ANOTHER "P" WORD. I couldn't care less if Jeff Gannon is a prostitute. But a plagiarist? That's another matter. Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, was briefly famous a while back after he was exposed as a Republican activist - and former (?) sex toy - posing as a reporter at White House press briefings. Well, really now. Who's to say who's a reporter?

Now, though, the Raw Story is reporting that a Salem News staff writer has accused Gannon of plagiarizing one of her stories from a couple of years ago, when she was working for the Waltham Daily News Tribune. And her former editor backs her up.

Plagiarism is a loaded word, and I'm not going to use it myself. Based on the evidence as presented, it looks like Gannon lightly rewrote a piece by Melissa Beecher and passed it off as his own work. At the bottom, there's even a copyright notice for his ex-employer, the GOP-affiliated Talon News. Not good.

Raw Story editor John Byrne writes that Gannon did not respond to two e-mail requests for comment. On his blog today, Gannon writes, "Friday is a travel day for me, so don't think my silence means you should start seaching [sic] Ft. Marcy Park." What a sense of humor!

CLARIFICATION. Media Log reader M.D. (it doesn't stand for "medical doctor," but it could) has taken me to task for referring to the late Terri Schiavo has having been "brain-dead" for the previous 15 years. Based on all credible evidence, her condition might have fit a lay definition of the term; but it most certainly did not fit the medical definition. "Virtually brain-dead" would have been more accurate.