CNN, in an attempt to win back the cable news crown from current leader Fox News, is continuing to lower its standards in order to be more competitive.

By employing anchors whose ethics are in question, CNN is attacking Fox at its strength. But few observers believe that CNN can mount a credible challenge to the moral bankruptcy of veteran slimeballs like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Grace does deserve some credit for making a ballgame of it by having been admonished by the Appellate court for the third time with this latest episode. That makes three strikes.

Grace is the crusading news personality that was motivated to take up law after her fiance was murdered. She became a Fulton County, GA, prosecuter and is apparently still one as she pretty much convicted John Mason for the murder of his Runaway Bride. That is, until she showed up in Albuquerque. Unflustered, Grace soon took up the case of another woman who has been missing for two years. Far be it for her to go on the air without a sensationalistic story to exploit.

CNN, for its part exhibits an inspiring measure of shamelessness by touting their anchor on their website, saying:

It may be prudent to ask, at this time, what they mean by perfect. Perhaps they mean perfect irony as they also plug her new book – Objection! : How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System. Her bosses at the 24/7 Media network that pay her seem to have no Objection to her book’s allegation re: the hijacking of justice.

By declining to hear the appeal of a Pennsylvania publisher last week, the Supreme Court let stand a ruling that may allow a newspaper to be held liable for defamation simply for reporting the news.

In 1995, the Daily Local News in West Chester, PA., published an account of borough Councilman William T. Glenn Sr. as “strongly implying” that council president James B. Norton III and Mayor Alan M. Wolfe were “queers and child molesters.” Norton and Wolfe denied the charges and filed suit against Glenn for defamation. The suit also named the Daily Local who had merely reported factually that the exchange took place and included Norton’s and Wolfe’s denials.

After finding that Glenn had defamed Norton and Wolfe and awarding them damages, the jury found that the Daily Local was not liable, partly due to the doctrine of neutral reportage. That doctrine permits recounting a public figure’s comments as long as they are reported neutrally and accurately. In other words, if the Mayor calls the Governor a lush, the newspaper can report what the Mayor said without being responsible for his veracity. However, the jury’s verdict with regard to the paper was reversed on appeal and the lawsuit against it reinstated. Now the paper must defend itself on the grounds that it had exercised no actual malice.

The neutral reportage privilege is a perfectly reasonable first amendment protection for the media when it is informing the public about events that actually occur. The public should have the right to assess facts that are fairly presented. They also should have the right to be fully informed about public figures who make outrageous and untruthful public statements. The appellate court, in finding that the neutral reportage privilege does not exist in Pennsylvania or federal law, puts the press in the position of being unable to report events in the news if the events happen to contain potentially defamatory charges. These events, or as I like to call them, political campaigns, would have to forego almost all media coverage. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all.

As a consequence of the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the case, we are left with the following scenario from the example above: The press could not report what the Mayor said without first ascertaining that the Governor is, indeed, a lush. If the Governor is a teetotaler, the press could not report the exchange at all without exposing it self to a possible lawsuit. The public would then never hear from the press how the Mayor made an ass of himself. So much for a free press.

The Gannon Chronicles, while revealing in many senses of the word, may be pointing the way to an even richer treasure. Over the past few months, the Republican press gaggle has been inflicting itself with black eyes, bruised ribs and multiple compound fractures of the ethics bone. One after another, wingnut weebles have been wobbled, but the damn things just won’t fall down. The list is long and disturbing:

• HHS distributes “news” videos to TV stations to be aired without disclosing their source or that the “anchors” were actually actors.
• Bill Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues” is a compulsive gambler.
• Fox reporter, Carl Cameron, whose sister worked for the Bush campaign, publishes false Kerry story at Foxnews.com
• Monica Crowley, former Fox Analyst, now co-hosting her own show on MSNBC, is outted as a plagiarist.
• Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict.
• Armstrong Williams, and others, were paid by the DoE to promulgate propaganda.
• Bill O’Reilly settles an allegation of sexual harrassment.
• And, of course, JimmyJeff Gangucnonkert.

Lest we forget, there were also fabricated stories of war heroes Jessica Lynch (who did not fight till the last bullet) and Pat Tillman (who was actually killed by friendly fire). I’m sure I’ve left some out, but clearly our leaders have been playing us for chumps.

You would think the weight of this mass of embarrassments would cause some dinghy in this fleet to sink. But, what was that old saying: A right-wing tide lifts all restrictions on theo-con morality so they can all go out and buy more boats.

There must be more examples of this kind of misbehavior. Just the fact that those that have been discovered were so amateurishly executed and easy to find tells me that their designers were none too bright and raises the likelyhood that we have just scraped the surface. What do you suppose we could learn by investigating Sean Hannity with the zeal we’ve employed on Gannon? What about Ann Coulter; Jim Pinkerton; Jonah Goldberg; Fred Barnes; Michael Reagan; Laura Ingraham? I truly believe that if we shake these trees there will be snakes falling out and we’ll have all the apples we can eat. If there is one thing we’ve learned about these moralizing twits, it’s that they have no morals.

But the big picture here is that there has to be a way to assert some consequences on those responsible for these compounding failures. I think the way to do that is to try to make an issue of the fact these are not isolated infractions. While the corporate media has done an atrocious job of reporting on these singular events, there has been some light squeaking through. Now its time to flood the stage. How can the media refrain from commenting on the fact that all of these individual pieces form a picture of a brazenly corrupt administration that is transparently manipulating the press and the public. And doing it very badly (except for the fact that its working). It may be difficult to recruit the press into this because doing so will expose them for their myopic timidity. On the other hand, they are also victims of the manipulation and should be angry enough to want some payback. More likely, we could frighten them into participating because not doing so will result in them being shown up again by the bloggers, and you know they’re getting tired of that.

So, how many scandals does it take before the media gets its head out of its ass (don’t want to get hit with one of those new indecency fines). This isn’t a bunch of lone gunmen. Its a friggin crime spree!

The contingent of reporters that cover the President are presumed to be professionals that have earned their access through years of journalistic acheivement. Right. And if ever a wonderful Wiz there was The Wizard of Oz is one because…..oh nevermind.

The White House press corpse was recently infiltrated by a right-wing mole whose resume boasted of a weekend seminar at the conservative Leadership Institute. His name appeared to be Jeff Gannon but was later discovered to be James “JD” Guckert.

Gannon (as I’ll call him for convenience), has been attending White House briefings for about a year, asking questions that were loaded to the max. For example:

“…You’ve said you’re going to reach out to [Senate Democrats]. How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?”

“Is this another piece of evidence showing the direct terror ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda?”

“Doesn’t Joe Wilson owe the President and America an apology for his deception and his own intelligence failure?”

“Since there have been so many questions about what the President was doing over 30 years ago, what is it that he did after his honorable discharge from the National Guard? Did he make speeches alongside Jane Fonda, denouncing America’s racist war in Vietnam? Did he testify before Congress that American troops committed war crimes in Vietnam? And did he throw somebody else’s medals at the White House to protest a war America was still fighting?”

So who is Jeff Gannon? This reporter was called upon frequently by the President’s press secretary, Scott McClellan, and even by the President himself at his January 20, news conference. They called on him by name and must have known that he could be counted on to lob a softball. He represented Talon News, a conservative website that is run by Bobby Eberle. Eberle is also a Republican operative in Texas and the CEO of GOPUSA. As Talon’s correspondant, Gannon was denied capital hill press credentials when Talon could not prove that it had advertisers or paid circulation. But Gannon did manage to get accredited at the White House.

Gannon is not an unknown quantity in this administration. His name appeared on a list of people the FBI wants to question in regard to the Valerie Plame affair (Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Her status as a CIA operative was unlawfully disclosed in news reports by Robert Novak and others, alledgedly to punish Wilson for statements he made that were critical of the administration). The FBI’s interest in Gannon was connected to his possession of a classified CIA memo that addressed Wilson’s assignment to Niger. How did he get that memo and why was he allowed to use it to malign Wilson with impunity?

This story gets more bizarre from here. Gannon is also the owner of a number of provacative web site domains: Hotmilitary-stud.com, Militaryescorts.com andMilitaryescortsm4m.com. This recent revelation seems to have prompted the retirement of Gannon and his jeffgannon.com. Talon News has deleted all its stories by Gannon, as well as his bio. The uncreating of Jeff Gannon is in progress.

Its interesting that none of what we know about any of this was uncovered by the corporate media. The investigations and reporting on this was done almost entirely by enterprising and intrepid bloggers like those at DailyKos.com and MediaMatters.org.

From an administration that has already been exposed for having paid reporters to hawk its propaganda (Armstrong Williams, et al), for distributing videos to TV stations without disclosing the source or that the reporters in them were actually actors, what can we conclude from all of this? Is Jeff Gannon a creation of the White House designed to put pro-Bush sound bites into the media? Was he operating covertly to punish White House enemies? New York representative Louise Slaughter is calling for an investigation. If we are ever to get answers to these questions, let’s hope we get one.