National Press Club seems to be rife with lunatics or the fact that the Feds, with wiretapping and the Department of Homeland Security, need blogger's to inform them that someone with a known felon and wanted fugitive is renting a spot at the National Press Club to make a national address!

[Forest]

Jeff Gannon was a faux press reporter who's pre-fabbed questions were not in our national interest but helped serve the lies to justify war. His being a part of our national press corp. is a national security issue. Knowing what we know now about his nefarious character, who allowed him in?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/feb/17/pressandpublishing.usnews1

[pmorlan]

Wow, looks like the National Press Club is being destroyed from the inside.

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

gannon, aka BULLDOG, was (is?) a male escort --- this is not a rumor, it is a FULLY SUBSTANTIATED FACT --- that he would even dare to claim otherwise indicates he's imbibed generous portions of Bushco's Delusion-flavored KoolAid

he was IN & OUT of (somebody in) the White House more than 200 times

[realpolitic]

Some day I can see Jeff Cannon, Bush, and Karl Rove sitting in rocking chairs on Bush's front porch on the ranch talking about the old days.

[Big0725]

Wonder if he and Scotty McClellan have seen each other since Scotty's book came out? They were a fine looking couple. Jeff Gannon was given access to the White House press breifings how many times?

[JScott]

And why doesn't he use his own name, something kind strange there. It's not as if he's Ann Landers or Abigail Van Buren.

[Durango]

No mystery there.

Would you use the name Guckert if you were a hooker?

YGUCK.

[poppyseed]

If Jeff Gannon can become a member of the National Press Club, why not me? It clearly doesn't require any actual writing talent or any job as a member of the national press, and I am just a stupid as the next person, why not me? Let me say, in addition to my lack of press credentials and my lack of extensive writing experience and my current failure to be employed by any news outlet or agency, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a gay male escort with a fake news pass from the Bush White House, acting as a shill for the Bush press operation...oh, okay, that's why I am not a member of the National Press Club. sigh. If I would only learn what it takes to be successful as a "journalist" in America.

The National Press Club: Proudly Representing The Best Excellence in Journalism (that side money and willingness to serve on our stupid committees could buy)

[Anastasia]

How did Jeff Gannon get on not one, but two committees at the National Press Club? Do they know he was a rent-a-guy? Can he even be called a journalist?

This is nuts. No pun intended.

[Durango]

Isn't it amazing that with all those "Ace Reporters" in the White House Press Corps not one single one followed up on the story?

I promise you that if I found out the guy sitting next to me at work was a gay prostitute I would do my level best to get to the "bottom" of it.

Out of simple curiosity if nothing else.

But this represented an incredible security breach didn't it? Who ever Gannon was visiting was very much open to blackmail.

Which makes getting to the details of the story a matter of National Security.

Not to mention that it might lead to the single most important Impeachable Offense; Blowjobs in the White House.

[BadCompany]

So, he's resorting to the R Kelly defense?
That's not me in those website photos!
LOL

[KarlaElisa]

I too have longed to learn who precisely Bulldog Gannon was bedding in those visits to the Whitehouse.
Pity he won't write a book, must be he's still being fed by someone....

[Vinca]

To BADEN: I sure do wish Jeff Gannon would write a TELL-ALL BOOK. NOT LIKELY TO HAPPEN,THOUGH

[Vinca]

I heard that Jeff Gannon, asked the questions at news conferences, that he was told to ask , also he spent an whole lot of time in the White House

[TexasDem0]

Will Jeff Gannon now reveal how he spent those overnight visits at the White House?

[Vinca]

To TexasDemo:I imagine there's a few people, MAYBE THREE. SHAKING IN THEIR SHOES IN FEAR OF THAT POSSIBLITY