E&P - McClellan Reveals That Gannon/Guckert Got GOPUSA Press Pass

[paineinthearse]

Excuse if a re-post, I had not seen this before. E&P post date is 5:20PM

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http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000808705

Scott McClellan Reveals That Gannon/Guckert Got GOPUSA Press Pass

By Joe Strupp

Published: February 18, 2005 5:20 PM ET

NEW YORK Former Talon News reporter James Guckert obtained his first White House press credentials as a representative of the pro-Republican Web site, GOPUSA, not as a Talon News reporter, as previously believed, Press Secretary Scott McClellan told E&P today.
McClellan said White House Press Office staffers considered the openly partisan site to be a legitimate news organization when they gave Guckert, a.k.a. Jeff Gannon, the first of numerous day passes in February 2003.

"He faxed a letter in on his letterhead, they checked that it was a conservative news Web site he worked for," McClellan explained, referring to his staffers who handled such credentialing at the time. "There was a check to make sure it was a news organization and a news Web site. There was a determination made at that point ."

McClellan, who was deputy press secretary under Ari Fleischer when the initial Guckert approvals were given, became press secretary in July 2003. He said he currently has a staff of 12, only one of whom handles the 20 to 25 daily press passes issued each day. He said he had spoken with the staffer who approved Guckert's initial credential, but would not identify the person or comment on how he or she could consider GOPUSA -- which is run by Texas Republican activist Bobby Eberle -- to be a legitimate news organization. "Our staff assistants do a good job," he said. "The staff assistant went to verify that the news organization existed." However, Eberle has told The New York Times that he later created Talon to build a news service with a conservative slant and "if someone were to see 'GOPUSA,' there's an instant built-in bias there."

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