"The piece I challenged should have used the language stated by the witnesses, not some trumped up and spinned version."
Here, trump up, spin & distort this.....
Eyewitness accounts.......
....Rony Arbovitz ....
....I believe that Congressman Frank was dragged into all of this after the fact. Mr. Jordan gave us all a monologue that evolved from his personal experiences in Iraq about this idea of U.S. soldiers targeting U.S. and foreign journalists. I first challenged Mr. Jordan, and then moderator David Gergen (of Harvard's JFK School of Government) brought Frank in as a member of the U.S. government to respond to claims that shocked all of us. I remember Gergen in particular being flabbergasted and disturbed to a very high degree by Mr. Jordan's statements. Congressman Frank told the audience that his briefings indicated that all the journalists killed to date in Iraq were due to "collateral damage". Jordan disagreed, and gave us an example of U.S. soldiers deliberately shelling a hotel in Iraq which was known to all as a haven for journalists covering both sides of the war. Congressman Frank was pretty much a bystander being dragged into all of it.....
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....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)."....
....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)."....
....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."...
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But several others who were in the room, including Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, told The Herald that Abovitz's account was essentially correct.
''It sounded as if [Jordan] was saying the killings had been deliberate,'' said Frank, who was part of the panel. ``I sat up, and I said, `That's very troubling to me, I feel an obligation to act on this.'
'He answered, `I'm not saying this is American military policy.' And my recollection is that he next said that American military personnel had deliberately shot at journalists and not been punished.''
Frank said he asked Jordan whether he was talking about cases of mistaken identity or itchy trigger fingers ''in the heat of battle,'' and Jordan said no.
After the panel, Frank said he pressed for more details. 'I called [Jordan] and said, `If you think there are cases where American military personnel killed reporters and weren't disciplined, I want to know, and [Congress] will take action,' '' Frank said. ''He said he'd get back to me.'' But Jordan called only after the controversy surfaced, Frank said, and then to say he had been misunderstood.
Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, who was in the audience, also agreed with Abovitz's account and ''was outraged by the comments.'' A spokeswoman for David Gergen, the U.S. News & World Report editor who chaired the panel, said that Gergen also felt Abovitz's report was generally accurate.
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....Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who attended the World Economic Forum panel at which Jordan spoke, recalled yesterday that Jordan said he knew of 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq. At first, said Frank, "it sounded like he was saying it was official military policy to take out journalists." But Jordan later "modified" his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger. . . . He did say he was talking about cases of deliberate killing," Frank said.....
....What Kurtz missed in all that background was any mention of Jordan's earlier comments in Portugal at the News Xchange forum last November. Kurtz wants to pass this off as a mistake in word choices when Jordan's earlier accusations of US military personnel capturing and torturing journalists shows that his Davos comments weren't simply a lack of rhetorical clarity. Kurtz also missed this earlier accusation of the Israelis targeting journalists from October 2002, again showing that Jordan has a pattern of making these accusations without any substantiation.....
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....Rececca MacKinnon organized the Kennedy School conference on bloggers and journalism a couple of weeks ago....
Q: First, was Rony's account "accurate" in the sense that it would have been a responsible filing from any journalist working for, say, a big paper?
A: ... So to answer your question: yes, Rony's initial blog post was "accurate" in the sense that several of us in the room have corroborated his account.
Q: Did Mr. Jordan offer the idea that American military forces had "targeted" journalists before Representative Frank entered the conversation?
A: My recollection is that he did.
Q: Q: Rony believes that David Gergen was distressed by Mr. Jordan's remarks. Do you agree with that characterization?
A: Yes I agree with that characterization.
Q: Do you recall Mr. Jordan receiving praise from members of the audience for his candor, and if so, were those audience members American? European? Arab?
A: There were definitely some people in the audience who liked what he said, and others who didn't. I don't remember specifically.
Q: Is the blogopshere being "fair" to Mr. Jordan? Ought he to give an interview to one or more bloggers who are pursuing this story?
A: ... Jordan said something in a public on-the-record forum that he clearly regretted saying. There are really two questions here: First, what did he really say? That's going to get cleared up soon enough. The second more interesting question is: what does he really believe? Clearly he is frustrated and angry at the way in which the U.S. military deals with (or fails to protect) non-embedded journalists in Iraq. Why? Does his anger and frustration have any justification?....
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....Just got off the phone with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who spoke with me about Easongate. Rep. Frank was on the panel at Davos.
Rep. Frank said Eason Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military. After Jordan made the statement, Rep. Frank said he immediately "expressed deep skepticism." Jordan backed off (slightly), Rep. Frank said, "explaining that he wasn't saying it was the policy of the American military to target journalists, but that there may have been individual cases where they were targeted by younger personnel who were not properly disciplined."....
....I asked Rep. Frank again if his recollection was that Jordan initially maintained that the military had a deliberate policy of targeting journalists. Rep. Frank affirmed that, noting that Jordan subsequently backed away orally and in e-mail that it was official policy, but "left open the question" of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.....
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....Michelle Malkin scores coup #2 this afternoon with an interview of David Gergen, one of the forum moderators at Davos and the one who reportedly shut down the debate after Eason Jordan accused the US military of deliberately targeting journalists for assassination. Gergen verifies what Barney Frank, Rony Arbovitz, and Rebecca MacKinnon have already said about Jordan's comments:
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First, Gergen confirmed that Eason Jordan did in fact initially assert that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military "on both sides." Gergen, who has known Jordan for some 20 years, told me Jordan "realized as soon as the words had left his mouth that he had gone too far" and "walked himself back." Gergen said as soon as he heard the assertion that journalists had been deliberately targeted, "I was startled. It's contrary to history, which is so far the other way. Our troops have gone out of their way to protect and rescue journalists." ....
....UPDATE: Senator Chris Dodd hasn't directly spoken with Michelle Malkin, but she did get this response from his spokesman:
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"Senator Dodd was not on the panel but was in the audience when Mr. Jordan spoke. He – like panelists Mr. Gergen and Mr. Frank – was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel."
>>>
That's four people who heard it the way Rony Arbovitz reported it, two of them liberal politicians who probably don't have much of an axe to grind against CNN or Eason Jordan.....
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Justin Vaisse, a French-speaking blogger, was present during Eason Jordan's remarks at Davos. Rodger has the scoop:
<<<
Here's a translation by Mick Stockinger of UNCoRRELATED:
It must be said that Eason Jordan, one of the star journalists of CNN, didn't mince words in declaring that the intentions of journalists in Iraq were never perceived as neutral and that they were made deliberate targets by both sides.
Called on to clarify his statement, he said that outside of deaths attributed to rebels, 12 journalists, including Americans, were killed by the American army, not by deliberate attack, but in the context of a hostile climate towards the press, where the tone was set by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Many journalists feel that among young American soldiers, many would like to "do" a journalist in the course of combat.....
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....Rodger Morrow, of the blog "This isn’t writing, it’s typing" sheds some light on Witness #8, Bernard Rappaz, a correspondent for Geneva-based Télévision Suisse Romande.
The surprise came from the chief of CNN, Eason Jordan, who recalled that out of the 45 journalists killed in Iraq since the beginning of bombat [sic], 12 were killed by American troops. He added: "No investigation has been opened by the Pentagon into these blunders. In Iraq, journalists are now targeted by insurgents and … by occupation forces."
Astonishing statement.
>>>
Rodger reports the following:
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The fact that Rappaz' blog entry includes a direct quotation suggests that he was taking notes during the session.....
....Bret Stephens was also in attendence and writes about it in the Wall Street Journal:
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Mr. Jordan observed that of the 60-odd journalists killed in Iraq, 12 had been targeted and killed by coalition forces. He then offered a story of an unnamed Al-Jazeera journalist who had been "tortured for weeks" at Abu Ghraib, made to eat his shoes, and called "Al-Jazeera boy" by his American captors....
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Eason Jordan in Portugal, November 19, 2004....
Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities.
"Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.
Mr Jordan highlighted the case of al-Arabiya journalist Abdel Kader al-Saadi, who was arrested in Falluja last week by US forces and remains in their custody even though no reason has yet been given for his detention.
"These actions and the fact that no one has been reprimanded would indicate that no one is taking responsibility. We hear good words but not the actions to back them up," he added.
guardian.co.uk
Charles at Little Green Footballs notes that Jordan was not the only CNN exec to make accusations of targeting at this conference:
And please note: *this is not limited to Eason Jordan.* At the same News Xchange conference in Portugal, -another- CNN executive, Chris Cramer, told an audience that journalists were being "deliberately targeted for seeking out the truth."
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