WHY THE EASON JORDAN COMMENTS MATTER
TKS [jim geraghty reporting]
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[02/03 01:02 PM]
TKS reader B.J. thinks the Eason Jordan comments are a tempest in a teapot:
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Maybe news organizations haven't covered Eason Jordan's comments not because they are "biased", but because the public doesn't care about what some executive at a cable network said.
...Members of the press (which includes you and more odious transgressors such as Howard Kurtz, who seems to be wasting perfectly good reporting skills on this inside-baseball [stuff]) prattling about what each other said and what they're doing and (in this case) what they're bosses are doing and what should be done about Dan Rather and is Fox too "conservative" and CBS too "liberal", and blah, blah, blah.
I want to know stuff that matters. What is actually happening in Iraq and in the halls of power? What is happening in baseball? What is the weather going to be tomorrow? How's the economy? Is there a problem with the brakes on GM trucks? What is Bush proposing re Social Security and what does it mean?
Who gives a rat's [tush] about what a CNN, PBS, Fox News, ABC executive said about anything? I'm perfectly willing to assume that everyone who runs Fox and CNN and CBS is a blithering, traitorous, felonious idiot, or a righteous, saintly, objective, fair, patriotic genius - take your pick. And I can't fathom a single reason why I should possibly care in the least. I don't own stock in any of these companies and am not an employee. If I don't like what they say on television I have a perfectly good channel clicker, can go to the corner and buy a newspaper or magazine, can turn on my computer and click to any of a million websites or can go to a bar and listen to local news provided by gossips.
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Sorry, B.J., but I have to disagree. First, let's note that Eason Jordan isn't just "some executive," he's chief news executive of CNN and chairs the CNN Editorial Board. In other words, he's one of the most powerful voices in deciding what goes into the making of the news at CNN.
Two, if U.S. soldiers were deliberately targeting and killing journalists in Iraq, it would be an unparalleled outrage. And a huge news story. As Rony said, it would make the Abu Ghraib scandal look like a tea party. And the U.S. military would deserve that outrage. Unless you've got solid evidence that a reporter is no longer a noncombatant and is engaging in helping the enemy (say, spotting targets for snipers or something), there is no justification for killing journalists.
If the initial accounts are correct, Jordan made a stunning accusation. He produced no evidence to support that accusation. If he doesn't have the evidence, he ought to retract the accusation and apologize.
What's sticking in my craw is... if he said what he is reported to have said, Jordan's statement is a fantastic propoganda and recruitment tool for al-Qaeda. Imagine what Zarqawi's recruiters can do with it. "Even the head of CNN says that American soldiers are murderers and thugs, targeting and killing reporters if they speak the truth of the American invasion!"
Many accounts, including Jay Nordlinger's, indicated that a lot of high-profile Americans were willing to criticize their country — not just the Bush administration, but the American people themselves — in order to get applause from the worldwide elites at Davos. That's irritating and sickening enough. But for some news guy to make false accusations about the U.S. military in order to get some rah-rahs from the America-haters... well, that's unconscionable.
And if it's true, CNN ought to replace him. Those kind of lies and rumormongering shouldn't come out of the mouth of a news executive before an important audience. There's just no excuse.
Let's see a videotape! |
