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Sat. Feb 12, 2005

Little Boy Quits, Wolf Blamed

As a followup to Jordan Cries Wolf, I imagine you’ve heard that Eason Jordan has resigned from CNN, afraid that this episode would “tarnish” its image. Which was sort of the point; if a chief news executive is publicly making unsupported statements about stories his company did not run, it does tend to reflect on the company.

However, someone who was there, David Gergen, has this to say: “This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he’s brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water.”

A single mistake. It wasn’t just the single allegation of 12 murders of journalists by the US military, there was this: “[Rep. Barney] Frank said Mr. Jordan discussed in detail the plight of an Al-Jazeera reporter who had been detained by American forces, was made to eat his shoes while incarcerated in the Abu Ghraib prison, and was repeatedly mocked by his interrogators as ‘Al-Jazeera boy.’ A man who said he was a producer with Al-Jazeera at the network’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said he was unaware of any such incident, ‘although we have had problems with American troops in and out of Iraq.’”

And it wasn’t just at the Davos forum, he was spreading similar unbacked charges last November: “‘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.”

So while Mr. Gergen witnessed what he calls “a single mistake,” Mr. Jordan gives the appearance that he’s been making claims similar to this in various public (if “off the record”) forums for some time, without ever providing evidence to back them. If that’s “a single mistake,” it’s at least a three month long one.

But then we get to the blame. It’s those damn bloggers, taking another scalp. Indeed, it’s not hard to find bloggers saying just that, “we scalped another MSM stooge.” But didn’t Mr. Jordan volunteer his resignation, and didn’t his bosses willingly accept it? Weren’t there alternatives to resignation, if this was a singular and grave injustice?

No, Gergen claims it happened because Jordan “is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some.” I guess that’s why Representative Barney Frank, a well known Christian fundamentalist Republican and FoxNews viewer, was so willing to continue discussing the shock he felt when he heard Jordan’s claim. Because he was out to get CNN for being too liberal.

To me, this wasn’t about liberal or conservative. It’s one thing when a Chomsky or Limbaugh makes an outrageous and unfounded claim. They are partisan pundits, who profit from the controversy they generate with their rhetoric. Their unfounded claims should shock no one. But this was about the credibility of the chief executive of perhaps the primary international news organization on the planet, and the fact he’d made statements that made jaws drop. Important jaws.

When Gergen says of the bloggers, “They saw blood in the water,” he’s exactly right. There was blood in the water. And we were amazed the media sharks took so long to be attracted to it.

Because cannibalism is well documented among the media sharks.