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Posted on 02/11/2005 7:47:23 PM PST by neverdem
Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN who was responsible for coordinating the cable network's Iraq coverage, resigned abruptly last night, citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month in which he appeared to suggest that United States troops were targeting and killing journalists.
Though no transcript of Mr. Jordan's remarks at Davos on Jan. 27 has been released, the panel's moderator, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, said in an interview last night that Mr. Jordan had initially spoken of soldiers, "on both sides," who he believed had been "targeting" some of the more than five dozen journalists killed in Iraq.
But almost immediately after making that assertion, Mr. Jordan, whose title at CNN had been executive vice president and chief news executive, "quickly walked that back to make it clear that there was no policy on the part of the U.S. government to target or injure journalists," Mr. Gergen said.
Mr. Jordan was then challenged by Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who was in the audience, and then said that he had intended to say only that some journalists had been killed by American troops who did not know they were aiming their weapons at journalists.
Nonetheless, accounts of Mr. Jordan's remarks were soon being reported on Web logs as well as in an article on Feb. 3 on the National Review's Web site. Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalist, said that 54 journalists were killed in 2003 and 2004 . At least nine died as a result of American fire, she said.
In a memorandum released to his colleagues last night, Mr. Jordan, 44, who had worked at the network for more than two decades, said he had "decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my most recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq."
In a separate e-mail message to the staff, Jim Walton, president of CNN News Group, a division of Time Warner, announced Mr. Jordan's resignation, which took effect immediately, before praising his 23 years of service at the network. "CNN's global newsgathering infrastructure is largely his vision and achievement," Mr. Walton said.
In accepting Mr. Jordan's resignation, CNN appeared intent on putting the episode behind it as quickly as possible, perhaps in an effort to avoid repeating the drawn-out tensions between CBS News and the Bush administration last fall. After broadcasting a report critical of President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service in early September, CBS defended the report, in the face of criticism on Web logs, for more than a week before announcing that it could not substantiate it.
Asked last night if CNN had had any contact with the Bush administration over the fallout from Mr. Jordan's remarks, a network spokeswoman, Christa Robinson, said, "Not that I'm aware of."
Asked if Mr. Jordan had been under any pressure from the network to resign, Ms. Robinson said he had not. She said Mr. Walton, the CNN president, was unavailable for further comment. Mr. Jordan did not return a message left on his cellphone seeking comment. Mr. Jordan, who once had day-to-day responsibility for CNN's international coverage, is no stranger to controversy.
In April 2003, he wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times saying that CNN had essentially suppressed news of brutalities in Saddam Hussein's Iraq that he thought could jeopardize the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on CNN's Baghdad staff.
"I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me," he wrote. "Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely."
The are starting to fall more quickly now...
CNN announces Jordan's replacement....Mary Mapes! The lib merry-go-round just grinds on.
(j/k)
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CNN: The Mother of All Cover-Ups
...after CNN boss Eason Jordon confessed that for some 12 years he covered up the fact that Saddam Hussein was a murderous "maniac" whose goons regularly tortured not only Iraqi citizens but even his own Baghdad bureau CNN employees.
Jordon’s excuse for keeping this kind of thing from the public CNN is supposed to inform – he might lose his Baghdad bureau, or his employees and informants could be killed. He doesn’t tell us why he just didn’t close down the Baghdad bureau and get his people out of there. And then tell the world the truth about the Iraqi regime.
AGREED!
From the article:
***decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my most recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq."***
All he had to do to prove himself not guilty was to post that portion of the tape where he made the statement.
SHOW US THE TAPE, CNN, or we'll know you're hiding something.
It's a new day out there boys and girls. The old arrogant, condescending attitudes, and unchallenged lies are dying...
...and organizations like CNN, CBS, et al, are the dinosaurs standing in the tar pit, with the (truth seeking) Saber Tooth Tigers ready to rip them to pieces as they die.
We are watching history being made. Powerful, formerly people of influence are watching their world of prestige, and unquestioned opinion dissolve.
But they are in denial, and confused. They seek ego stroking from their own kind, and have become despondent in their dark, lonely moments of truth.
Their final word may very well be; "Rosebud".
"So Chris Cramer, president of CNN International and a former hostage of terrorists himself, appears to have gotten a lifetime case of Stockholm Syndrome from the experience. He considers British commandos to be terrorists -- actually, worse than terrorists, because they freed people from the clutches of murderous thugs. Had Cramer not faked a heart attack, of course, he would have owed his life to the SAS, but apparently his sympathies lie with the gunmen who caused him all of his PTSD. Now the man who considers these British commandos to be worse than terrorists says much the same thing about the American military -- and CNN put him in charge of its international news coverage, including everything we and the world see coming from such places as Iraq and Afghanistan. No wonder Eason Jordan hired him to run CNNi. With his twisted sense of judgment and his sympathetic ear for conspiracy theories, he seems a perfect fit for the CNN chief who likes to make up wild accusations overseas about the American and Israeli military."
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/
The very fact that he still had a job after that fiasco is evidence of CNN's bias. These people used to get away with this crap!! WTF!!!
"This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he's brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water." -David Gergen
Now look at what Howie Kurtz has to say in the WaPo tonight:
Even as he said he had misspoken at an international conference in suggesting that coalition troops had "targeted" a dozen journalists and insisted he never believed that, Jordan was being pounded hourly by bloggers, liberal as well as conservatives, who provided the rocket fuel for a story that otherwise might have fizzled.
The head of one of the largest world known cable systems says that the "coalition" (if that is what he said, I thought he said U.S. military at first) is targeting journalist during a war and Howie thinks it would have just "fizzled" out?
That being true should be as BIG a story.
The URL had it as a business listing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/12/business/media/12cnn.html?hp&ex=1108184400&en=a3fcc18aec28637e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Rather. Jordan.Who's next? I nominate Leslie Stall.
The liberals won't take this lying down.
Read up the thread where I posted what Gergen said.
This is going to push them off the edge.
There GOES Mr. Jordan!
Buried in the back?
Lets not forget that we took out Howell Raines and Jayson Blair at the NY Times, among others.
Sorry, Gergen....it's not nearly enough; and there are legions like him that need to be dumped.
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Dan Rather wanted to break this story.