Easy-on Eason!
Howie Kurtz's Conflict Is Showing
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005, at 4:07 AM PT
Kurtz Does CNN's Damage Control: If you were worrying that WaPo's conflicted Howie Kurtz would bend over backwards to be tough on his own CNN bosses, you can stop now. Kurtz's article ... well, let's just say that if a p.r. agent or damage control spinner produced a piece designed to try and save CNN exec Eason Jordan's job, it would be the piece Kurtz wrote in the Post today. Why? Here are some of the blatant and subtle pro-Jordan tricks:
1) Witness Protection: Kurtz has Barney Frank recalling Jordan--after he "modified" his shocking remarks--still saying shocking things at Davos about U.S. forces "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger." Kurtz then has Jordan denying this, admitting he "wasn't as clear as I should have been" but saying he "never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalsit" and "[n]ever meant to suggest that." It's Frank vs. Jordan! Then Kurtz says portentously--opening a new paragraph-- "Two other panelists backed Jordan's account."
But one of those panelists, moderator David Gergen, doesn't agree with Jordan. Gergen says Jordan went "too far" and then "walked it back." (Jordan doesn't admit to backtracking, only lack of clarity.) Gergen's account of what happened next dovetails, instead, with Frank's, according to Michelle Malkin (who also interviewed Gergen):
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Gergen said he asked Jordan point blank whether he believed the policy of the U.S. military was to sanction the targeting of journalists. Gergen said Jordan answered no, but then proceeded to speculate about a few incidents involving journalists killed in the Middle East--a discussion which Gergen decided to close down because "the military and the government weren't there to defend themselves."
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Kurtz's other witness is BBC World Services Director Richard Sambrook, in his note to blogger Jay Rosen. Sambrook says Jordan sufficiently "clarified" his comments. He may be right, but he seems to have been Jordan's wing man in the Davos debate and in the ongoing institutional effort to protect journalists in war zones. How do we know he's not just going to bat for "Eason"? Against these two non-airtight witnesses are
a) Rony Abovitz--mentioned in passing by Kurtz only as supporting the proposition that Jordan "backpedaled when challenged," when in fact he is one of the main witnesses against Jordan who criticizes even Jordan's post-backpedaling comments. Abovitz wrote that Jordan at first "asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd)."
Then, according to Abovitz Eason did backpedal and make a number of statements claiming that he really did not know if what he said was true, and that he did not himself believe it. But when pressed by others, he seemed to waver back and forth between what might have been his beliefs and the realization that he had created a kind of public mess. ...[snip ]His statements, his reaction, and the reaction of all in attendance left me perplexed and confused. Many in the crowd, especially those from Arab nations, applauded what he said and called him a "very brave man" for speaking up against the U.S. in a public way amongst a crowd ready to hear anti-US sentiments. I am quite sure that somewhere in the Middle East, right now, his remarks are being printed up in Arab language newspapers as proof that the U.S. is an evil and corrupt nation. [Emph. added]
Abovitz also wrote, in a statement Kurtz doesn't mention: "If the WEF 2005 videotape of this meeting is ever released for public view, it will not help Mr. Jordan at all. "
b) Rebecca MacKinnon--unmentioned by Kurtz-- who says Abovitz's "account is consistent with what I witnessed (though as I've said, I don't have verbatim notes)."
c) Justin Vaiss, apparently uncontacted by Kurtz, who has Jordan blaming "the tone ... set by Donald Rumsfeld" for journalists' deaths and saying that "Many journalists feel that among young American soldiers, many would like to 'do' a journalist in the course of combat." Vaiss has Gergen "taken aback."
d) Sen. Chris Dodd, who says he was "outraged" by Jordan's comments, a quote buried deep in the armpit of Kurtz's piece, perhaps understandably (it smells like political grandstanding).
2) Hide the Videotape: But forget the witnesses. There's a video of this event, initially promised to a blogger but now being kept under wraps by the Davos people. Downplayed eyewitness Abovitz says Jordan "is much better off if the tape (in classic "1984" style) just disappears." Kurtz merely notes in passing that "a videotape of the event has not been made public," but he doesn't put even routine journalistic pressure on the World Economic Forum to release it. If it were a tape of, say, Karl Rove making a remark about future Supreme Court justices, wouldn't a Woodsteinian WaPo reporter raise at least a cynical eyebrow or two about the need for secrecy--asking the Davos officials for an explanation of why they weren't releasing it, or asking Jordan if he'd give his permission to have the video made public? If you wanted to kill the controversy dead, though, you'd do what Kurtz did.
3) The Fallback Spin: Kurtz seems to conclude that if Jordan suggested that the U.S. military deliberately "targeted" journalists (either as a matter of policy or out of anger) and then he "walked it back," as Gergen puts it, then he is basically off the hook. But why? If Jordan made a sensational, unfounded anti-U.S. charge while playing to the anti-U.S. crowd at Davos, does it really save him if he then realized he'd "gone too far" (in Gergen's words) and dialed it back? Did he realize he'd misspoken or just (as Abovitz suggests) that he'd served up more than he could get away with?
4) The Pigeonhole: Kurtz says Jordan's remarks triggered "widespread denunciations ... by conservative bloggers." That's true. But Barney Frank isn't a conservative, and neither is Dodd. (And neither, I'd say, is kausfiles, but we can argue about that offline.) Kurtz's "conservative blogger" paragraph is a dog whistle to WaPo readers telling them "Don't worry. It's just some right-wing Web kooks on the warpath."
5) The Take-home Lesson: Kurtz again signals readers what to think in the kicker, quoting Gergen saying Jordan was "deeply distraught" and "deserves the benefit of the doubt."
I'd agree--if Jordan would first let us see the videotape so we could see what doubt he deserves to have the benefit of. If the tape shows a CNN executive willing to distort the truth in the course of pandering to and inflaming unjustified anti-U.S. sentiment, then I'd say there is more than a benefit of a doubt involved.
Note: We shouldn't rule out the possibility that some of Jordan's charges, as applied to individual U.S. soldiers, are true. I know one journalist, embedded in Iraq, who says he was later physically intimidated and threatened (i.e. temporarily kidnapped) by U.S. military personnel unhappy with what he'd written. He decided not to make a big stink about it. Truth should be an available defense for Jordan.
I'm less concerned about Jordan's job, though than Kurtz's job. Maybe Kurtz is right, and there is no story here. But the point is that nobody trusts Kurtz to tell us this--nobody should trust Kurtz to tell us this--because he is writing about the corporation and the people that give him a TV show and make him rich and famous! (Duh!) ... That's true even if Kurtz sincerely believes the Jordan flap is no big deal--it's especially true if he's sincere, because people subconsciously tend to come to sincere beliefts that just happen to benefit them. It's elementary Ev Psych. There are dozens of subconscious judgments embedded in Kurtz's analysis, and no reason for Post readers to trust any of them. ...
(But at least Kurtz isn't a guy who lectures the rest of the world on conflicts of interest like an "East German figure skating judge!" ... Oh wait! ... )
If Post editor Len Downie--a man who doesn't even vote for fear it will create a conflict of interest!--needed a final good excuse to assign Kurtz to a different beat, he got it today. ... Note to Downie: Who runs your paper? Kurtz? Kaiser? .
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