Powerline - Chris Matthews defends softball [post below from his blog that is written for him]
Chris Matthews exhibits a profound misunderstanding of free speech in this attack on the role of bloggers in the demise of Eason Jordan. Matthews believes that it was unwise "for CNN to provide the enemies of free expression, critical thinking and The First Amendment with a victory" over Jordan due to his "controversial (but hardly blasphemous) statement" that the U.S. military has been targeting journalists in Iraq for death. For good measure, he claims that, during this affair, bloggers showed "all the interest in the truth shown by the Gang of Four."
Matthews never tries to explain how it's inconsistent with free expression, critical thinking, and the First Amendment to call on those who accuse public officials of murder, or a lesser but related charge, to either defend or abandon their allegations. The problem with Jordan's remarks was not that they were controversial or blasphemous, but that he failed to substantiate them. Does Matthews believe that Joseph McCarthy was denied his right to free speech when he was called upon to substantiate his claims that public officials were aiding the Soviet Union, and then censured for his slanderous remarks? Does he believe that the bloggers (including Power Line) that called on Trent Lott to step down due to his remarks at Strom Thurmond's birthday party were acting as enemies of the First Amendment? Surely, Matthews understands that the right to free speech does not carry with it the right to be immune from the consequences of one's speech when the speaker makes unsupported, slanderous remarks (something Senator Lott did not do, by the way).
Matthews appears to have two responses. First, that Jordan's allegations might be true, at least in a toned down form; second, that it's not even clear what Jordan said. As to the first point, Matthews relies on a letter from the Overseas Press Club to Secretary Rumsfeld. But that letter doesn't accuse the U.S. military of deliberately, or negligently, killing any journalists or employees of media outlets. It focuses on the detention and alleged mistreatment of three Reuters employees mistakenly believe to be enemy combatants, and also mentions the death of two CNN employees at the hands of "unidentified assailants," as well the death of a Reuters cameraman who was shot by American troops. Unlike Jordan, the authors of the letter chose their words carefully and made no allegations of wrongdoing in connection with the deaths.
More fundamentally, Matthews fails to mention that Jordan never provided evidence to support either his apparent allegation of deliberate targeting or a toned-down version of that allegation. Thus, it was not bloggers who had no interest in thinking critically about the issue, or in ascertaining the truth. Rather, it was Jordan who refused to advance (or participate in) that debate. In line with MSM complacency, Jordan apparently believed he could put his allegation "out there" to see what damage it might cause without being held accountable. That this immunity from "hardball" no longer exists is a victory for critical thinking and truth-seeking. Matthews should welcome it.
We need not spend much time with Matthews' other argument, that we don't know for sure what Jordan really said. Bloggers made every effort to find out. For example, Matthews' adversary, Michelle Malkin, interviewed David Gergen and Barney Frank, both of whom were eye-witnesses. Bloggers were also the ones calling for the tape of the proceedings to be released. But Jordan and his sympathizers apparently preferred to stonewall. It's that approach, not the actions of the bloggers, that is inconsistent with critical thinking and discovering the truth.
Welcome to Blogistan (Mike Moran)
By now, the blog— and pundit-fueled fire that consumed Eason Jordan, head of newsgathering at CNN, is old news. Jordan's resignation made his head the latest to be mounted on the wall of a nastiest subset of the “Blogosphere:” those who think the Internet's self-publishing technology (and free-wheeling definition of “fairness”) has annointed them as the Taliban of the American media.
So Jordan's head now hangs beside that of Howell Raines and the so-far headless plaque soon to be graced by one Dan Rather. To be sure, bloggers played a different role in these cases – a lesser, more gossipy one in Raines' downfall, a fairly responsible and surprisingly journalistic one in the CBS News scandal (by exposing fraudulent documents).
But this latest instance of demonstrates the dangers of combining the unfettered, unaccountable blogosphere with “main stream” journalism institutions that react slavishly to share prices and are suffering through crises of confidence (ala CNN) or integrity (ala The New York Times and CBS). While it remains unclear if Jordan jumped or was pushed from his Atlantan heights, what is clear is that CNN is a lesser place without him, and the quality of political debate in the United States will likely deteriorate further, as well.
And what of his “crime?” With all the interest in “truth” shown by the Gang of Four, unabashedly partisan bloggers browbeat CNN's senior editorial figure into resigning because of a controversial (but hardly blasphemous) statement he made during in an off-the-record journalism panel. He allegedly (that's a word that we used in journalism to imply that we're not so damned sure of everything) asserted during the Davos panel that the American military had deliberately targeted journalists during the Iraq war.
That probably sounds outrageous to the public, who, thanks to the bang up job the mainstream media has done reporting what happened in Iraq, know little about the still unresolved questions surrounding the precision bombing of al-Jazeera's offices during the war, or the tank rounds fired into the hotel that housed the international press corps in Baghdad. The Overseas Press Club's own demand for an investigation into these incidents, put in a January 2004 letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has received no definitive reply from the Pentagon. From our perspective, this is an open question.
Jordan clarified his remarks afterward. He was wrong, frankly, to use the word deliberate – if, in fact, he did use that word. We don't know yet, any more that we know for certain whether George W. Bush won the Florida election, or whether John Kerry earned each and every decoration on his Navy whites with actual drops of his blue blood.
But should Eason Jordan lose his job for this? Or, to mine the deeper shaft here, was it wise for CNN to provide the enemies of free expression, critical thinking and The First Amendment with a victory on this count? Are they so lost as a network that they abandon basic principles? Is the main stream really now just a trickling tributary that can be diverted with just a few well thrown stones?
It took a former CNN chieftain, Walter Isaacson, to put in words what current group of accountants running the network is too afraid to utter. In an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, former CNN News Group Chairman Walter Isaacson wrote:
"It's ironic that he was brought down partly by talk-show and blogging folks who represent the opposite approach and have seldom . . . ventured out to do . . . frontline reporting."
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? by102fd.bay102.hotmail.msn.com |
