Fake news is the news

A friend of mine happened to be visiting Easter Island in 1988, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet bowed to international pressure and allowed his country to hold an election. (Chile has sovereignty over the island.) During the campaign, Pinochet flew in and staged a televised event. The "cheering natives" who greeted him were actually Chilean soldiers in costume; the actual natives couldn't stand him. My friend witnessed the whole charade.

Americans used to laugh at Third World dictators who resorted to such tactics. But now we find ourselves living in something parlously close to a Third World nation. Google the term "fake news" and you'll find a surprising number of recent stories, only some of which refer to Jon Stewart's show.

The "Jeff Gannon" affair refuses to, er, shrivel. The latest is a stunner: Gannon/Guckert gained access to the White House briefing room before his ostensible employer, Talon News, came into existence. Talon was born on March 29, 2003. CNN's cameras caught him amongst the press corps in February, and he apparently begain reporting from the White House in January.

At that time he did, apparently, write propaganda squibs for GOPUSA, which is not a news organization. But GOPUSA is (obviously) run by individuals close to the administration -- for example, board member Richard Powell is married to Dina Powell, the White House Chief of Personnel, who answers directly to Andrew Card and Karl Rove.

Obviously, someone -- Karl himself? -- decided to position this guy to become another right-wing media star. But why him? I feel that the choice must relate to Guckert's secret life as a prostitute. It is worth noting that, according to this story, Rove granted a rare interview to Guckert/Gannon.

Oddly enough, Guckert also seems to have owned a court-reporting service. How does a man with a tax problem, a man so down-at-heels that he literally has to sell himself, own a business of that sort? Is there a conspiracy to cobble together fake court transcripts?

I can't help quoting Maureen Dowd's observation:

I'm still mystified by this story. I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the "Barberini Faun" is credentialed to cover a White House that won a second term by mining homophobia and preaching family values?

At first when I tried to complain about not getting my pass renewed, even though I'd been covering presidents and first ladies since 1986, no one called me back. Finally, when Mr. McClellan replaced Ari Fleischer, he said he'd renew the pass - after a new Secret Service background check that would last several months.

Fakes everywhere. "Jeff" is hardly the only example of newsfaking. A few other examples:

1. Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia (if those really are their names) starred in fake news reports orchestrated by the White House and broadcast on CNN. You will recall that CNN was also an outlet for...

2. ...the all-purpose nuclear facility photo, variously ascribed to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Government sites gave us a number of these fake news stories. The original publisher, Radio Liberty, is now trying to pin the blame on -- get this! -- a Czech news service.

3. Armstrong Williams, a black conservative commentator, got a bag of loot containing a cool quarter mil (or thereabouts) in exchange for his kind words on a Bush initiative.

4. Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher took a lesser sum to write "pro-marriage" stuff for the Department of Health and Human Services. (I fail to see how marriage is the province of that department.) The problem here is that she never disclosed that she received the money when writing on the same topic in her columns.

5. The Mike McManus story mirrors that of Maggie Gallagher.

6. Right-wing bloggers are used -- and, it is said, paid -- to get Bush-approved stories into the newstream. (Ain't nobody paying us lefties, folks! We're on our own...)

6. Bush's handlers routinely stage scripted "town meetings" designed to look like spontaneous events, which is no doubt what unsuspecting viewers of CNN and CSPAN take them to be.

Which brings us back to the Pinochet story with which we began.