subtitle: Does a blogosphere frenzy that helps bring down a CNN news exec for a comment he made mean free speech is in peril? Nope. It's exploding
Actually, he alleged that U.S. troops deliberately targeted these journalists for death.
This is a B.S. statement. That wasn't his allegation at all. Duh...he alleged that journalists were targeted, not mistaken for enemies. Sigh.
I could have sworn his original statement mentioned targeting journalists, not mistaking them.
Methinks that the MSM should have gotten a clue like way back May-June 2003 when the blogs effectively drove Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd out of the New York Times. But NO!, they kept on going and as a result CBS News' reputation has been been permanently ruined and Eason Jordan quit from CNN.
" His allegation -- that coalition soldiers in Iraq mistook journalists for enemies and killed them"
He didn't say they mistook them from enemies, although they are, he said they were targeting journalists, without any modifier.
If Thatcher is going to write a piece, he should get his heart right. No one would have had a problem with Jordan had he included the modifier "mistook"
There are non so blind as those who have their heads permanently shoved where the sun doesn't shine.
The word is targeted. He only changed his story when he realized how controversial the statement was. If he knew he was right about not meaning the military intentionally killed journalists, he should have immediately and publicly asked for the conference video tape to be released. Since he didn't, I can only assume that the video would validate that he said and meant targeted.
Eason Jordan (with a bit of help from Barney Frank) got rid of Eason Jordan.
No matter how much his enemies hated him, Jordan would still be at CNN, if he hadn't uttered those words (to which Barney Frank objected).
How in the world can Eason Jordan be considered a victim in any context?
Uh oh, sounds like a parody for DFU - Don't fear the blogger (Don't Fear the Reaper). :^)
So This is the
Information Superhighway:
Peggy Noonan had an excellent piece at Opinion Journal today, on the place of Blogs in the world, and it made me think about not only "the rise of the blogs", but about the whole internet in general.
Remember when the "information superhighway" term was first coined? What did it mean? It was touted that information would spread at the speed of light across the globe, connecting disparate peoples in commonality of purpose or interest in ways we couldn't even imagine at the time.
Of course, that notion was sidetracked as the internet bubble filled with unlimited capital and the notion of the new economy where profits weren't as important as stock prices, and it wasn't as important to actually have a quantifiable and desirable product as it was to have a catchy name for your website.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the fortune. A lot of people just liked the idea of being able to find stuff out, and put their thoughts down somewhere that others could see it.
human curiosity:
Someone sees a CBS report on the Presidents' Guard service, goes to a CBS webpage that has "documents" offering proof, and posts it to a 'gathering and investigation node'. In this case, Free Republic, where someone else says "that looks fake". Someone immediately sends the link to others, who send it to others, including someone who recreates it exactly in Microsoft Word using default settings, seen by others who query on circa 1970's typewriters, finding the only best and foremost authority on all that jazz, who says "not only not bloody likely, but not bloody possible." Others query the nomenclature of circa military jargon and equipment, etc. etc. etc...and suddenly, despite all protestations to the contrary, Dan Rather is a piece of roadkill tire-patch as the parade passes him by.
By that same token, and the vagaries of human thought, the following is not an impossible scenario:
A teenager in the hills of Kyrzigstan, using a 15 year old computer powered by a diesel generator, is posting on his blog what a pain it is, because it's been cold and dry lately, and the chinking in his wood 'n mud hut is cracked, and he has to slog 9 km down to the creek to get this special crap dirt his Dad says is the only kind they can use.
A bricklayer from Akron is looking for a better deal on supplies, since he's got a new kid and new computer, and a penny saved and all that.
Not knowing any better way to start, he plugs "mud" into google, and after 5 pages of disgust and frustration, comes across this kids blog. He wonders what this "special dirt" is, so he sends an e-mail with the kids address to his uncle, who's a PhD and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and tries a different search.
Uncle, of course, is intrigued, and having nothing better to do at the time, writes the kid, asking for a sample of the dirt, sending him $20 as a goodwill gesture. Of course the kid sends him the dirt, since $20 is a years wages in that part of Kyrzigstan, and his parents say "We are honest people, send the dirt.".
After spectral analysis and a couple months of intense "playtime", the Prof sends the kid a 50 pound bag of a soybean derivative that'll hold that dirt perfectly in the chinks for the entire county in that part of Kyrzigstan for everybody's lives, and 14 years later they're using the same polymers to build shelters at the U.S. moonbase.
That's the information superhighway.
"All the News that's Fit to Print"...says who? Who is fit to decide what's fit to print? Who's fit to read what news? Why is anyone deciding what is news? Where do these people get that level of authority and control over my ability to know? How did this happen, and when is this going to change?
Now is When:
The internet isn't so much a superhighway as it is a global facsimile of the human brain, with each person on it playing the role of a neuron. Neurons receive impulses of information and fire off to other neurons they think have some correlation or link to what they received. Then those neurons act on the input and send it on again. and so on...
Sooner or later all those links hook into something that inititiates a physical action.
Welcome to the Global Neural Net...can I see your dirt?
Good, well balanced article!
Blogpower RULES!
It is long enough after the fact that anyone covering the story now SHOULD get it right. This reporter fails to do that. We STILL want to see the videotape of that session in Davos so there is NO doubt exactly what Jordan said.
Congressman Billybob
Just another FYI ping..
DB, you nailed it. The counter offensive has begun..
Stephen Baker is but one very small example of exactly why the internet is fast becoming the wooden stake in the heart of the MSM.
Like the Dimocrat Party, they cannot see, or hear the freight train coming and aren't aware they have camped out on the tracks.
I hear the train a 'comin ... It's 'comin down the tracks ...
Oh but yes... keep that focus on the eeevvvilll bloggers. Uh-huh.... And the MSM is trying to keep a straight face through all this, IMHO.
The bloggers did good work. I have no doubts they will continue to.
Let's give Mr. Baker some email to set him straight:
stephen_baker@businessweek.com