Editor and Publisher Weighs In on CNN and CBS Scandals
Instapundit has a post up linking to an Editor and Publisher commentary assessing the unresolved Eason Jordan/Davos and the Dan Rather/fake National Guard document fisacoes.
It’s high time a voice of integrity in the legacy media noticed that both the CNN and CBS scandals remain open questions. They are corrosive issues– particularly for journalists who value credibility.
Here’s the Instapundit link with Glenn’s comments and a link to Thomas Lipscomb’s Editor and Publisher commentary.
Lipscomb has this particularly damning quote regarding CNN:
In that case, the issue was simple enough. Did or didn’t Eason Jordan state, at the off-the-record World Economic Forum Conference in Davos, Switzerland, on January 27, something remotely like the charge that U.S. troops had targeted journalists in Iraq and killed a dozen of them or so? It didn?t matter what the opinions of Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, or the blogger attendee who spilled the beans, Rony Abovitz, thought. It doesn?t even matter what Jordan said about what he said. And it doesn’t matter if he apologized for it or not. The World Economic Forum had videotaped the ?off the record? meeting. All CNN and Jordan had to do was to ask the tape be released.
Instead distinguished media talking heads like Tom Johnson embarrassed themselves in displays of speculative open mindedness only possible among the empty-headed. There was nothing to talk about.
Not only was there a tape, but CNN admits it never asked for it, as CNN spokeswoman Megan Mahoney has revealed to me. There was no problem with getting a copy of the notorious ?off the record? tape from the World Economic Forum. When I asked WEF?s Klaus Schwab whether he would have made a tape available, cut to just Eason Jordan?s remarks, and give it to Jordan and CNN, he replied: ?Of course. And they could make any distribution of it they wished.?
I had this post up February 13:
Is the CNN-Davos scandal over because Eason Jordan resigned? Don?t think so? we haven?t seen the tape. It ain?t over ?til the tape rolls. Was Jordan guilty of slander (most likely explanation) or was he a victim of a blog mob?
If he did commit slander the US military is due an apology. As for the ?internet mob? accusation ? Jordan?s defenders are indeed rolling out the ?victim? meme.
Here’s an extract from a much longer post on February 17:
Primary consideration in this case does not belong to Jordan and his professional career? it belongs to American soldiers, the individuals who as a collective are ?the military? in Iraq. I was deployed in Iraq May through September 2004, and serving in a senior staff position. This means? if Jordan?s allegations had factual substance? I worked for the officers who would have given the targeting orders. Unless Jordan has evidence of targeting and produces this evidence, Jordan not only slandered honorable soldiers, he slandered my friends. Their professional achievements and accomplishments deserve consideration. The (former) head of CNN?s news division slandered our sweat and blood effort to do the right thing in a damnably difficult situation. Yes, I include myself? I was part of the ?US military? in Iraq.
This is a perspective that most of the legacy media has missed. I don?t think Representative Frank or Senator Dodd missed it? they have constituents on active service and I?ll guarantee they hear from them.
Credit Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin with powering the Eason Jordan story. Hugh began by interviewing two eyewitnesses, including Abovitz. Michelle followed up by interviewing Senator Chris Dodd and Representative Barney Frank– who were also on the scene. Representative Frank challenged Jordan, and we owe him a thank you.
UPDATE: House rules on comments: No name-calling allowed and gratuitous curses get deleted.
I’m no defender of Eason Jordan but he sweared up and down on a bible that he held the U.S forces in highest regard etc. etc. an so on and so forth. CNN, taking the cowards way out, pushed him out the door. I’m not sure this needs to be revisited. The man said something stupid and recognized that seconds later but couldn’t backpedal fast enough to save his job. But the bottom line is he was canned. I think we are kidding themselves if we think for a minute CNN was going to do the “right thing” and watch the other networks kick around sound bites of Eason making an ass of himself. I think this is all we can hope for in this world.
Comment by gk — 3/14/2005 @ 10:19 pm
GK, others including Malkin and Hewitt mentioned above, and Captain’s Quarters and LaShawn Barber all demonstrated how this was not a one-time verbal gaffe by Eason Jordan. Rather this was a theme that Jordan had mentioned before. Jordan tried the defense of saying something “stupid” but that defense of and by him quickly failed. When Jordan could have supported it by authorizing the release of the video of the session, he stonewalled. No one accepted that this was a gaffe because the stonewalling indicated that the video wasn’t going to support Jordan.
Comment by Robin Roberts — 3/14/2005 @ 10:35 pm
gk– I hate to tell you, but Eason Jordan didn’t make this nonsensical statement only once. He made it several times, but always to foreign audiences. Don’t for a minute believe that Eason Jordan has any regard for the US military — he obviously doesn’t. Obviously CNN’s silence on this matter has not helped its ratings, and it will take a long time for CNN to recover. The thinking American public has a long memory, and the faster the MSM figures that out the better.
Comment by Mescalero — 3/14/2005 @ 10:35 pm
Not open questions-Open sores that have and will continue to infect the body in the form of ever-lower ratings and disappearaing credibility.
Comment by Tom Blumer — 3/14/2005 @ 11:13 pm
I know this guy has had a history of this rubbish. He got sloppy and got caught very much like Rather and Mapes they had been doing this a while but haven’t adapted to the internet. Again, ,Kudos for Malkin, Hewitt and the Captain for uncovering the slur. But come on, I think we are expecting too much for a dessicated CNN to expose itself to rivals like FOX that are eating it’s lunch in the ratings. Yeah, they’ll want to see the Eason video loop of him commiting career suicide on Fox,and the alphabet networks. Get real, they may be MSM but they love to see CNN in the dumps.
Comment by gk — 3/14/2005 @ 11:19 pm
I don’t think it is arguable that CNN, CBS Evening News & 60 minutes were the top of the heap in television news in the US (*emphasis on were*). Thanks, Eason and Dan, for showing us so clearly that the TV News Emperors wear no clothes.
Comment by Kosmopolit — 3/15/2005 @ 3:08 am
Before we all wonder off from this discussion…..let us be reminded that these incidents are NOT isolated! Keep the name Bennett in mind, and see another blog effort develop….The MSM is a collective of folks who have been insulated from their own words when overseas, and they just still do not get it! Say it anywhere, except in your own bedroom, and it will likely become blog news! Duke
Comment by Duke of DeLand — 3/15/2005 @ 3:56 am
@Duke, bingo, Phillip Bennett, Managing Editor of the Washington Post is next in line to walk the plank. I’ve coined Peoplesdailygate. ;^)
Comment by Jabba the Tutt — 3/15/2005 @ 5:42 am
GK, You may be right about CNN’s motivation, but how many ratings points do you think they saved by stonewalling vs. releasing the video?
Comment by Dan — 3/15/2005 @ 7:33 am
Sure, I’ll say that Jordan shouldn’t have said what he said. I’ll even say he deserved to be fired. I’ll say that Rather was wrong in not checking the facts before trying to out the president and deserved to lose some responsibility. But I won’t give props to [INSULT DELETED] Malkin for anything. She should be the next one to go. EDITORS NOTE: Come on. This site welcomes strong opinion and wit, but go somewhere else to call names.
Comment by Greg — 3/15/2005 @ 8:19 am
I added this post to my roundup of classiness, but it didn’t trackback properly. http://www.willisms.com/archives/2005/03/classiness_all_2.html
Comment by Will Franklin — 3/15/2005 @ 12:43 pm
“But I won’t give props to [INSULT DELETED] Malkin for anything. She should be the next one to go.” Go where? She should be fired from her own blog? Some people just don’t understand how this Internet-thingie works.
Comment by Les Nessman — 3/15/2005 @ 7:41 pm
Why did CNN can Jordan so quickly? Here’s a scenario: Its about the money - but not the money associated with poor ratings due to the Jordangate affair being extended a couple of weeks had they not canned him. This was about the financial disaster that would certainly occur when it was uncovered that Jordan’s remarks at Davos, like those he made before, were a part of CNN’s marketing plan to raise revenue in non-Fox covered areas, i.e. everywhere but the USA. CNN is getting spanked by Fox, their revenue forecasts can’t be good so they have to go work with their strength and leverage their world wide operations. Big Problem: CNN is from the USA. Most of the non-Fox world hates the USA and wants to see nothing but bad news (er, the “truth”) about the USA and especially BushHitler. Darn. What to do?… Enter clever marketing scheme: CNN positions itself as being able to deliver exactly the ‘kind’ of news (wink, nod) their non-Fox customers want because CNN has the strongest ‘presence’ amongst the American infidels, er, government officials. Der Speigel or Al Jazeera can’t match that. All CNN has to do is convince certain suits and turbans that CNN really thinks like they do and ka-ching, the foreign revenue starts rolling in. Jordan and his fellow co-conspirators, I mean executives, devise a plan that includes pressing the flesh at cocktail parties and off-the-record events (like Davos) and dropping juicy “truths” about the USA that are sure to convice the suits/turbans that CNN really knows the score and is not really controlled by BushHitler afer all. So, the plan goes forward. Fast-forward to Davos. Jordan is doing what he’s paid to do. Upon uttering one of his “truths” there, he stupidly realizes that this audience may be just a bit too infested with non-friendlies like Barney Frank and a couple of others. Tries to weasel out of it, but its too late. Dang, he hadn’t considered this blug or blog thing or whatever its called… Blogfest ensues, CNN buys silence from Jordan, then fires him. The rest is recent history. Ok, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, so I have to conside that maybe CNN likes getting spanked by Fox, and has no desire to raise corporate revenues. Maybe my scenario is out there a bit, but following the money would be a good first thing to rule out. If CNN is not doing as well as they’d like, and they see the need to increase revenues, then just how are they going to do so? Out-Fox Fox? Go all conservative? Hire Sean Hannity?
Comment by F15C — 3/15/2005 @ 11:44 pm
I think you have the accent on the wrong syllable; the problem is not what Jordan allegedly said, but the fact that the opinion he expressed is widely shared–and widely disseminated–among journalists, and not limited to Arab or third-world journalists. See, for example, with Kate Adie of the BBC. Indeed, I suspect there are few journalists who aren’t American who dismiss the canard out of hand–Richard Sambrook (?) is an example, and he is not anti-American. Let me suggest that Jordan both respects our troops (and thus does notbelieve, as a general thing, that they target journalists), and simultaneously cannot accept that the death rate of journalists at the hands of US forces is explicable without some active agency or malice on the part of some. At one point in his comments he allegedly posited trigger-happiness (and see Sgrena/Cabrini), RoE, hostile atmosphere originating with Rumsfeld and the Pentagon, as explanations. The difficulty is that correspondents rank their mission above the that of the military; force protection (or, in the Italian hostage case, civilian protection and the overall mission) don’t have much weight in their calculus. And of course those who are opposed to the mission or to the US will tend to ascribe malice and intent, in accordance with their confirmation biases. In Jordan’s case, there may also be an unconscious attempt to displace his own responsibility for putting his own people in danger. His respect for US troops overall requires (psychologically) rogue trooper/Rumsfeld villains. It is important to recognize how widespread this belief/suspicion is, and even more important to figure our how to counter it. Maybe someone ought to enlist Jordan’s help;0
Comment by alene — 3/16/2005 @ 10:15 am
Sorry about my lack of HTML skills. Where’s preview when you need it?
Comment by alene — 3/16/2005 @ 10:17 am