Patterico's Pontifications

2/14/2005

More Reflections on Eason Jordan

Filed under: General,Media Bias — Patterico @ 10:11 pm



Like Jay Rosen, I am not particularly happy that Eason Jordan resigned over his Davos comments.

Jay is unhappy because he believes that “it is an outcome unjust on its face, based on what I know.”

I am unhappy for a similar but not identical reason, which Jay also expresses in his post:

Neither the public overlooking this sad event, nor the participants in it know why Eason Jordan quit. No reasons have been given, beyond saving CNN the trouble of a controversy.

In other words, we don’t know the truth.

Journalism — and the blogosphere — are supposed to be about the truth. And I don’t know what the truth is about Jordan’s comments. There are too many conflicting reports.

The fact that there apparently exists a tape that could settle this whole controversy — and the fact that we are unlikely to see it — should frustrate anyone interested in the truth.

I join the chorus of those who caution against gathering scalps in the absence of a revelation that justifies it. I don’t know if we have such a revelation yet. As Glenn Reynolds said on Friday (and I agreed), Jordan’s resignation certainly suggests that the tape would provide such a revelation. But, upon further reflection, I must admit that this is only an educated guess — one which may be wrong. We just don’t know. And we should.

So I’m not satisfied. And I won’t be until we know the truth.

5 Responses to “More Reflections on Eason Jordan”

  1. For all we know, Jordan had detractors at CNN who used this as a mallet. Straw/camel, etc.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  2. What the Davos tape still won’t tell us about Eason Jordan’s ouster
    Further to my previous musings about the proximate cause(s) of Eason Jordan’s departure from CNN: I agree with, for example, Patterico (as one among many) that we know very little about the real reasons that CNN ousted Eason Jordon.

    BeldarBlog (af7df9)

  3. I’m more than unsatisfied. I have been vaguely unsettled and chilled over this whole affair. There are a number disturbing and and fairly scary implications about the nature of the press in this whole affair. I’m not certain I can even articulate them properly.

    I knew Dan Rather was a hack. But this is more chilling to me. It has braod and unsettling implications about who runs what and what kind of information we are getting. I never cared to much about whether or not he got fired. If it were me, I woulda fired him cause it would be a slap in the face that he is incompetent, but that’s there decision.

    I mean even publications on the other side said jack poop when an executive for a major news outlet essentially committed a cardinal sin of journalism in addition to making rather horrible accusations towards his own countrymen.

    The whole thing stinks.

    ctob (1fba19)

  4. …join the chorus of those who caution against gathering scalps in the absence of a revelation that justifies it. I don’t know if we have such a revelation yet.

    Are you kidding? Not justified? Jason Blair and others are (rightly) fired in disgrace for fabrications which did no actual harm to any but themselves and their employers. On the other hand Jordan practically brags about suppressing news of the horrors perpetrated by Sadaam and yet his “resignation” remains short of justification? He implies or states in journalistic circles on multiple occasions that U.S. forces have targeted and/or tortured journalists without providing any evidence for substantiation, but his “resignation” now is somehow unjustified because we haven’t seen the tape of his latest false charges? Could anything on that tape provide more justification for loss of his position than the already available, and undeniable,evidence?

    Justice wasn’t denied him. In fact, it simply caught up with him.

    Of course, justice is only partial as long as he and CNN are able to continue the embargo on truth — a policy he established and his company followed through the whole of his leadership.

    Levans (ae5770)

  5. As I suggest in my next post, if he were to resign for anything, it should be for what you describe in your first complaint.

    Patterico (756436)


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