Boy, I take yesterday afternoon off from reading and blogging to celebrate my birthday and miss the big story — Eason Jordan quits! I caught up with it this AM in the LATimes, way back on page 9 of the “A” section, guess the Tribune Co. doesn’t feel like the #2 man at CNN, resigning over his remarks made in Davos, Switzerland that the U.S. military has “targeted” and “assassinated” journalists in Iraq, qualifies as “page 1″ news. If memory served me correctly, the LATimes had been avoiding this story completely, as I hadn’t seen any mention of it until today, but I decided to do a search on LATimes.com to be sure. Yep, only two stories, the first from last night announcing Jordan’s quitting, and the second from today’s edition with minimally-expanded information. At least they do mention the bloggers.

Also, a website called Easongate.com, featuring the executive’s corporate portrait on its home page, offered a clearing-house of criticism related to Jordan’s statements. The website linked to 25 other sites in its “Blogroll,” with mainstream columnists such as Roger L. Simon and more obscure bloggers such as “Red State Rant” and “Winds of Change.”

A statement posted on Easongate.com on Friday boasted of the website’s success in prompting Jordan’s resignation.

“To every reader, commentator, emailer and blogger that committed to this cause, thank you,” the statement said. “This is a victory for every soldier who has honorably served this nation.”

Reading both of these stories, you get the feeling that this was the first the LATimes had heard of it, and they really didn’t know what to think about it. Hugh Hewitt does know what to think and said on his blog yesterday:

In Thursday’s WeeklyStandard.com column I detailed how the blogs beat MSM on the story like a bongo drum. At this hour, if you type “Eason Jordan” into the search engine of the Los Angeles Times, there will be no matches. None. The Times is not alone in having utterly failed its readers. A senior news executive has been forced to resign from an international news powerhouse for remarks he made about the military, the story is two weeks old, and the “paper of record” of the West Coast does not have story on it in its archives, which probably means no stories at all, though search engines do sometimes fail.

The Times is not alone for demonstrating again a “news judgment” hopelessly skewed by liberal bias. Some big papers got a “just-in-time” treatment of the story into their pages, but most of those gave no hint that a real opinion storm had developed around Jordan, and none of them pushed the story along. It was new media’s work, and only new media’s that brought accountability to Eason Jordan and CNN.

More bloggers had lots more to say, especially the blog set up specifically to disseminate information on this issue, Easongate.com.

The Price of Slander

Eason Jordan has officially resigned as executive vice president and chief news executive of CNN. The Staff of Easongate.com is pleased with Mr. Jordan taking responsibility for his actions and statements. However we still feel the World Economic Forum should release the tape of the Davos conference forthwith to settle this matter. A cloud will hang over this issue until the tape is viewed to confirm what has been reported in this affair. … “

La Shawn Barber, an early collector of links and info tidbits on the EJ affair, gives yesterday evening’s time line of EJ news releases and links and also had this to say:

Readers speculate that there’s more to this story, too. CNN decided to cut its losses for a reason. Another reader notes that Jordan announced his resignation after the news cycle, but there’s no such thing in the Blogosphere. Bloggers were the momentum behind this story, and don’t ever let anybody convince you they (we) weren’t.

In her retrospective on the entire event, Michelle Malkin espouses the new found power of the blogs:

For those of us in the information business, this is truly an earth-shaking time. Who would have imagined that the downfall of one of the world’s most powerful news executives would be precipitated by an ordinary citizen blogging his eyewitness report at Davos in the wee hours of the morning on Jan. 27? It’s simply stunning. … “

The Deacon at Powerline remarks that even with the story finally broken by the MSM, they still can’t — don’t — won’t(?) get it right:

The AP can’t resist getting this part of the story wrong:

But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up.

Actually, of course, the videotape “turned up,” but the Davos folks decided to keep it under wraps, apparently in an effort to help Jordan. Jordan’s problem wasn’t confusion about what he said; his problem was CNN’s inability to create confusion about what he said.

You may not have heard it here first, but you did hear it here. On February 7, I wrote: “This story is playing out in excruciatingly slow motion, but the ending has already been written: Eason Jordan is finished.”

And finally, but surely not least, Captain Ed @ Captain’s Quarters is still looking for some mention of Jordan’s quitting by the “Big Three” television networks:

Big Three Network Coverage Of Eason Jordan’s Resignation (Cue Crickets)

More than fourteen hours after the resignation of CNN’s chief news executive Eason Jordan for his unsubstantiated allegations of deliberate murder and torture against journalists by the US military, I decided to check if the Big Three broadcast networks had finally decided to cover the story. The result disappoints but does not surprise me at all. … “

The Captain also joins in on the fun and castigates the LATimes for its lack of coverage these past two weeks and has a lot more Eason Jordan information here, here & here.

That’s one down and gone — One more to go! Ward Churchill, you’re next! (db)

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 12th, 2005 at 9:09 am and is filed under Focus On Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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