Comments:FEMA employees pose as fake reporters during press conference

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Ethics

This is the worst possible case of the misuse of journalistic ethics. FEMA disgusts me in every aspect. They go against what all of us stand for as journalists. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:54, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why they did this. What is their motivation? Why not just issue a statement rather than stage a fake news conference? Doesn't make sense. Jcart1534 00:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added a note that this isn't the first time that the adminstration has been caught doing this. I'm not sure if this is better or worse than the Gannon case. On the one hand, it isn't completely clear what exactly happened in the Gannon case. On the other hand, that case was premeditated whereas this one seems to be more spur-of-the-moment whereas the Gannon case was premeditated. JoshuaZ 00:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

FEMA employees pose as fake reporters

Typical Bush Administration dishonesty .

• Yep - the defenders of the Bush Administration must be proud. --David Shankbone 17:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

They did this before

Oh, wow we have a wikinews article from 2005 that I've just added to the article- apparently in 2005 they used firefighters to help with PR during Katrina. JoshuaZ 00:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Great catch. Spacehusky 18:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Old Media Ablaze Over Staged FEMA Presser

Liberal activists and the Old Media are aghast and outraged over a press conference conducted last Tuesday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Reporters were only able to listen to a department spokesman respond to questions about relief efforts for the California wildfires posed by other members of the FEMA staff. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff appropriately <a href="http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3782176&page=1">chastised</a> the sham press conference and promised an investigation and disciplinary action and the White House expressed its displeasure with the incident.

Surely no one at FEMA believed that the staged event would not immediately be discovered and criticized. What could the motivation have been for such a stunt? Perhaps FEMA wanted an opportunity to present its version of events before the Old Media created its own reality about the fires and the actions of the agency. News consumers had already listened to reporters making comparisons to the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and attempting to find fault with the handling of relief efforts. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had to take ABC’s Claire Shipman by the hand to convince her that everything possible was being done and that she should stop trying to invent mistakes and shortcomings. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and other environuts demagogued the tragedy as evidence of the effect of global warming, while California Democrats like Sen. Barbara Boxer and Lt. Governor John Garamendi incorrectly claimed that relief efforts were impeded by having troops and equipment in Iraq.

One of the lessons learned in the wake of Katrina is how the unaccountable Old Media are able to create a false impression that their ideological soul mates in the Democratic Party use for political advantage. In my book, <a href="http://www.thegreatmediawar.com">“The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”</a>, I detail the flawed coverage of one of the greatest natural disasters in American history – a record that has yet to be corrected.

When I learned of the fake news conference, I expected that the characterization of <a href="http://www.jeffgannon.com">Jeff Gannon</a> as a “phony reporter” would be revived. Liberal media activist Keith Olbermann noted it on his nightly train wreck of a talk show and the lefties of the blogosphere dutifully repeated it ad nauseum. This is a classic case of how a lie becomes reality, since the record proves otherwise. I was as real as a reporter gets, writing over 500 articles as a White House correspondent, a job that Secret Service records indicate I actually showed up for more than 200 times over the course of two years. The veracity of my work as a reporter has never been successfully challenged.

Further, in 2006 – a year after my supposed exposure as a “phony reporter” - my peers accepted me into the <a href="http://npc.press.org/">National Press Club</a>, the most prestigious association of professional journalists in the world. My book about the media will be featured at the National Press Club’s <a href="http://www.press.org/2007bookfairlist.pdf">30th annual book fair</a> on November 1. Not bad for a “fake, fraud and phony.”—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.178.128.124 (talk • contribs)

This appears to actually be a rant that Gannon is adding to anywhere that mentions him in connection with the FEMA matter. See http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/10/a_new_low_for_this_administrat.php . I'm not sure we should leave it here. His repetition of this amounts almost to spam. JoshuaZ 17:24, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That was probably the stupidest thing ever. FEMA sucks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.123.172 (talk) 19:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)