If you haven’t heard of Talon News’ White House Correspondent Jeff Gannon, it’s OK. There is no Jeff Gannon.
White House correspondents and bloggers did a little digging on Gannon after he tossed softball questions to President Bush and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan at news conferences. Turns out Talon News is closely connected with the GOP, Jeff Gannon isn’t his real name and his company also registered domain names such as Hotmilitarystud.com.
This article by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz gives a good summary of recent events. Of course, bloggers all over the political spectrum such as DailyKos have been reporting on this for days.
No, it’s not directly ad-related, but it should serve as yet another lesson that the blogosphere has the ability to sniff out a story, and the so-called “mainstream media” no longer exercises total control of news or information.
It’s a new system of checks and balances—and ad agencies, PR firms and their clients ought to take note. Any marketer that engages in less-than-honest business practices or marketing techniques may get exposed–and quickly.
