Washington, DC, April 8, 2005 --- J.D. Guckert, AKA "Conservative Guy" "Jeff Gannon," sees nothing wrong with paying pundits such as Armstrong Williams to tout administration views, can't remember when he first got into the White House and perceives the press-credentialing process as "outdated," views which he discussed as a member of a panel sponsored by the National Press Club this morning entitled "Who Is a Journalist?"

Bloggers and traditional journalists attended the controversial session in an attempt to have a wide-ranging discussion about reporters, media and "qualifications" in a profession, as moderator Rick Dunham of Business Week pointed out, that currently has no hard-and-fast criteria for defining a "journalist."

Guckert's invitation to sit on the panel created an outcry last week, mostly among writers such as John Aravosis of Americablog who had been one of several investigative bloggers (including DailyKos diarists) who had uncovered Guckert's real name and his association with several gay escort sites on the internet. Editor and Publisher, the trade magazine of the journalism profession, has also questioned the National Press Club's inclusion of Guckert on the panel.

Guckert, who insists on being called by his pseudonym, "Jeff Gannon," defended the administration's $250,000 payments to pundit Williams on the grounds that the Education Department could get "no fair hearing" on its widely unpopular No Child Left Behind Act. Fellow panelist Ana Marie Cox of gossip blog wonkette.com came back with a hard-hitting declaration that the department "didn't want a fair hearing. They wanted a positive hearing."

Guckert countered that previous administrations had paid journalists for positive spin, but could cite no specific examples.

He also claimed that he provided information from the White House without a "filter," but later backtracked when discussing his pointedly partisan queries during daily briefings by justifying that he was providing "a valuable service" through asking questions that "a lot of people" want answered. He said he believes others will be silenced because of the way he was targeted.

When asked about alleged death threats he claimed to have received and whether he had reported them to authorities, Guckert said that he had resigned from Talon News, a now-defunct partisan news site run by GOPUSA, when his family was harassed. He made no mention, as he has on previous occasions, of death threats.

Garret Graff of Fishbowl DC, the first blogger to officially qualify for a day pass to the press briefings (and whose own tortuous account of applying was detailed engagingly on his blog), asked Guckert how long it had taken him to get his day pass. Guckert claimed he couldn't remember, which brought a challenge from Cox. After hedging, Guckert said it took weeks to get in. Panelist Matthew Yglesias, who writes for both The American Prospect and has his own blog, said he doubted Gannon really could not recollect, asking him, "Do you have any idea why, after all this time [you got in]?" Guckert refused to respond.

Much of the discussion centered around the process of credentialing itself, a hot topic since Guckert failed to get "hard pass" approval from the Congressional Press Gallery, which is a requirement to gaining permanent access to the White House. Guckert said he believed the process to be "outdated," a sentiment echoed by Julie Hirschfield Davis of The Baltimore Sun, who had served on the committee that originally denied a hard press pass to Guckert and Talon News.

"We operate under the illusion of an objective media," Guckert said, adding "there is a tremendous amount of advocacy journalism out there." Bloggers, he claimed, see themselves as journalists but are poor at fact-checking. When pressed about how he circumvented the hard pass requirement for two years, he simply replied that lots of other people get day passes too. He never elaborated on how or why he was able to continue to receive day passes - hundreds of them - for so long.

Guckert was the final panelist to speak. Prior to his turn, other attendees wrestled with defining "journalist," with Ygelsias discussing how difficult a line it is to draw in today's media climate, using the analogy of just when a person could be considered officially "bald." Guckert, in Ygelsias opinion, still fell outside of that gray area, but it was a question the panel continued to address.

John Stanton of Congress Daily and National Journal said he thinks it is dangerous to say who can and cannot be a reporter; even questions about Guckert lead to restrictions on a press that should be unrestricted, he said, a press that should be made up of  "misfits."

Cox said she finds the question of who is a journalist boring, and that such questions should be significant only when space is an issue. The concern, she said, is venue-specific and not really suitable for panel discussions.

Graff argued that the discussion should focus more on what journalism is than on who is a journalist. Anyone who claims to be a journalist should be accepted as one, he said, and being called a "journalist" has nothing to do with competence.

Moderator Dunham asked Guckert whether he thought of himself as a political activist, a journalist or both. Guckert denied being a politically active, and then mentioned that others, such as George Stephanopoulos, had first come to journalism through politics.

Cox jumped into the fray with the assertion that credentialing only becomes important when professional monopolies are threatened, as the traditional media industry is being challenged by new media outlets today. Graff agreed, claiming that half the official panel would not qualify for membership in the National Press Club (a point Dunham as president of the organization denied) or "would not meet traditional definitions of journalism."

Stanton then defined blogs as ideological echo chambers and claimed that their output isn't real journalism. Blogs, he claimed, are engaged in punditry, not journalism. Yglesias argued that bloggers can't be expected to become reporters, given that they lack the resources ensured by traditional media outlets, and Cox agreed, saying that it's cheaper to put two people in a room and let them yell at each other than it is to support the financial load of funding real reporting.

Guckert maintained that mainstream media itself has helped to blur the line between professional reporter and pundit, with print journalists moonlighting as television and radio commentators, raising questions about their objectivity.

Dunham returned to addressing the "revolving door" between politics and journalism. Does this, he asked, make the American public think of "us as operatives with an agenda?"

Ygelsias argued that what one "used to do" should have no bearing on current status as a journalist. The problem, he said, arises when "journalists" are also paid by political entities, and he went on to make a distinction between an actively partisan publication and one with a political orientation, claiming writers for the first cannot be fairly called "journalists," while the latter may be.

Dunham also brought up the role of "filtering" for the public, saying that "being a filter is not necessarily a bad thing" because politicians are constantly clamoring to get press coverage. Stanton said journalists bend over backwards to show both sides of any discussion and this can eliminate true investigative reporting and "the critical eye."

When Davis talked about the difference between reporting and blogging, claiming bloggers "take what's already been written" to make their points, Graff described the process as "the outsourcing of information gathering," and that traditional journalists should make an effort to put information in context, much as bloggers do.

The discussion then turned to what would happen if everyone who wanted to be credentialed as a journalist was. Davis feared it would lead to lack of access for true reporters because it "would be such a mob," but Yglesias said he thought any rush to attend briefings would diminish after the initial crush.

Cox appeared to agree, saying one of the reasons Guckert was able to get into the briefings was because they "are a joke." Press Secretary Scott McClelland is there, she said, not to provide information, but to spin it.

"It would be awesome if bloggers stormed the White House," she said.

Cox was refreshingly hard-hitting during the panel, as was Graff. When Guckert initially tried to claim that he'd been targeted by "refugees from the DNC and other ... organizations," Graff was blunt. No, he said, "They attacked you because they thought your work product was poor."

Members of the public who attended the event were allowed to ask questions, and most chose to ask them of Guckert. One questioner asked if he was concerned that his advertising (of escort sites on the internet) and engaging in illegal activity would lead to prosecution. Guckert said that such activities were only alleged and that the question "had nothing to do with my reporting."

The final questions, shouted after the official session was over, remained unanswered:

"Did you sleep with Scott McClellan? Did you sleep with anyone at the White House?"

Panelists:

Rick Dunham of Business Week, Moderator
Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the Baltimore Sun
Garrett Graff of Fishbowl DC (the first blogger granted a White House day pass)
Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette.com
John Stanton of Congress Daily and National Journal
Matthew Yglesias of The American Prospect and yglesias.typepad.com.
James Guckert of www.jeffgannon.com