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."
hey... nice...
Easongate Petition is Online
( request that... CNN, release a transcript of his remarks )
Easongate.com ^ | 2/10/2005 | Charles
Posted on 02/10/2005 9:51:40 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1340876/posts
BBC is top on my list because they spread the hate America all over the world.
Big old government hack, Gergen, and Howard Kurtz are pathetic. They remind me of that old liberal CBS/NBC weasel, Marvin Kalb, who was pulled out of his semi-consciousness to try to defend Danno Rather on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and other venues during Rathergate. Kalb tried to explain Danno's actions as just a mistake, an oversight, he just had too much on his plate. Yeh, right! It was pathetic. Gergen and Kurtz are just as pathetic.
These guys are all so easy to disdain.
These ancient, angry, powerful, and influential relics are watching their world of cardboard prestige and unchallenged opinions melt away.......... and I love it.
*****
By the way, are Dan and CBS trying to find out from where the documents came? That charade should not be over, imo.
Jordan is "The Wiz That WUZ!"
what do you expect from the Times?
I stopped reading after this, but I'd bet somewhere in this BS they blame Karl Rove for setting Jordan up.
Na, na, na, na.
Na, na, na, na.
Hey, hey, hey!
Goodbye!
Jordan should have been fired when he admitted he had been Saddam's buttboy in order to keep a CNN office in Baghdad.
Without a doubt.
Well, I've been expecting the shareholders to have a sense of self-preservation. Guess I'm doomed to disappointment, eh? :)
You are so right. The level of Clinton bashing was nothing compared to Bush hating. I didn't hate Clinton, just his policies. The furor over Bush is remarkable and really quite scary.
trEASON
They must be fearing for their lives if Barney Frank (D-Provincetown, MA and West Village, NYC) is coming after them.
And isn't it strange that Gergen is the only one present who is saying that.
heh heh heh
I like your rendition.
The "soldiers are cutting us down" from 4 Dead in Ohio" is the best example of agitprop to come out of the 60s, for those of who were alive and cognizant at that time.
I wonder if this CNN "journalist" formed his political thinking during this timeframe, thereby learning agitprop techniques for the lefties of the day.
They hoped it would fizzle..
The MSM is still operating like they can hide unpleasant facts about their own from the public.
They still think if they make a huge factual mistake , it's NBD..it's an oops that can go under corrections on page 32d perhaps.
They still think they can spin a story and no one will notice.
http://www.billroggio.com/easongate/
under timeline
http://www.forumblog.org/blog/2005/01/do_us_troops_ta.html
original blog that started it all
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