Posted on 02/13/2005 9:48:55 PM PST by jocon307
The writers of these columns believe that, in addition to having opinions, we are ultimately in the same information business as the rest of the press corps. Which is why we try to break news whenever we can if a story merits the attention. So it was only normal for our Bret Stephens to report a January 27 panel discussion he attended at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during which CNN's Eason Jordan appeared to say--before he tried to unsay it--that U.S. troops had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. Mr. Stephens's story appeared the next day in our Political Diary, an e-mail newsletter for subscribers that is part of this Web site. It is the first account by any news organization of what has come to be known as Easongate.
By now, everyone on the Good Ship Earth knows that this particular story ended Friday with Mr. Jordan's abrupt resignation from CNN. This has certain pundits chirping delightedly. It has been a particular satisfaction to the right wing of the so-called "blogosphere," the community of writers on the Web that has pushed the Eason story relentlessly and sees it as the natural sequel to the Dan Rather fiasco of last year.
But Easongate is not Rathergate. Mr. Rather and his CBS team perpetrated a fraud during a prime-time news broadcast; stood by it as it became obvious that the key document upon which their story was based was a forgery, and accused the whistleblowers of the very partisanship they themselves were guilty of. Mr. Rather still hasn't really apologized.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I really don't understand this. I'm a big fan of the WSJ, primarily because their paper is well written and has a conservative take. But this article overlooks the fact that this wasn't the first time Eason made slanderous remarks about the US military - about six months prior, he made the same comments alleging targeting and torture of journalists by US forces, but wasn't called to account for it. He didn't just "misspeak" at Davos; he was being true to his anti-American attitude. So what's the deal, WSJ?
"...chief news exec Eason Jordan and his steady date, Mariane Pearl."
That's just wierd.
"...about six months prior, he made the same comments..."
Interesting. You'd think a big "grown up" newspaper like the WSJ would have included some comments about that.
Short, sweet, and to the point. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I read this article in my morning e-mails. What will be even more interesting will be the responses from readers that they will post early this afternoon. Go back and watch the fireworks.
"We are the Fourth Estate and have no responsibility to anyone other than ourselves" seems to be rally cry.
This editorial is so unprofessional in its sloppy attempt to whitewash Jordan that it contradicts itself.
At the beginning it says, "CNN's Eason Jordan appeared to say--before he tried to unsay it--that U.S. troops had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq." Then, a few paragraphs later, it lets the cat out of the bag: "As for Mr. Jordan, he initially claimed that U.S. forces in Iraq had targeted and killed 12 journalists."
Since Jordan actually accused U.S. troops of deliberately murdering 12 journalists, as shown by the last quote, rather than the first quote which said he only "implied" such an accusation, and he was unable to come up with any evidence to prove the accusation, he certainly did do something as bad as Rather did. That the WSJ, which I have previously respected and admired, would support this whitewash, and do it so unprofessionally that it even contradicts itself in the same paragraph, is totally disgusting.
I was once told by a former newspaper editor that, "news is what your editor says it is, unless the publisher says it isn't."
The problem the MSM now has to deal with is that they aren't the publishers and editors any more. We are...
Powerline (scroll down) works the WSJ editorial over pretty good. I'm sure Lashawn Barber, Michelle Malkin and EasonGate will weigh in on this also.
As a paying WSJ subscriber, the more I think about this, the madder I get.
"...the responses from readers that they will post early this afternoon."
Let's see how early they come out. On some of the recent controversial pieces, such as Noonan's on the Inaugural speech, they weren't out until almost 5 pm.
Because the blogsphere now challenges every established media outlet, left or right. They now realize they can't get away with all the crap they have done over the years. And it strips them of the bulk of their power - the power to omit or mislead in order to make truth, or what they want to be the truth.
The Goths have entered the temple. And every editor now looks at Jordon going down and thinks to himself, "there but for the blogsphere goes I..."
As opposed to the enthusiasms and vendettas of the professionals, such as Dan Rather and Eason Jordan?
Bloggers don't have the resources of a news department to cover up and stonewall for them. Their research and arguments have to stand up by themselves, under often-withering scrutiny. But that is someone inferior to the sloppy partisan nonsense the MSM has been peddling nowadays.
Yeah, the internet crew that makes up 100% of your audience? Right, let's just disregard them.
"Eason Jordan: Is There More Than Meets the Eye?
Mickey Kaus at kausfiles has an interesting post up that suggests a resolution to the mystery of why Eason Jordan was relatively quick to resign. Kaus has been playing up the Howard Kurtz angle - i.e., the softball coverage on l'affaire Jordan provided by the Washington Post and CNN reporter, and the conflict of interest so transparently present. Howard has edited an article he wrote on the resignation to delete a reference to Jordan's personal life. The original article, available here, said of Jordan:
...top executives are also said to have lost patience with the continuing gossip about Jordan, including his affair with Marianne Pearl, widow of the murdered reporter Daniel Pearl, and subsequent marital breakup.
The new version, including a lot of quotes from big-time bloggers, is here, and the passage has been changed to:
Several CNN staffers say Jordan was eased out by top executives who had lost patience with both the controversy and the continuing published gossip about Jordan's personal life after a marital breakup.
Frankly, the change is immaterial to me. Some have commented on the privacy of Marianne Pearl as a reason for the revision; Kurtz himself says space considerations were to blame (space considerations? It's not like we're talking about several paragraphs...). My problem is: I don't buy it.
Mickey Kaus is a great blogger and one of the few Democratic voices that I enjoy reading, but this one doesn't pass the smell test. A high-powered news executive having an affair, even with the widow of a well-respected writer who, for those who don't know, was murdered in cold blood by Islamic terrorists - this is the reason CNN didn't come to his defense? I think Jordan resigned for a far simpler reason. The CNN execs saw a copy of the Davos videotape - and it backed up the version of Jordan's remarks given by his accusers. To paraphrase William of Occam: when in doubt, follow the easiest path to your destination."
Brings up another point which is that the sphere of influence of 'media' over the past couple hundred years has hugely expanded from being more or less local to being on a national scale because of technology. Along with this evolution, local media contracted. Cities that once had several newspapers now have only one or two at the most & a good deal of what they print is from a centralized 'mass' source. This phenomenon continued unabated until talk radio began to fill the void left by local media. Talk radio provided the forum for what was being discussed in coffeeshops & local taverns all along and proved that there was a significant audience for dissenting opinion. Along came the Internet & personal computers to provide yet more balance to the mass media. So long as the voices were confined to coffeeshops & taverns, the mass media could ignore them, pretend they didn't exist.
Those days are o v e r. WSJ is acting like an aging diva in a snit about having to share the stage...and what the idiots don't seem to realize is that they're further marginalizing themselves every time they throw a temper tantrum like this one.
Everyone's tearing these people apart, even though they are our friends on something like 98% of issues. Isn't it good to have a friend in the MSM?
I'm inclined to see the article as reasonable, because Jordan didn't publish his remarks. If he said what he did in a public forum, then the firing was fair enough. But Davos is meant to be a quasi-private sort of thing and remarks made there are not intended for mass consumption. If he wants to believe in private that journalists were targeted, that's surely his right, no?
A lot of people on this forum have similar "out there" beliefs, and they express them here. My point is that as long as they don't express them in their publications or when speaking to the press, it should be their private matters.
So why are people so vehement about this issue?
Thoughts?
I don't think any MSM outlet is going to view the blogsphere as a friend for much longer.
I wouldn't say 98% either. The WSJ editorial board has a notoriously pro open borders stance. This is directly contrary to many opinion surveys which favor stopping illegal immigration. Sure they can pick and choose their positions - but the future will be fact checked. Heh, heh.
But Davos is meant to be a quasi-private sort of thing and remarks made there are not intended for mass consumption. If he wants to believe in private that journalists were targeted, that's surely his right, no?
A dinner party at your house is 'quasi-private'. Taking the stage with a bunch of journalists, bloggers & a US senator & congressman in the room is public.
At a discussion moderated by David R. Gergen, the Director for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the concept of truth, fairness, and balance in the news was weighed against corporate profit interest, the need for ratings, and how the media can affect democracy. The panel included Richard Sambrook, the worldwide director of BBC radio, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank, Abdullah Abdullah, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, and Eason Jordan, Chief News Executive of CNN. The audience was a mix of journalists, WEF attendees (many from Arab countries), and a US Senator from Connecticut, Chris Dodd.
But whether it was public or quasi-private totally misses the point. The point is that the remarks were made by a professional journalist & the head of an international news organization on an international stage and that the remarks were without any substantiation. In that context, the WSJ railing about 'amatuer' opining is irony rich. As me mum woulda' said, ''They don't know what snake bit 'em.''
Is that such a good idea, to fight against even people on the same political side as us?
After all, this is about politics, no?
D
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