Eason Jordan Update

This Isn't Writing, It's Typing posts additional detail from a French blogger in the audience at Davos. More damning details.

In Blog I wrote about CNN's massive effort to rebrand itself as "The Most Trusted Name in News." Today, thanks to Jordan, it is the most busted name in news, and the rebranding campaign is now worse than a joke --every billboard or commecial on which it appears or is intoned is a reminder of the vast gap between the promise and the delivery. Do the Time Warner folks see the damage this erratic exec with a checkered record has done to their "up from the ashes" campaign? Jordan is also taking the brands of Davos, Howard Kurt and the Washington Post down the well with him. Mickey Kaus isn't anyone's idea of a conservative, and his shreding of the Kurtz column has got to be the subject of some meetings around the Post today. Even David Gergen is dangerously close to getting sucked in as evidence mounts that this was a general smash and bash of the U.S. military done before an audience of mostly foreigners.

Unbelievable. The Davos people refuse to provide the tape. That should signal everyone that it would go very badly for Jordan if viewed by the American audience. Jordan should be demanding its release, and journalists should be asking Jordan whether he wants it released. Senator Dodd should demand the tape as part of an look at these allegations.

The New York Sun's Roderick Boyd writes a much beter introduction to the controversy surrounding Eason Jordan's remarks at Davos. Boyd highlights the relevant past remarks by Jordan and Senator Chris Dodd's statement, as well as the refusal of an Al Jazeera source to confirm one of what CaptainsQuarters calls Eason's Fables. This is a solid report that puts the burden of Jordan to answer for his charges, and Howard Kurtz's piece does not show well read alongside it. My in-box is full of denunciations of my grade of C- to Kurtz' column, but at least it is in the paper, and perhaps Kurtz will follow up with a second, more pointed story raising the questions in the previous post.

Rony Abovitz, who alerted the world outside of Davos to the Jordan charges, has another essay on the subject.

Others to read: Matt, Michelle, and Mickey (the three "Ms" would make a fine panel on the subject for any cable talker).

Easongate, Geraghty, RogerLSimon, and LaShawn for updates throughout the day. Still waiting for word if the Arab press carried word of Jordan's allegations back to their audiences. .

Additional material from Powerline:

Kurtz Breaks Silence on Jordan

Media critic Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post finally broke his paper's long silence on the Eason Jordan matter this morning, coming down squarely on Jordan's side in an apparent effort to help Jordan keep his job. Kurtz's story is sub-headlined "CNN new chief clarifies his comments on Iraq;" Jordan gave Kurtz an interview in which he repeated the spin that CNN has been putting on the story from the beginning: that is, that Jordan made the point that journalists have not been "targeted," but have sometimes been killed on purpose under the mistaken impression that they were terrorists.

Kurtz provides a partial accounting of the eyewitness accounts, omitting Rebecca MacKinnon, providing a friendly quote from David Gergen, and adding an interview with a BBC representative who was present.

The most interesting aspect of the article is that Kurtz evidently asked Jordan about his allegation last November that:

[A]t least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces, Jordan explained the "torture" reference to Kurtz:

In the interview last night, Jordan said he and a group of other news executives have discussed with a top Pentagon official allegations by Iraqi employees of NBC, Reuters and al-Jazeera "who claimed to have been detained and tortured by the U.S. military. They all came out with horrific statements about what had been done to them." Statements which Jordan believes to be true. Kurtz apparently didn't ask Jordan about his November statement that "at least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military; in context, he doesn't seem to be referring to inadvertent deaths.

Kurtz does, however, add this tantalizing observation:

At the World Economic Forum, participants say, the only specific case cited by Jordan was the April 2003 incident in which U.S. forces fired a tank round at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, killing a cameraman employed by Reuters and another for the Spanish network Telecinco. Military spokesmen said the troops were responding to sniper fire from the hotel, which was known to house about 100 foreign journalists, and defended the shelling as "a proportionate and justifiably measured response."

But Jordan supplied a list of the other incidents, such as a tank firing on and killing Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana as he was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. U.S. officials said the troops mistook Dana's camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

So Jordan supplied a list, presumably of twelve or more incidents, of which we now know of two. Let's see the list. And let's see the tape of the Davos session. For now, at least, CNN undoubtedly hopes that this story has ground to a halt with the "limited, modified hang-out" facilitated by Kurtz.

UPSDATE by BIG TRUNK: For an account of the Jordan scandal without the Kurtz spin, see Roderick Boyd's New York Sun article: A CNN executive says G.I.s in Iraq target journalists."

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