Here is my interview with Jeff Gannon, late of Talon News.

I have attempted to write this story as a straight interview/profile of Jeff, so I have refrained from editorial comment.

My only comment is that if what Jeff says is true, that no South Dakota media has contacted him prior to this story after all this blew up in late January, that is unexcusable. If someone like me can get access, certainly the legitimate press can. Jeff is not exactly hiding.

Jeff, thanks for your time and the best of luck in the future. 

Readers, make up your own minds then feel free to comment at the end of the story.

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JEFF GANNON ON JOHN THUNE AND OTHER THINGS

By Todd Epp, publisher, thunewatch.squarespace.com

Copyright Todd D. Epp, 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Why Gannon's Interest in South Dakota?

"I can assure you that I had no connections to John Thune or his campaign. I acted as an independent, conservative journalist."

That is according to "Jeff Gannon," whose real name is James D. Guckert.

Jeff called me late Thursday afternoon after I inadvertently sent him a news release announcing the South Dakotans for Campaign Accountability's purchase of radio airtime asking Sen. John Thune to discuss his ties to Mr. Gannon in the 2004 South Dakota Senate campaign.

"My interests (in the 2004 race against Sen. Tom Daschle) came from the 2002 campaign and the allegations of fraud on the reservations," Gannon said. "This was the second example of voting problems. We went through it in 2000 in Florida . It looked like the pattern was developing again, here at a state or senate race."

Gannon said this led him to talking to people in and out of South Dakota about the upcoming race.

"I knew that the 2004 election was going to be the key senate race if he (Sen. Daschle) had credible competition. The previous candidates were sacrificial lambs," Gannon said. "I picked the right race to cover. That was the hot race and I was right," he said in retrospect.

He also said political observers pointed him in the direction of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.  It's coverage of previous races had been noted by other newspapers, including the New York Times.

"I think I did an exhaustive investigative series on the Argus that rightly should have been scrutinized," Gannon said.

From Freelancer to Talon News White House Reporter

Gannon's trek from struggling writer to freelancer to covering the White House is not a story unfamiliar to most journalists.

"I had spent about a year writing opinion pieces and trying to get them posted or printed," Gannon said. "In reading other people’s stuff, I came across GOPUSA, talked to Bobby Eberle. He said we have a news division "

The name was changes to Talon News shortly after Gannon joined the staff.

"I no longer have any association with them. I wrote for Talon News, my editor was Bobby Eberle."

Gannon said most of his work is still found on Mensnewsdaily.com.

"They picked up Talon. They (Talon) did have distribution agreements with other websites." Gannon adds that he was not involved in the distribution to other si t es.

Gannon also discussed his editorial process. Bobby Eberle was his editor.

"I’m in DC, Bobby’s (Eberle) in Houston," Gannon said. "I'd email him his stories for review. I decide what I want to write about."

Which brings us back to South Dakota .

"South Dakota was my idea. I determined what I was going to write about and the White House was my beat. But I thought there was sizzle in the South Dakota race."

The January 26, 2005 White House Press Briefing Flap

Like any writer, Gannon said he tried to give his audience what he thought they wanted.

"I’m writing for all those red counties, those red concentrations on the map," Gannon said. "I wrote on pro-life, judges, immigration, tax reform, religious free speech. That seemed off beat to some. But that made sense to my audience."

Up until the infamous January 26, 2005 briefing where he was called on, Gannon said his life as a White House correspondent wasn't that much different than the others in the press corps.

"My colleagues were generally fine, civil," Gannon said. "In any organization there is a hierarchy of popular media stars and they don’t talk to some of their "lessers." Same in any organization. People had a certain amount of respect for my courage for asking the questions I did. That set me apart. It put me out there. 'This guy brings a fresh perspective.' I would approach things from a different point of view."

So how did he get press passes?

"I would request press passes every day," Gannon said. "There wasn’t always a briefing every day. Show up at gate, give your name, Social Security number, show your driver’s license."

He added, "It has my real name on my driver’s license. Jeff Gannon is a pseudonym. That whole thing was overblown. The guys at the White House gate knew me as Jim Guckert. They didn’t know anything different than that. Even other reporters knew I used a pseudonym."

Since the reexamination of the Thune/Gannon story this year, Gannon says no one in the mainstream media in South Dakota has contacted him this year, since the time he asked a question on that fateful day in January when he asked a question at a White House press conference.

"I have had numerous contacts with reporters who know how to get a hold of me," Gannon said. "You can be assured if Mr. Randell Beck or Mr. Patrick Lalley or Mr. David Kranz (of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader) wanted to contact me, they could have. Mr. Mike Madden (the Argus Washington Correspondent) could have found me at the press briefings and said "these people want to talk to you.""

"I'm a D.C. Resident"

One of the attacks the Thune campaign made on Daschle concerned a homestead exemption Tom and Linda Daschle took on their new home in Washington , DC .

Gannon said he broke the story and that it could have been handled better to by Daschle.

"The whole homestead thing could have been avoided," Gannon said. "I discovered it by accident in June or July in ’03."

Gannon said he was actually working on an unrelated story and kind of stumbled on the Daschle story.

"I was doing something else," Gannon said. "I typed in Daschle’s address. It (the exemption) was only supposed to be for residents of DC."

"I wrote an article about it and Roll Call contacted the city and Steve Hildebrand. The Daschle campaign said, "It’s Linda’s, she pays taxes here, etc.""

"I didn’t look at it again for a while," Gannon said. "I made a FOIA request in September '04. I got the document for the exemption and Tom Daschle’s signature is on it, dated April 30, 2003 . I’m going, well, now, isn’t this interesting, a senator files an affidavit who says he is a primary resident of DC."

Gannon said he filed a second FOIA request.

"They switched the paper work," Gannon said. "They substituted the paper work and it said Linda Daschle. Now they’ve made it worse in 2003."

"Six weeks before the election, something is going on there," Gannon said. "The whole thing could have been different if when I first wrote the story, if Daschle says, "You’re right, I signed a bunch of papers at closing, and I shouldn’t have signed that one. We signed a bunch of papers, we made a mistake.""

Gannon said he believes Daschle was ill served by his staff, who he says "went into cover-up mode. Quick, switch the papers." He added, "Then they attacked me as a political reporter who is just a hack."

"It was a mistake," Gannon said. "In ’03 it was embarrassing. In ’04 it became a point of vulnerability. In a close fought race, any little bit matters."

Thune on " Jeff Gannon 's Washington " Webcast Show

Gannon says he contacted Thune's staff about appearing on the February 4, 2004 edition of " Jeff Gannon 's Washington " webcast radio show.

"I was thrilled to have him on the show," Gannon said. "He was just a guy who had already lost a senate race (to Sen. Tim Johnson in 2002) and was taking on Daschle, a formable task. He was the right candidate."

Gannon says he would have had Sen. Daschle on his program.

"I don’t recall if I invited him," Gannon said. I did make frequent calls to the campaign, left messages, sent emails. No replies. Never. I would have liked to have Sen. Daschle on the show."

What Gannon is Doing Now

"I’m on hiatus right now from everything," Gannon said. "I’m taking some time to reorganize things. I certainly hope to return to journalism in some form. I had the webcast show. I have guest hosted some radio shows in DC."

Gannon says he'd like to do TV talking head shows as a news or political analyst.

Gannon on the Thune Race, Journalism, South Dakota

On covering news: "There's this idea is the news is monolithic or one sided, it is not. There are two sides or more to the news."

Impact of Thune victory: "Thune’s win was the political story of the year. It was historic. And I was right there in the middle of it working that story. It was even more important than the White House."

On South Dakota and South Dakotans : "I’ve never been to the South Dakota ," Gannon said. "The people of South Dakota who I've talked to, both Democrats and Republican are genuinely such nice people. I feel that South Dakotans have been served well in the past and will served well in the future by those they’ve sent to Washington."