Wednesday, August 28, 2002By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
Senate
press cop's past grows sketchier
Gallery
deputy now says he wasn't employed by Tucson Citizen
Wednesday, August 28, 2002By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – The deputy director of the Senate Press Gallery, who's up for a $111,000 promotion to director, now says he never actually worked for the Tucson Citizen but was employed by a separate company set up to run its circulation operations.
Stephen J. "Joe" Keenan, who has worked in the Senate Press Gallery since 1978, has told Senate officials his professional media experience involved a stint at the Tucson Citizen, a 40,000-circulation newspaper published Monday through Saturday.
Last week, in fact, he told WorldNetDaily he was the Citizen's "chief spotter." When asked to elaborate, Keenan said, "I'd rather not talk about this," and abruptly hung up the phone.
The open position running the gallery requires a minimum of six years of "news media experience," according to the official Senate job listing.
Among other duties, the director helps the Standing Committee of Correspondents vet applicants for press credentials, evaluating whether they are "bona fide" journalists.
In an Aug. 21 story, WND reported that the Tucson Citizen had no byline stories on file for Keenan, or record of his employment.
Keenan the next day confided to a WND reader by e-mail that he in fact worked for Tucson Newspapers Inc. during college.
TNI is an agent of the joint-operating agreement between the Tucson Citizen and Arizona DailyStar. It was set up chiefly to deliver newspapers, and has no editorial function.
The position of "chief spotter" Keenan claims to have held has been phased out. The job involved supervising delivery crews.
Yet Ruby Hand, who handles personnel matters for both the Tucson Citizen and TNI, told WND last week that she could find no employment records for Keenan at either company. On Tuesday, she still could not verify his employment at TNI.
And Randy Cross, TNI's vice president of circulation, last week told WND that none of his veteran employees could recall working with Keenan in the 1970s.
It's not immediately clear what Keenan listed on his application and resume when he was hired by the Senate in 1978. Gallery aide Wendy Oscarson says there is no resume or even biography of Keenan on file. An aide to the Senate sergeant at arms says employee applications are "confidential."
Keenan has been investigating WND during its 19-month battle to obtain congressional press credentials. The Standing Committee in January denied the popular newssite credentials, and the case is now on appeal.
WND founder and Editor Joseph Farah noted the irony of Keenan, who apparently has no real-world journalism experience, vetting experienced professional journalists for press credentials.
"His only apparent job in the news business is as a delivery person," he said. "Yet he's making decisions about the quality and credentials of men and women who have run daily newspapers, who have spent decades gathering and editing the news."
More key, Keenan appears unqualified to run the gallery as director, based on the posted job requirements, yet gallery insiders say he is a virtual shoo-in for the tax-funded federal position, which also picks which news media can cover the national party conventions, presidential inaugurations and state-of-the-union addresses.
The Senate sergeant at arms and the Standing Committee jointly are recruiting and hiring for the position.
According to the classified ad they posted on Monster.com, the position of Senate Press Gallery director "requires a bachelor's degree in journalism, public relations or communications, and six years of news media experience."
Keenan insists he is qualified for the job.
"The requirement is for news media experience working with legislative bodies," he wrote in his Aug. 22 e-mail. "I have 24 years experience working with the media covering congress [sic]."
Keenan added: "The requirement is not that you worked at a newspaper, which would also count."
But an official in the human-resources office of the Senate sergeant at arms says the position places a premium on journalism experience.
"If a candidate has a degree in journalism, but doesn't have any journalism experience to back it up, he obviously wouldn't be the best candidate," she told WND.
Standing Committee Chairman William L. Roberts III and Sergeant at Arms Alfonso Lenhardt – who was appointed last year by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. – will select the new director.
The deadline for applications is Sept. 10.
Tucson Citizen reporter Paul Allen called WND late last week to say that questions about Keenan had "piqued the interest" of the paper's editor, who has assigned a profile story on Keenan.
Read list of daily Senate Press Gallery members (requires Adobe Acrobat to download).
Previous stories:
Press cop has own qualification problems
Sen. Cantwell misled by press police
WND files appeal with Sen. Dodd, Speaker Hastert
Senate press police withhold public info
Press gallery backpedals from earlier WND stand
E-mails contradict press gallery claims
Senate press boss Torry 'lies' to WND readers
Senate press cop breaks her silence
In secret meeting, press police yank WND day pass
Shake-up at the Senate Press Gallery
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
Media gatekeepers wrap selves in flag
Falsely claim they gave WND same gallery privileges as Stars & StripesThursday, August 29, 2002
By Paul Sperry
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – The Standing Committee of Correspondents for the Senate Press Gallery now claims it offered WorldNetDaily.com the same "three-month temporary" credentials it recently gave the military newspaper Stars & Stripes.
Only, it never happened.
The five-member panel in January notified Stars & Stripes of its decision to grant the paper's reporters so-called "hard passes" to cover Congress for three months. The quasi-governmental body extended the privileges for another three months in May, while it continued to mull over the paper's application for permanent credentials.
Stars & Stripes is funded in part by the Defense Department and may not meet the gallery rules for financial and editorial independence – although Beijing's Xinhua News Agency, the propaganda organ of the Chinese Communist Party, and other state-owned organs, including some from Arab nations, are full-fledged members of the gallery.
"They called us and said, 'Hey, you're in for three months. Come on down and get your passes,'" recalled Stars & Stripes Managing Editor Doug Clawson.
He says his reporters have been using hard passes, or official photo IDs, to freely cover Congress ever since.
"Reporters can go right up there and do their work now," he said.
Standing Committee Chairman William L. Roberts III said earlier this week that the panel offered "the same three-month temporary" credentials to WND.
In fact, no one from the committee notified WND or its counsel Richard Ackerman of any such offer. Nor did the committee's lawyer, N. Frank Wiggins of Venable LLP.
On June 18, the latest action on WND's application, the panel decided only that it was "prepared to provisionally recognize WorldNetDaily." And even that was "pending receipt of additional information requested from the" nonprofit Western Journalism Center, from which WND was spun off in 1999 as a separate for-profit company incorporated in Delaware.
Though the center turned over its IRS tax returns for 2001 and 2000, Roberts continues to demand more financial data. Sensing a "fishing expedition," WND founder and Editor Joseph Farah has refused any further cooperation.
At the same time, the panel denied WND's Washington bureau chief permanent credentials in a separate adjudication, which appears to have been in violation of Senate rules. On Aug. 1, in a secret meeting with no votes, the committee also disqualified him from day passes.
(The press gallery provides three types of passes to reporters: day, temporary and permanent.)
In contrast, no conditions were placed on Stars & Stripes' temporary privileges, Clawson says.
And release of more Western Journalism Center documentation apparently wasn't the only condition applied to WND.
According to committee member Jack Torry of the Columbus Dispatch, the popular newssite also had to "demonstrate it would publish its own content."
That's what he told a WND reader from Perrysburg, Ohio.
"We offered WND a temporary pass – as we have done with Stars and Stripes and a host of other organizations – until the organization demonstrated it would publish its own content," Torry said in an Aug. 6 e-mail to Jill Bandy. "They turned us down."
Again, no such offer was ever made, and WND was never notified of such a condition, which makes little sense given the fact that WND has been publishing its own news content, alongside links to other news stories, since it was founded five years ago. (In fact, Torry's own paper has picked up some of WND's scoops, along with the news agencies that employ the four other members of the committee.) Nor did the newssite, with more than 2.5 million readers, "turn down" any temporary privileges, as Torry claimed.
Asked to provide proof of such offers, Wiggins referred questions to Roberts, who blithely claimed: "It's all on the website," referring to WND case documents posted on the Senate Press Gallery site.
Torry's version is also at odds with the committee's own June 18 ruling to seek more Western Journalism Center data. The issue of content is absent from the decision – which was unanimous, 5-0, meaning Torry was at the meeting and voted for the action. Yet he told a WND reader another story just weeks later.
In addition, according to excerpts of the minutes of an alleged committee meeting on WND last year, the panel offered WND "one-day temporary credentials on an as-needed basis for up to six months pending receipt of further information concerning the relationship between WorldNetDaily and the Western Journalism Center."
The offer allegedly was made after a May 21, 2001, meeting.
Yet WND was not notified at any time of any such six-month day-pass benefit contingent on "receipt of further information" on the Western Journalism Center.
"The six-month thing was never stated by anyone," Farah said.
"This is just more evidence of the absolutely inexcusable sloppiness with which (Standing Committee members) carry out their duties," he added. "No notes, altered minutes, revised history."
Farah explains that Roberts – who along with Wiggins earlier this year refused to turn over any meeting notes to WND's legal team – had a gallery staffer retype excerpts of all formal committee discussions of WND's application only after it was discovered the minutes of meetings had been posted on a bulletin board in the Senate Press Gallery and therefore were public information available to WND all along.
Roberts posted the retyped excerpts on the gallery website, while still refusing to turn over the formal minutes. At this point, there's no way for WND to tell if the retyped excerpts match the contemporaneous notes, or if they've been edited. It also cannot determine the context in which deliberations on WND were held. Roberts won't reveal even excerpts of the rest of the minutes in those meetings in which WND was allegedly discussed. Ackerman, however, has demanded Wiggins turn over all formal minutes dating back to 1999.
The excerpts regarding WND, which span all of one page, cite four meetings on WND – April 23, 2001; May 21, 2001; Jan. 29, 2001; and April 8, 2002. Notes from the June 18 and Aug. 1 meetings of this year are still missing.
The committee and gallery officials have had a hard time getting their story straight, on when they first met to discuss WND's application. At an April 15 appeal hearing, they claimed it was May 5, 2001. They quietly changed the date to April 23, 2001, in the official transcript.
In the excerpts of the April 23, 2001, meeting minutes, it says: "The committee also temporarily delayed action on an application from WorldNetDaily.com pending further review."
In other words, committee members didn't actually take up the application on April 23, 2001. WND submitted its application two-and-a-half months earlier, on Feb. 8, 2001.
Between May 21, 2001, the next meeting on WND, and Jan. 29, 2002, when the committee voted to deny WND's application, there is an eight-month gap.
Farah says the claim of a six-month probationary period stated in the retyped May 21, 2001, meeting excerpt is "all too convenient."
"It nicely covers that gap in which there was no adjudication on WND, no action, and a lot of stonewalling and footdragging," he said.
Indeed, the committee took no final, if any, action on WND for a full year.
Meanwhile, e-mails show that its liaison and chief investigator, Senate Press Gallery Deputy Director Stephen J. "Joe" Keenan, strung WND along, claiming the committee was set to meet on WND, when in fact it was not.
Read list of daily Senate Press Gallery members [requires Adobe Acrobat].
Previous stories:
Senate press cop's past grows sketchier
Press cop has own qualification problems
Sen. Cantwell misled by press police
WND files appeal with Sen. Dodd, Speaker Hastert
Senate press police withhold public info
Press gallery backpedals from earlier WND stand
E-mails contradict press gallery claims
Senate press boss Torry 'lies' to WND readers
Senate press cop breaks her silence
In secret meeting, press police yank WND day pass
Shake-up at the Senate Press Gallery
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
My non-peers at Senate Press Gallery
Thursday, August 29, 2002
By Joseph Farah
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WorldNetDaily's battle for accreditation to cover the U.S. Capitol with the Senate Press Gallery has become something of a soap opera – with twists and turns that surprise me on a daily basis.
But why should I be surprised at government arrogance, at bureaucratic incompetence, at political heavy-handedness, at Washington double-standards, at blatant hypocrisy and at venal power abuse?
I don't know. No matter how often I see it, it's still shocking – especially when you find yourself victimized by it.
My first contact with the Senate Press Gallery came in infuriating phone conversations with a man I later came to learn was a well-compensated bureaucrat named Joe Keenan. It was Keenan who misled WorldNetDaily time and time again about the status of our seemingly routine application for credentials. It was Keenan who handed us one poor excuse after another for never-ending deliberations. It was Keenan who always seemed to have one more irrelevant question as First Amendment rights were put on hold for 18 months.
Now we learn that Keenan, having played a pivotal role in stonewalling and bullying WorldNetDaily is up for a promotion that could earn him $111,000 a year.
And what are Keenan's credentials for such a job? One of the requirements of the position is six years of news media experience. It turns out, by the strictest definition of the term, Keenan has none, zip, zilch, nada.
For the last 25 years, he has toiled away in relative obscurity in the Senate Press Gallery – shuffling paper around, keeping the bulletin board up to date, sharpening No. 2 pencils and rubbing elbows with the journalists who cover the Capitol every day. Before that, Keenan reluctantly admitted he worked for the Tucson Citizen.
Given that Keenan was sitting in judgment of my own journalistic credentials and those of veteran investigative reporter Paul Sperry's, we decided to check out some of his bylines, talk to a few of his peers in the newsroom, find out what kind of newsman Joe Keenan was 25 years ago.
It turns out, he wasn't a newsman at all. Apparently he was a circulation worker – a newspaper delivery guy.
Joe Keenan's "news media experience" qualifying him as a "shoo-in" for the job as director of the Senate Press Gallery is some time spent supervising which bundles of newspapers got on which trucks to be delivered to Tucson readers. This is the arbiter of which journalists are fit to cover the Capitol. This is the man assigned to investigate me and my news organization to determine whether we are worthy to report on the activities of the U.S. Congress. This is one of my non-peers who sits in judgment of me and my 25-year career reporting, editing and running daily newspapers.
Now, I'm no snob, and I have plenty of respect for the job done by good circulation workers in the newspapers I ran. But let's compare my resume with Keenan's. While he worked briefly delivering newspapers in Tucson, he has spent the last 25 years as a government bureaucrat. Meanwhile, I have spent the last 25 years as a real-world journalist. I've been a reporter. I've been an editor. I've taught journalism at a major university. I've run the hard news operation of a major metropolitan daily. I've served as editor in chief of big-market dailies. As a culmination to that career, I launched what has become the largest independent newssite on the Internet.
But it is Keenan, along with a committee of five working journalists – none of whom has a resume or experience remotely resembling mine – who sit in judgment of me, my work, my colleagues and my employees. They say we haven't earned the privilege of access to the U.S. Capitol to do our jobs on an equal footing with them.
Do you get the picture?
You may think I'm beating a dead horse with this ongoing story. I do not. I think it is indicative of the way Washington works. I think it is indicative of the way our press establishment has lost sight of its mission. I think it illustrates why we are asking House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Senate Rules Committee members to step in and right this injustice immediately.
Contacts:
Kennie Gill, Senate Rules Committee chief of staff, (202) 224-6352
Sheryl Cohen, Sen. Dodd's chief of staff, (202) 224-2823
Kyle Simmons, chief of staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., ranking Republican on Rules Committee, (202) 224-2541
Tad Vandermeid, Speaker Hastert's legal counsel, (202) 225-0305
John Feehrey, Speaker Hastert's press secretary, (202) 225-0600
Related stories:
WND reporter banned from covering Capitol
Shake-up at the Senate Press Gallery
Senate gallery moves 'goalposts' again
Senate gallery 'dragging feet' on WND appeal
Senate press panel withholds evidence
WND's press-gallery hearing next week
April appeal in WND's Senate press fight
WND appeals Senate gallery decision
Denial of WND press pass unlawful, says legal group
WND denied congressional pass.
Readers flood Senate gallery with e-mails
Related columns:
Stalinists in the press gallery
WND banned from covering Capitol
Open letter to the news police
The Senate Press Rogues Gallery
Joseph Farah's nationally syndicated column originates at WorldNetDaily, where he serves as editor and chief executive officer. If you would like to see the column in your local newspaper, contact your local editor. Tell your paper the column is available through Creators Syndicate.
