What’s the Story Behind the Fake Reporter?
Regarding John Aravosis’ guest piece (“Sex, Lies and Spies: This Isn’t News?” Opinion, March 6) in your newly inaugurated Outside the Tent feature, I commend you for your willingness to accept criticism of your editorial decisions. Only the willingness to accept critical input allows any established organization to change for the better, and the decision to initiate this feature demonstrates your desire to do so.
Ron Barth Jr.
Chicago
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If you’re looking for public outrage over fake news by a fake reporter, you haven’t been paying attention to how we’ve evolved in this brave new world. News, commentary, fabrications and hucksters are all part of the same information swirl. And the 51% who reelected the current president couldn’t care less. The only way this story has legs is with revelations that Gannon/Guckert traded sex for access. If there is no sex, there is no story. That’s life in modern America.
Nancy Linden
Laguna Beach
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I too have been deeply disturbed that most media outlets have failed to investigate and report on the questions surrounding the presence of “Jeff Gannon,” a pseudonymous pseudo- journalist, at White House press briefings.
Allow me to suggest another reason, in addition to Aravosis’ three, for this silence. Frankly, the mainstream media got caught with their pants down, and twice over: first by the Bush administration, in yet another attempt to neuter traditional news outlets, and then by bloggers who broke the story the mainstream media missed and moreover did so using the most basic and simple techniques of Internet research.
I sincerely hope that the Los Angeles Times will now give this story, in all its dimensions, the attention it deserves.
Gail Labovitz
Los Angeles
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Kudos to Aravosis and AmericaBlog.com for roundly criticizing the L.A. Times, and our “liberal media” for virtually ignoring the Jeff Gannon story. That sordid tale clearly connects to the Bush administration’s consistent manipulation of the media (paid and otherwise), hypocrisy about sex (paid and otherwise), as well as the scary Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame affair, which required someone in the White House to commit a felony that qualified as treason.
I seem to recall that Watergate was just a third-rate burglary until a newspaper and two unknowns named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein refused to back down. I’ve been hoping the press would show their kind of courage again, but perhaps it is Aravosis who is their natural heir.
Harry Shannon
Studio City