Eason Jordan resigns!

[Mycroft]

CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits

NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq

Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (news - web sites) last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.

He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.

"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.

We haven't really been following this here at JREF, have we?

Eason Jordan, Jeff Gannon, Dan Rather...I'm seeing a real trend here in the Blogoshpere playing a major role in removing the most outrageous examples of media bias.

 

[BobK]

Here's a link to the CNN story on the resignation.

LOL. They put the story in the entertainment section.

I guess that must be their least viewed section.

 

[aerocontrols]

Good riddance.

 

[varwoche]

Eason Jordan, Jeff Gannon, Dan Rather...I'm seeing a real trend here in the Blogoshpere playing a major role in removing the most outrageous examples of media bias.

I think it's unfair and simplistic to place Dan Rather, a serious journalist for decades, in the same list with a total phony like Gannon.

Here's what conservative Peggy Noonan, who worked directly for Rather for several years, has to say:

In public life the entire body of your work--an entire career of almost 50 years--can now essentially be summed up and dismissed by the last headline on your career, which in this case is "Rather Retires Under Cloud After Forged Documents Story." If Dan had retired of his own volition a year ago, that would not be the headline. "Long Career Reflected Stunning Rise of U.S. Media" would be more like it.
...
Dan, it was obvious to me, was a sort of establishment liberal--not a wild leftist and not an ideologue, but whatever smart liberals thought was more or less what he wound up thinking, and saying. I couldn't write his views well, because I didn't buy them and didn't fully understand them. I couldn't write my views, because the show had to reflect his thinking. So I went to him and told him my problem. He was great. He said: On any given issue that we discuss, give the liberal point of view fairly and give the conservative point of view fairly, and then we'll end it with my opinion, because it's my show. I thought that sounded good.

And it worked. "Dan Rather Reporting" actually got something of a conservative following, not because it was a conservative show--it wasn't--but because it actually put forward the conservative point of view in what might be called a fair and balanced way. At CBS News in those days that was surprising.
...
Dan Rather was one of the great breaking-news reporters of our time.
column

In fairness, she also says uncomplimentary things. My point though is that it's a little bit too easy to run down Rather based on recent events, and overlook a long, distinguished career.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Wow.

I hope CNN will get and release the video tape of the conference so that we can judge what he said for ourselves.

Frank and Dodd -- whom I have a measure of respect for -- both strongly contradicted Jordan's version of events.

 

[rikzilla]

Re: Re: Eason Jordan resigns!

I think it's unfair and simplistic to place Dan Rather, a serious journalist for decades, in the same list with a total phony like Gannon.

You miss the point. Dan placed himself in that category. It's not unfair, it's astounding. Astounding that a serious journalist with his credentials would throw away every shred of the respect he's earned over the years because of his hatred of a sitting President.

-z

BTW: Good for the bloggers! Left/Right doesn't matter....what matters is that the truth can no longer be easily dismissed. The blogosphere will sort the wheat/chaff out,...and facts by their very nature cannot/willnot be ignored.

 

[Skeptic]

Re: Re: Re: Eason Jordan resigns!

You miss the point. Dan placed himself in that category. It's not unfair, it's astounding. Astounding that a serious journalist with his credentials would throw away every shred of the respect he's earned over the years because of his hatred of a sitting President.

Indeed. Of course, Dan Rather lost any real credibility over his 80s "The Wall Within" Vietnam-vets "documentary", where a string of real petty criminals/drug addicts, with invented "combat stories" that make PLATOON and FULL METAL JACKET look realistic, were accepted hook, line and sinker as "representing" Vietnam vets.

 

[kalen]

We haven't really been following this here at JREF, have we?

Eason Jordan, Jeff Gannon, Dan Rather...I'm seeing a real trend here in the Blogoshpere playing a major role in removing the most outrageous examples of media bias.

So someone suggested that some journalists were targetted in Iraq. I'm not sure from your article if he was talking about a specific instance, but several journalists died in Iraq as a result of US fire. Is asking a question like this an outrageous example of media bias? Or is it that questions like this are not permitted in mainstream American news?

As a counterexample, did any heads roll for the Jessica Lynch "rescue" coverage? That was a complete sham. Where were the blogger media police then?

 

[Mycroft]

Re: Re: Eason Jordan resigns!

I think it's unfair and simplistic to place Dan Rather, a serious journalist for decades, in the same list with a total phony like Gannon.

My comments are about the power of the blogosphere to check and correct the MSM. In that, Dan Rather is the prime example. Just a few years ago, the story would have run as is without question with any debate about the validity of the evidence conducted out of the public eye. Now, because we have these new forums of information exchange that anyone can participate in and tens of thousands can observe, the questions are brought to the forefront and are kept there until answered.

There are other examples. When professional activists get quoted in news stories as if they were common citizens, the blogosphere notices and draws attention to it. When news is manufactured by one side or another, that gets attention too.

We have a couple of ideals that are coming to realization.

The first is about the impartiality of the press. Activism masquerading as journalism is being exposed. My prediction is that in the near future attention will shift to individual reporters that consistently only report one side of their stories.

The second ideal is that of the free exchange of ideas weeding out those ideas that are not supported, are unsustainable, or produced by kooks. We can see examples of this in the exposure of charlatans such as Ward Churchill. In the past, inflammatory writings such as his would only produce a short-lived controversy, but now in the blogosphere people can go deeper to look at the person who produced the words and question who he is and why he has access to such a public forum.

What’s happened is that in the past the communication between MSM and the public has been only one way. Now it’s become a dialogue, where through blogs the public can register its reaction to the news it sees. They can now say, "I notice" when the evidence isn’t solid or when the same reporter is always anti-whatever, or when the editorial is written by a kook. They can report their observations and draw attention to them, creating a greater degree of accountability with the MSM.

Yes, Dan Rather has had a long and distinguished career. He just happened to get cut down by a new trend in journalism. It may not be fair to Dan, but it’s good for all of us.

 

[kalen]

After finding the article, I'm actually glad he's gone, but probably for completely different reasons:

(CNN) "While my CNN colleagues and my friends in the U.S. military know me well enough to know I have never stated, believed, or suspected that U.S. military forces intended to kill people they knew to be journalists, my comments on this subject in a World Economic Forum panel discussion were not as clear as they should have been."

This guy is a spineless toad. What was he doing at the top of a news organization with such an unquestioning and unsuspecting attitude? Talk about bias.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

This guy is a spineless toad. What was he doing at the top of a news organization with such an unquestioning and unsuspecting attitude? Talk about bias.

I agree. Making a deal with Saddam Hussein to spike news stories that might cast him or his regime in a bad light in return for keeping a news bureau open -- like he did in Cuba, as well -- shows what a spineless. . . .

Oh, wait. You were talking about something different, weren't you?

 

[Skeptic]

Ironically, by the way, Jordan did exactly the same thing "A Unique Person" did in this forum two years ago. In AUP's case, the claim was that israel "deliberately" targets journalists, after a journalist was killed (with all probability) by a stray bullet in a freak accident away from the scene of the battle.