{"id":1147,"date":"2005-06-10T08:22:26","date_gmt":"2005-06-10T15:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/06\/gao_finding_gannon_did_not_bre\/"},"modified":"2005-06-10T08:22:26","modified_gmt":"2005-06-10T15:22:26","slug":"gao_finding_gannon_did_not_bre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/06\/gao_finding_gannon_did_not_bre.html","title":{"rendered":"GAO FINDING: GANNON DID NOT BREAK LAW"},"content":{"rendered":"

Subject: James D. Guckert — Reprinting Government Press Releases as His Own Work<\/I>
\n

<\/P>
\n

You remember when Guckert (a k a Jeff Gannon) published White House press releases,
\nverbatim, as his own reporting? Well, he did not break the law prohibiting the “use of
\nappropriated funds for publicity or propaganda,” the Government Accounting Office ruled
\nThursday.<\/P>
\n

<\/A>Even if Guckert-Gannon, right, “repeatedly incorporated
\nsubstantial excerpts … into articles he published on the internet without disclosing that this
\nmaterial was produced and distributed by the government,” the GAO ruled, he’s allowed to
\nbecause he’s a private citizen. <\/P>
\n

Congressional reps Louise Slaughter and John Conyers Jr. had asked the GAO to investigate.
\nThe GAO General Counsel responded:<\/P>
\n


\n

In your letter, you liken this activity to activities found in earlier GAO cases
\nregarding agencies authoring newspaper articles and op-ed pieces. However, the fact situations
\ngiving rise to the earlier opinions differ significantly from the issue of Mr. Guckert reprinting press
\nreleases. There the agencies did not issue press releases, but instead used appropriated funds to
\nwrite the editorials and news stories as the ostensible work or opinion of someone not connected
\nwith the government.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

Here’s the complete GAO response<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>, with
\nexplanation and footnotes. Here it is as a pdf file<\/FONT><\/B><\/A>. <\/P>
\n

The government has a point. If it puts out press releases and other people claim authorship, is
\nthe government at fault? You’d have to find evidence that the government sought<\/I> to have
\nGuckert-Gannon pass off its announcements as his own independent writing. Sad to say, he’s not
\nthe only “journalist” who simply repackaged press releases as news articles.<\/P>
\n

Still, it’s pretty neat. White House-credentialed fake reporter<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> with fake name
\nfrom fake news agency promotes government policy by spreading White House propaganda
\nwithout attribution. Government is home free. Fake reporter is home free. Public is home fucked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Subject: James D. Guckert — Reprinting Government Press Releases as His Own Work You remember when Guckert (a k a Jeff Gannon) published White House press releases, verbatim, as his own reporting? Well, he did not break the law prohibiting the “use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda,” the Government Accounting Office ruled Thursday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-iv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}