Columbia Journalism Review Still Doesn't Have Clue about the Outing of Eason Jordan

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 15 February 2005 | John Armor (CongressmanBillybob)

[Congressman Billybob]

An article by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post on the Eason Jordan resignation quoted Steve Lovelady "of Columbia Journalism Review" as saying of this event, "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail." This struck me as a grossly unprofessional remark by anyone who claimed to be a journalist.

So, I wrote a detailed letter to the Editor of the Review, demanding an apology. Back came a letter this morning from Mr. Lovelady, which makes it clear that neither he nor the Review have a clue about the blogosphere. They do not understand our work, nor do they understand why Jordan had to go.

I wrote back to Mr. Lovelady. Those three letters follow in the order they were written. I think y'all will conclude from reading these letters that the Columbia Journalism Review, which is both the temple and contains the high priests of the MSM, is grossly out of touch with the real world in 2005. Read, and weep.

I have received no reply from the Editor of the CJR.

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To: the Editors of the Columbia Journalism Review
From: John Armor, Esq.
re: The Lovelady quote in Kurtz's article
date: 14 February 2005

Ladies & Gentlemen,

You apparently have a journalistically incompetent person working for your magazine.

Here is a quote from Howard Kurtz' article in today's Washington Post about the resignation of Eason Jordan from CNN.

"Hours after Jordan stepped down, Steve Lovelady of Columbia Journalism Review e-mailed his verdict to New York University professor and blogger Jay Rosen: 'The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail.' "

If this is an accurate quote, then Steve Lovelady is an incompetent journalist. Here's why I reach that conclusion:

I am one of the "salivating morons" as part of the "lynch mob" which brought down Dan Rather, and hit CBS hard. We were at work seeking to get a transcript, preferably a copy of the video tape, from Davos, so we could hang Eason Jordan's precise words around his neck like a dead albatross. Like all good journalists, we prefer first-hand evidence rather than second-hand hearsay, even if there are multiple hearsay sources who basically agree and seem reliable.

As I told the attendees at a dinner in Asheville, N.C., Friday night, Jordan was our next "target of opportunity," as Slim Pickens said in his second-greatest movie, Dr. Strangelove. I predicted then that Jordan would resign, or be fired, within 30 days. I did not expect results as quickly as they came.

My concern here is about being called a "salivating moron" and a member of a "lynch mob." A little investigation of the facts should be in order before such labels are attached.

I am a graduate of Yale (two majors), Maryland Law (highest honors, Con Law), Ph.D. work at American University in Public Policy, author of seven books and more than 550 articles, briefed 18 cases in the US Supreme Court. Anyone who cares to, can use Google and Amazon to track down my particulars. On the Internet I am known as Congressman Billybob. Overall, I have published about three million words, give or take a few paragraphs. My next book is on Thomas Paine. (Yeah, right, I am a "salivating moron" and I hang out with a "lynch mob.")

The bottom line is this: I have a fairly typical background of the members of the "Pajama Patrol," as we have called ourselves ever since Joel Klein of CNN (then of CBS) dismissed us as "a bunch of guys in their pajamas, in front of their computers." My friend "Buckhead," for instance, has an able background but less achievement than I, because he is quite a bit younger through no fault of his own.

Steve Lovelady should not be dismissing any group of people as "morons" and a "lynch mob" when he knows nothing about us as human beings. That indicates a case of political bigotry, which is a fatal flaw in any would-be journalist. I render no judgment about whether Mr. Lovelady is "too dumb to swallow his own spit," a phrase we occasionally use here in the backwoods of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I know nothing about him other than this one quote as reported by Howard Kurtz.

But I would say he owes us a mite of an apology. What do y'all think?

If you take accurate journalism seriously, I expect to hear from you.

Sincerely,

[personal information deleted]

Post Script: Perhaps the CJR should publish an article about the leaders of the "new media." I don't count myself as a leader, but I know these folks well.

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Steve Lovelady wrote:

Brent Cunningham was kid enough to pass your note along to me.

The quote is accurate, but your interpretation is not. I did not say every poli-blogger, or even every blogger gunning for Jordan, is a slavering moron.

I did say, "The slavering morons who make up the lynch mob prevail." That is not the same as saying that every poli-blogger, or even every blogger gunning for Jordan, is a slavering moron. It is to say that those who do fit that description have prevailed in this instance. And believe me, for every one of you, there are 100 of them out there yammering away with mob-like glee.

If you doubt the accuracy of that characterization, I invite you to a long thread on Vodka Pundit on the topic yesterday. Please read each post -- there are 75 or so at last count, including a few from me -- and then come back and tell me these guys are playing with a full deck. Or that it is I, not they, who owe an apology.

I don't think you can. And that blog is just one of dozens frothing with blood and spittle over the same issue.

The hyenas are still gnawing the bones.

Perhaps that's why this morning, if you take the time to read,you will discover that even the high priests of the poliblog world -- Jeff Jarvis, Captain Ed, Jay Rosen -- are publically wringing their hands over what they have wrought. As well they should.

Steve Lovelady

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Dear Steve,

I was surprised to hear from you. It is to your credit that you did respond.

You suggest to me that I should read the posts on Vodka Pundit is misplaced. I read hundreds of posts every day from the "tin foil hats" on both the left and the right. I have never had the slightest doubt that such people exist, and file their screeds on the Internet.

But you make the mistake of confusing the players for the fans.

It may well be that the fans of the South Thwackingham Football Team are dangerous hooligans. But that leads to no valid conclusion about the Thwackingham footballers on the field who actually score the goals.

There are perhaps 200 people in the blogosphere who are at the cutting edge of all the issues that may arise. All of us operate the same way that I was trained to function as a lawyer. Assemble the evidence, reduce it to a cogent argument, and then argue it to the jury. In our cases, the "jury" is a few hundred editors in the MSM who make the decisions about what will be reported, and how. In our cases, we know that the jury is predisposed to bury the story we are promoting, so we always have an uphill fight.

Our work is "peer-reviewed" in that tens of thousands of people will read what we write, and some will seek to take it apart, brick by brick. So what we write has to be solidly based and defensible.

Now we turn to the issue of whether Eason Jordan should have been forced out. In my judgment, and that of many leaders in the blogosphere, he should have been fired years ago, when he admitted that CNN had coddled Saddam Hussein by suppressing negative stories about him, in order to keep its Baghdad Bureau open. Any news director who will suppress the truth for institutional gain, does not belong in the business. So, the Davos speech was the second major reason for dumping Jordan, not the first.

I was amazed that he resigned so swiftly. I conclude that he realized we would get our hands on the videotape of his remarks, and that that tape would have made his career sink like a brick in a well. We had reconstructed his comments from second-hand reports, but apparently the actual tape was even worse than we imagined.

The people who "prevailed" in l'affaire Jordan were not the followers, whose "spittle" offends you. It was the leaders of the effort, including me. We were right to push Jordan to resign. We are not "slavering morons." And you DO owe us an apology.

Lastly, the tenor of your note to me suggests that you still lack a working understanding of what the blogosphere does, and why it is important. It is important that the Columbia Journalism Review develop a real understanding of the "new media." Absent such an understanding of an influence that will more and more drive the MSM, the Review and its staff will become increasingly irrelevant to its subject, like a buggy whip factory in 1910, puzzled by the decline in its market.

Sincerely,

John Armor (Congressman Billybob}

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Excellent comments. Don't know if you have read this earlier piece by CBB:

The Manifesto of Pukin Dog

[optimistically_conservative]

Steve Lovelady

My personal favorite was the boys at FreeRepublic, who having decided that Dan Rather was their kill, began describing Jordan as the next "target of opportunity" and began discussing how to take him out.
Target of opportunity ?!?
People who talk like that are not engaged in debate; to the contrary, they're usually paid assassins.
Either that or armchair thugs who have watched one too many Soprano's scripts or read one too many Tom Clancy phantasies.