Talon News

Talon News is an American website which became newsworthy in January 2005 because alleged irregularities in the background of its chief correspondent, known as Jeff Gannon, came to light. Gannon, born James Dale Guckert, resigned from Talon on 8 February 2005. The Talon News website was shut down February 23, 2005, but was later revived as a spoof site June 7, 2007.

Organization

A virtual organization with no physical office space or newsroom, Talon News was owned by a conservative activist group called GOPUSA. Robert Eberle (known as Bobby) the president and CEO of GOPUSA, held both titles for Talon News as well.

According to Media Matters, "Talon News apparently consists of little more than (Robert) Eberle, (Jeff) Gannon, and a few volunteers, and is virtually indistinguishable from GOPUSA.com." [http://mediamatters.org/items/200501280006] .

Initially, Talon News made its articles available on their website, but at an unverified time in 2004, moved them to GOPUSA.com and simply re-directed visitors asking for the full news articles there with the statement "This story can be found on our #1 client — GOPUSA!". On February 1, 2005 in the midst of controversy, Talon News removed information from its biography section regarding some of its employees, including the reporter at the center of the controversy, Jeff Gannon. [http://mediamatters.org/items/200502010006]

The Talon News site went entirely off line on February 23, 2005 to "re-evaluate operations."

The current ownership of Talon News is not specified on the site. It is a spoof site, and is not connected to Robert Eberle or Jeff Gannon in any way.

Controversy

Media Matters raised the question of Talon News' legitimacy with respect to Gannon's loaded questions at White House press conferences, such as asking then President George W. Bush how he would work with Democrats who had "divorced themselves from reality." [http://mediamatters.org/items/200501260015] Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin noted in his February 19, 2004 column that "Within the press corps, Gannon is known for asking softball questions." Media Matters also discovered that the Talon News operation seemed as more of an arm of the PAC GOPUSA than a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Both groups were run out of the same address (Eberle's home), Talon News items were culled from the GOPUSA website, and Talon News "journalists" lacked significant journalistic experience but had a lengthy history in conservative activism.

The Standing Committee of Correspondents, rejected Gannon's application for a Capitol Hill press pass because of Talon News' lack of independence from a political organization. Committee chairman Jim Drinkard wrote in his letter:

:The application for accreditation to the press galleries states that "members of the press shall not engage in lobbying or paid advertising, publicity, promotion, work for any individual, political party, corporation, organization, or agency of the Federal Government." Talon News has not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the committee that there is a separation from GOPUSA/Millions of Americans.com.

Jeff Gannon/James Guckert

:"Main article: Jeff Gannon"On February 7, 2005 Duncan Black (a.k.a Atrios), wrote on his web log [http://atrios.blogspot.com Eschaton] that "sources indicate" the name of Talon News reporter Jeff Gannon was using a pseudonym, and his real name was James Dale Guckert [http://blogs.salon.com/0002874/2005/02/08.html] . This was later confirmed by Mr. Gannon/Mr. Guckert.

Gannon submitted his resignation from Talon News effective February 8, 2005.

John Aravosis, of web log " [http://www.americablog.com AmericaBlog] ", later claimed that he had evidence that Gannon owned several websites offering gay escort services under the company name "Bedrock Corp." AmericaBlog claimed that his websites and other escort websites featured online sexual profiles of Gannon, which included nude photos and information on how to obtain his services. [http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html]

On February 10, 2005, Gannon said in a CNN interview that Talon News is a legitimate conservative online news service. He also stated; "Talon News is a separate, independent news division. I work for Talon News. I write articles for Talon News". On February 20, 2005, The New York Times quoted Eberle, who said he had no inkling that Gannon may have created pornographic Web sites or offered himself as a gay escort. If he had known, Mr. Eberle said, "I don't think I would have brought him on."

Gannon currently maintains a news blog [http://www.jeffgannon.com/] . In 2007 he published a book entitled "The Great Media War," in which he attacks his critics, and slams liberal media bias. [http://www.thegreatmediawar.com/]

ee also

*United States journalism scandals

External links

* [http://www.talonnews.com/ Talon News] (now a spoof site)
* http://mediamatters.org/items/200501280006
* CNN (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0502/10/wbr.01.html) Transcript of Feb. 10 Wolf Blitzer show with case against Gannon and Gannon's response.
* http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=talonnews.com&type=domain
* http://johnconyers.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={B166974A-C132-4EC3-9682-FE6E08C1A584}
* [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://talonnews.com Archived Copies of the Talon News website, from April 2003]
* [http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/bobby/2001/bobby_0912.shtml/ Robert Eberle witnesses September 11th attack on Pentagon]