Cracks are forming in the MSM's armor plating, and a few rays of light are beginning to peep through.
Howard Kurtz interviews Eason Jordan (I assume they are "old pals") and paints a picture of a trusty newsman whose innocent comments were taken out of context by rabid right-wingers. Kurtz's story appears in the Washington Post. Nice try, Howie, but the sand isn't washing toward your side of the river.
Michelle Malkin has spoken either in person or through representatives to David Gergen, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd. Each has said that Jordan did, in fact, unmistakably accuse the US Military of targeting journalists, then tried to weasel out of his statements when he realized what he had said (and when Gergen and Frank demanded proof). Way to go, Michelle!
The New York Sun and Investor's Business Daily weigh in on the scandal. IBD's conclusion? "It's time for him to go."
Davos officials are still holding up the release of video and official transcripts from the session. I'm not hopeful about this; in fact, I am predicting a mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap. Apparently no one at Davos wants their 2005 conference to be remembered for shoring up support for the American military and bringing down an executive of the American news media.
According to Howard Kurtz, Jordan is compiling a list of suspicious "incidents". This seems strange, since this list can only be used to defend his "targeting" assertions. He attempted to retract those assertions when they were challenged. So which is true, the remarks or their retraction? Don't think about this too long, or you might get a headache.
And finally, no more Jordan updates from me. You can get them from now on at www.easongate.com, if you're still interested.
Why am I writing so much about this? It bothers me, much more than other stories of late. More than Social Security. More than the idiotic article Bill Moyers published. More than Ward Churchill.
It's all about accountability. President Bush was raked over the coals for months because of the infamous "sixteen words" in his 2003 State of the Union address that implied that Saddam had sought to purchase uranium ore from Africa. So far, Jordan's scandalous remarks, made without factual basis, have only garnered scant attention. That's wrong.
If the journalistic standards of accountability can be harshly applied to a public figure because he makes an assertion that turns out to be wrong - even if that assertion was based on the best available knowledge at the time - then shouldn't they be just as harshly applied to a news executive who publically charges the military with murder when only the flimsiest of paranoid conspiratorial evidence exists to legitimize his claims?
If Bush's statements were "lies" made to justify his own ends, then so must we likewise characterize Jordan's statements, which were far more reflective of his own ideology and biases than any actual proof or facts. They were made solely to damage the US Military, not to aid the efforts of reporters covering the war.
(But I'll bet that reporters won't be dogging Eason Jordan for the next two years, trying to coerce him into admitting that he "made mistakes." )
Dan Rather was bad enough. We don't need "liars" like Eason Jordan in charge of our news media.
UPDATE: via Michelle Malkin, a link to an interesting photographic comparison of cameras and shoulder-fired military weapons. The military does own up to the accidental killing of several journalists. Soldiers have accidentally fired on camera-toting reporters, mistakenly identifying them as terrorists shouldering RPG or anti-tank weapons. Look at the photos and see how easy it is to make this mistake. Remember, you have only 1 or 2 seconds to make the call, and your view may be obscured by debris, or your goggles may be dirty, or you may be looking through eye slots in armor or through a periscope. One or two seconds. Make the wrong choice, and you will die. It's never as easy as you think.
UPDATE 2: Gerard Van der Leun writes that the reason the Jordan story has stayed out of the mainstream press (except for the boot-polishing attempts of Howie Kurtz) is that taking down Jordan would likewise result in the destruction of the career of any reporter who attempted to do so. He would be blacklisted as a traiter and his work in journalism would be finished. How many career reporters with editing or executive director aspirations in their future would throw away their life's work in order to expose Jordan? Van der Leun hopes that he is wrong about this. I do to. (courtesy Donald Sensing)
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