Posted on 02/10/2005 7:31:21 AM PST by Pikamax
BY BRET STEPHENS Thursday, February 10, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
Did Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, actually say the American military has deliberately killed journalists covering the conflict in Iraq?
It's a serious question, at least to judge by the heat it's generated. Google "Easongate" and you get 2,500 results. There is an Easongate.com Web site, on which more than 1,000 petitioners demand that Mr. Jordan release a transcript of his remarks--made recently in Davos--by Feb. 15 or, in the manner of Saddam Hussein, face serious consequences. Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in. So has Michelle Malkin, who sits suspended somewhere between meltdown and release.
There's a reason the hounds are baying. Already they have feasted on the juicy entrails of Dan Rather. Mr. Jordan, whose previous offenses (other than the general tenor of CNN coverage) include a New York Times op-ed explaining why access is a more important news value than truth, was bound to be their next target. And if Mr. Jordan has now made a defamatory and unsubstantiated allegation against U.S. forces, well then . . . open the gates.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I find it hard to believe that there is no video of this event. If there is, roll the tape and that will be the end of it.
As I understand it, there is video but the conference organizers won't release it.
The video resides in the same vault with the Whoopi Goldberg John Kerry extravaganza and Hillary's boos from the post-9/11 concert.
There is a video.....but the media herd have pressured Davos not to release it....cute.
I'll leave it others to draw their own verdicts, but here's mine: Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo--rather than outright allegation--is the vehicle of mainstream media bias. Had Mr. Jordan's innuendo gone unchallenged, it would have served as further proof to the Davos elite of the depths of American perfidy. Mr. Jordan deserves some credit for retracting the substance of his remark, and some forgiveness for trying to weasel his way out of a bad situation of his own making. Whether CNN wants its news division led by a man who can't be trusted to sit on a panel and field softball questions is another matter.
the issue in a nutshell
If it had been video of a conservative making questionable comments, CNN would be pulling out all the stops to get it.
Oh, I love the old cop out, "there are people who believe" line. Of course, he's talking about himself and his beliefs.
It's like when Diane Sawyer/Katie Couric interview a conservative and state, "Somebody say that you're a drooling, uncaring, racist, homophobic monster. How do you respond to that?"
This should be very entertaining...watching CNN squirm its way out of this one.
The White House is showing by it's two scathing attacks on the Washington Post this past week that the MSM is not speaking infallibly, and that they'd better learn to report the facts instead of their bias slant.
He deserves NO CREDIT.....he has made the same remarks in two different speechs...he really believes what he is saying......and no climbing back off the limb....AFTER he has been called on the comments will change the fact.....HE REALLY BELIEVES THEM.
I think that nutshell deliberately misses the real issues.
And the Social Security Trustfund.
Yeah. The lockbox.
where else were the comments made? .... I am not looking to give him a "pass", and like the comment of the article says: Political Bias of the press can be found in the innuendo, if not in the presented facts.
"Mr. Jordan observed that of the 60-odd journalists killed in Iraq, 12 had been targeted and killed by coalition forces. He then offered a story of an unnamed Al-Jazeera journalist who had been "tortured for weeks" at Abu Ghraib, made to eat his shoes, and called "Al-Jazeera boy" by his American captors...Now Stephens characterizes it as:
Whether with malice aforethought or not, Mr. Jordan made a defamatory innuendo. Defamatory innuendo--rather than outright allegation--is the vehicle of mainstream media bias.Innuendo?? Innuendo is an indirect hint..... this was no "innuendo". What is Stephens thinking to label an outright assertion as "innuendo"??
I sent him this e- mail:
If you were there, and heard Mr Eason speak, and are on the newspaper staff,why didn't you break the story.
It appears you sat on your hands until the Internet blogs forced the story out. - Tom
There's more: Jordan also told an audience in 2004 that American troops had arrested and tortured journalists in Iraq.
But last year's charges, like those leveled this year, were not backed up by a single fact by Mr. Jordan.
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