The Bush-Rove Ideal of Journalist as Empty Vessel

I think James Wolcott serves it up as well as can be said here regarding Gannon's interview with Anderson Cooper and beyond:

Jeff Gannon, undergoing Jack Webb interrogation by Anderson Cooper on CNN, was pure comedy gold. Gannon came across as--how to put this euphemistically?--not-quite-bright as he stalled before answering each question like an unprepared student trying to bluff his way through an exam. (His bald head may resemble a lightbulb, but there's faint illumination within.) Even more hilarious was what a transparently bad dissembler he is. Jeff Gannon is like a buffer version of Jon Lovitz's "Liar," cloaking himself in implausible deniability to buy time until the referee rings the bell.

He did provide some genuine insight into the journalistic standards of the far-right fake-news prosties and their blog enablers. To Gannon, and presumably to other fine fax-gathering organizations being fronted by Republican shills, objective journalism consists of running White House press releases verbatim--to him, that's providing vital information without a "liberal filter." Gannon really does embody the Bush-Rove ideal of the journalist as empty vessel. His tactical mistake was to be such an Eddie Haskell suck-up at the presidential news conference and draw attention to himself. Otherwise, he'd still be attending White House briefings and sending Scott McClellan secret messages with coded blinks.

The scary part is that overwhelmingly, the so-called journalists who get access and we hear from are very much willing to play that empty vessel to the every stupid/slimy utterance of Bush/Cheney/Rummy et al. The ones who won't just repeat their words as gospel are ostracized both by the White House and by the media companies who would normally want their reporters to dig. But the media companies are making money off this war (General Electric owns NBC and co-owns MSNBC, etc.).