Lando 
Posted on 02/14/2005 7:35:57 PM PST by Lando Lincoln
Now that two days have passed since we heard the news of the resignation, a few thoughts…
First, let’s recognize the context: Once Eason Jordan wrote that New York Times op-ed, his reputation had a big black mark on it.
Jordan deserved a smidgen of credit: it must have taken guts to write that op-ed, and to admit that CNN knew about certain horrific activities by Saddam, Uday, Qusay, and the secret police “that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.”
But a serious rebuke, or at least serious questions, should have come along with that smidgen of credit. Maybe it’s easy to say this now, half a world away, but it’s hard to believe a real newsman looked at the cost (hiding the truth; seeing the effects of torture in a police state and saying nothing about it) for the benefit (access to Baghdad, and keeping CNN’s Iraqi employees alive) and said, “that’s an acceptable deal.” Why not walk away? (“Sorry, we don’t do business under the threat of having our employees tortured. We’re out of here. Say hello to our embeds when the 3rd Infantry Division takes Baghdad.”) Maybe the decision looked different then and there, but it’s hard to see how the moral and journalistic compromises required for a Baghdad bureau were worth it.
Obviously, many on the right and many supporters of the war noticed this, and were more than a little angered by it. In their eyes, CNN covered up crimes of Saddam in order to maintain access. That deal with the devil turned CNN into a branch of Saddam’s propaganda machine.
Maybe that decision should have spurred some more internal discussion or soul-searching at CNN back in 2003. Either way, when the first reports emerged of Jordan’s comments at Davos, the Saddam deal was the first thing to pop into the minds of the media watchers and bloggers.
As many other bloggers have said, if the tape had been released shortly after the first reports, instead of the vague PR statements from CNN administrators, this story may have turned out differently. A few disingenuous commentators are insisting that it’s an injustice for Jordan to resign over something he retracted. Well, just how much he retracted it and just how much he stood by the original accusation are in dispute. (Sometimes it seems like David Gergen’s accounts are differing depending on who he speaks to.) This is why we need the tape.
Grief and stress can make a man do strange things. Maybe Jordan’s comments were a result of his recent trip to Baghdad. Maybe he was a little too inclined to repeat rumors he heard there.
But arguments that Jordan’s “targeted” accusation was just an innocent misstatement fell on deaf ears – partially because of his reputation as the Newsman Who Covered Up For Saddam. If a reporter – or a network – that was not associated with that earlier issue had made the accusation, the story would still have been big. And then, of course, there were the reports collected by Captain’s Quarter’s that Jordan had made similar comments in other forums.
But when the questions are raised, instead of saying, “World Economic Forum organizers, please release the tape so I can show it’s not that bad,” Jordan just stiff-armed the inquiries. He waited for the story to go away, apparently. Even now, he states that he will resign and prevent CNN’s reputation be “unfairly tarnished”… rather than call for the tape’s release. If the tape would exonerate Jordan and CNN’s reputation, why not release it?
It’s hard not to wonder just how much Jordan’s resignation was spurred by the blogs, or if other factors were at work here.
Anyway, the big discussion topics du jour – are the blogs a lynch mob? Is it war between the mainstream media and blogs? Isn’t the Jeff Gannon story the biggest deal EVER? – all seem rather insignificant in light of some experiences this weekend.
Along with many other NR folks, I went to Walter Reed Medical Center Saturday for their open house event with the troops who are healing from injuries there. I was more than a little sheepish and shy about talking to these guys, and it’s just as well, as the injured vets there were… uh, a little more interested in meeting the well-wishers who were young women.
Then last night a couple of NR folks, several good folks who helped organize support for the troops, and I had dinner with four extraordinary young men and an extraordinary father of one of them. (Oh yes, and we did some tequila shots.)
And if you spend just a few minutes with these guys, you realize so much of the back-and-forth that you see on the blogs, or on television, or in many of our hotter and angrier debates is really small potatoes.
One of the bits of good news about this whole Eason Jordan mess is that according to MEMRI, which watches Middle Eastern media, Jordan’s comments didn’t get covered by the papers out there. To paraphrase Mark Train and/or Winston Churchill, the accusation didn’t halfway around the world before the truth could get its boots on.
For all the hubbub of the past two weeks, what mattered was making sure these guys reputations’ didn’t get damaged by careless words and loose talk among the elites of Davos. That job is done – though it still would be good to get a look at that tape.
Time to take a deep breath, and move on to other things…
UPDATE: Okay, one last comment, regarding Steve Lovelady's comment that "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail."
To paraphrase Dennis Miller, "Yeah. We're the lynch mob. We're the bad guys with the name calling and ad-hominem attacks here. Sure."
Lando
"The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail."
And we prevail in our pajamas!
He resigned? You can see I'm right on top of things, when did this happen?
What's happening is a major wah-wah by the MSM because now it's becoming for the first time an even playing field. If you want to declare what the truth is, you'd better be telling the truth.
Friday night. The usual MO when the desire is to bury a news item.
Some of those most familiar with Mr. Jordan's situation emphasized, in interviews over the weekend, that his resignation should not be read solely as a function of the heat that CNN had been receiving on the Internet...
Interesting.
I should ping you to this thread-
Columbia Journalism Review Still Doesn't Have Clue about the Outing of Eason Jordan
Thanks for the ping. Mr Lovelady's reply to me wasn't quite so nice but enjoyable none the less.
What'd he tell you? I'd love to know.
Fine work. Keep me posted on this if you could.
"... what mattered was making sure these guys reputations’ didn’t get damaged by careless words and loose talk among the elites of Davos."
AMEN!
Excellent!! Just the right amount of pithy to make the point!!
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