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CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits
Fri Feb 11, 6:59 PM ET
By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq (news - web sites).
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.
During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum (news - web sites) last month, Jordan said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.
He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.
"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.
But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up. There was an online petition calling on CNN to find a transcript, and fire Jordan if he said the military had intentionally killed journalists.
Kathianne said:
dilloduck said:and another bites the dust.--------------Queen :teeth:
musicman said:It was the tape or this, indeed. There are times when I truly dare to hope - when the dulcet tones of sanity wash over me like summer rain. This is one of those times.
Take a bow, Kathianne. Take a BUNCH of bows! I'd have never even KNOWN about this if it weren't for you. We are America - diligent, defiant blogger and grateful, wiser citizen - in microcosm.
musicman said:It was the tape or this, indeed. There are times when I truly dare to hope - when the dulcet tones of sanity wash over me like summer rain. This is one of those times.
Take a bow, Kathianne. Take a BUNCH of bows! I'd have never even KNOWN about this if it weren't for you. We are America - diligent, defiant blogger and grateful, wiser citizen - in microcosm.
You are right, Kathianne. The game is changing. Without the blogs, Eason would still be working at CNN, and his anti-US military mindset would still be directing the CNN insurgent bombing campaign television show. The blogs targeted Eason, and they took him out.Kathianne said:LOL! The MSM 'stars' just can't seem to get that the game is changing. Truth to tell, he did seem to realize he had put the foot in the mouth and tried backing up, problem is he believed what he was saying, without proof of any sort. He was happy to take the kudos from the Europeans and Muslims present, who also wanted to believe his story.
Now if he had come out and said that he was sorry, he got caught up and wasn't thinking-but the implications were wrong and slanderous, for which again he was very sorry, he'd probably still have a job.
Funniest thing, how does CNN deal with a 'scandal resignation' they haven't reported on? :teeth:
onedomino said:You are right, Kathianne. The game is changing. Without the blogs, Eason would still be working at CNN, and his anti-US military mindset would still be directing the CNN insurgent bombing campaign television show. The blogs targeted Eason, and they took him out.
http://www.e-nough.hmdnsgroup.com/Gosh, I love the smell of fresh blog-kill in the morning.
onedomino said:
SITTING BULL-S***
February 9, 2005
QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN ANN
If Ward Churchill loses his job teaching at the University of Colorado, he could end up giving Howard Dean a real run for his money to head the Democratic National Committee.
Churchill already has a phony lineage and phony war record just like John Kerry! (Someone should also check out Churchill's claim that he spent Christmas 1968 at Wounded Knee.) In 1983, Churchill met with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and later felt it necessary to announce that his group, the American Indian Movement, "has not requested arms from the Libyan government." In 1997, he was one of the "witnesses" who spoke at a "Free Mumia" event in Philadelphia on behalf of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Come to think of it, Churchill could give Hillary a run for her money. All that's left for Churchill to do now is meet with Al Sharpton and kiss Suha Arafat.
Churchill's claim that he is an Indian isn't an incidental boast, like John Kerry pretending to be Irish. It is central to his career, his writing, his political activism. Churchill has been the co-director of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, the vice chairperson of the American Indian "Anti-Defamation" Council, and an associate professor and coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado.
By Churchill's own account, a crucial factor in his political development was "being an American Indian referred to as 'chief' in a combat unit" in Vietnam, which made him sad. This is known to con men everywhere as a "two-fer."
In addition to an absence of evidence about his Indian heritage, there is an absence of evidence that he was in combat in Vietnam. After the POW Network revealed that Churchill had never seen combat, he countered with this powerful argument: "They can say whatever the hell they want. That's confidential information, and I've never ordered its release from the Department of Defense. End of story." Maybe we should ask John Kerry to help Churchill fill out a form 180.
In one of his books, "Struggle for the Land," Churchill advances the argument that one-third of America is the legal property of Indians. And if you believe Churchill is a real Indian, he also happens to be part owner of the Brooklyn Bridge.
In his most famous oeuvre, the famed 9/11 essay calling the 9/11 World Trade Center victims "little Eichmanns," he said "Arab terrorists" his quotes had simply "responded to the massive and sustained American terror bombing of Iraq" by giving Americans "a tiny dose of their own medicine."
Having blurted out "Iraq" in connection with 9/11 in a moment of pique, Churchill had to backpedal when the anti-war movement needed to argue that Iraq had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Arab terrorism. He later attached an "Addendum" to the essay saying that the 9/11 attack was not only payback for Iraq, but also for various other of this country's depredations especially against "real Indians" (of which he is not one).
In light of the fact that Churchill's entire persona, political activism, curriculum vitae, writings and university positions are based on his claim that he's an Indian, it's rather churlish of him to complain when people ask if he really is one. But whenever he is questioned about his heritage, Churchill rails that inquiries into his ancestry are "absolutely indefensible."
Churchill has gone from claiming he is one-eighth Indian "on a good day" to claiming he is "three-sixteenths Cherokee," to claiming he is one-sixty-fourth Cherokee through a Revolutionary War era ancestor named Joshua Tyner. (At least he's not posing as a phony Indian math professor.) A recent investigation by The Denver Post revealed that Tyner's father was indeed married to a Cherokee. But that was only after Joshua's mother - and Churchill's relative - was scalped by Indians.
By now, all that's left of Churchill's claim to Indian ancestry is his assertion: "It is just something that was common knowledge in my family." (That, and his souvenir foam-rubber "tommyhawk" he bought at Turner Field in Atlanta.)
Over the years, there were other subtle clues the university might have noticed.
Churchill is not in the tribal registries kept since the 1800s by the federal government.
No tribe will enroll him - a verification process Churchill dismisses as "poodle papers" for Indians.
In 1990, Churchill was forced to stop selling his art as "Indian art" under federal legislation sponsored by then-representative and actual Indian! Ben Nighthorse Campbell, that required Indian artists to establish that they are accepted members of a federally recognized tribe. Churchill responded by denouncing the Indian artist who had exposed him. (Hey, does anybody need 200 velvet paintings of Elvis playing poker with Crazy Horse?)
In the early '90s, he hoodwinked an impecunious Cherokee tribe into granting him an "associate membership" by telling them he "wrote some books and was a big-time author." A tribal spokeswoman explained: He "convinced us he could help our people." They never heard from him again yet another treaty with the Indians broken by the white man. Soon thereafter, the tribe stopped offering "associate memberships."
A decade ago, Churchill was written up in an article in News From Indian Country, titled, "Sovereignty and Its Spokesmen: The Making of an Indian." The article noted that Churchill had claimed membership in a scrolling series of Indian tribes, but over "the course of two years, NFIC hasn't been able to confirm a single living Indian relative, let alone one real relative that can vouch for his tribal descent claim."
When real Indians complained to Colorado University in 1994 that a fake Indian was running their Indian Studies program, a spokeswoman for the CU president said the university needed "to determine if the position was designated for a Native American. And I can't answer that right now." Apparently it was answered in Churchill's favor since he's still teaching.
If he's not an Indian, it's not clear what Churchill does have to offer a university. In his book, "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present," Churchill denounces Jews for presuming to imagine the Holocaust was unique. In the chapter titled "Lie for Lie: Linkages between Holocaust Deniers and Proponents of the Uniqueness of the Jewish Experience in World War II," Churchill calls the Third Reich merely "a crystallization" of Christopher Columbus' ravages of his people (if he were an Indian).
His research apparently consisted of watching the Disney movie "Pocahontas," which showed that the Indians meant the European settlers no harm. (That's if you don't count the frequent scalpings.)
Even the credulous Nation magazine - always on red alert for tales of government oppression - dismissed Churchill's 1988 book "Agents of Repression" about Cointelpro-type operations against the American Indian Movement, saying the book "does not give much new information" and "even a reader who is inclined to believe their allegations will want more evidence than they provide." If The Nation won't buy your anti-U.S. government conspiracy theories, Kemosabe, it's probably time to pack up the old teepee and hit the trail of tears.
In response to the repeated complaints from Indians that a phony Indian was running CU's Indian Studies program, Churchill imperiously responded: "Guess what that means, guys? I'm not taking anyone's job, there wouldn't be an Indian Studies program if I wasn't coordinating it. ... They won't give you a job just because you have the paper." This white man of English and Swiss-German descent apparently believes there are no actual Indians deserving of his position at CU. (No wonder the Indians aren't crazy about him.)
As long as we're all agreed that there are some people who don't deserve jobs at universities, why isn't Churchill one of them?
links at site:Kurtz Still Doesn't Cover The Whole Story
Not even the resignation of Eason Jordan will deter Howard Kurtz from minimizing the importance of his Davos remarks and ignoring Jordan's earlier slanders altogether. Kurtz reacts to Jordan's exit with yet another "misunderstanding" over the Davos forum effort, this time enlisting David Gergen to carry his water (via Michelle Malkin and La Shawn Barber):
Gergen said last night that Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his original comments. "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."
Note to Kurtz and Gergen -- please review these remarks, made by Eason Jordan last November in the News Xchange forum in Portugal:
Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities."
"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.
They could also check out this quote about the Israeli military, from an Eason Jordan interview at the News Xchange forum in October 2002 (NG is Nik Gowing):
NG: Eason, why do you think you've been targeted specifically, I mean there are Israeli bumper stickers that say 'CNN lies', the Israeli communications minister talked about CNN as being 'evil, biased and unbalanced' you'll be familiar with all these quotes?
EJ: Absolutely, well the Israeli government is making a mistake if it considers CNN the enemy, CNN is just trying to tell the story of Israel, the story of Palestinian areas in a straightforward way. We're not trying to favour one side over the other we're not going to pull any punches in our reporting but the truth hurts sometimes and it hurts both sides but it's a mistake to target the news media. We've had enormous frustrations in having access to occupied areas of the West Bank and Israeli forces on a number of occasions have shot at CNN personnel and in fact did shoot one CNN correspondent, he was badly wounded. The Israelis say they're actually trying to restrict our access to these areas and they say it's too dangerous for you to be there and my response to that is that it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if you didn't shoot at us when we're clearly labelled as CNN crews and journalists. And so this must stop, this targeting of the news media both literally and figuratively must come to an end immediately.
For Gergen and Kurtz to continue their deathgrip on the fallacy that Davos represents a single slip of the tongue on Jordan's part only demonstrates either their complete inability to research the topic, or their complete disinclination to do so. Jordan has made several thinly-veiled references to US and Israeli assassination policies towards journalists, apparently buying completely into Nik Gowing's unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Jordan's mistake this time was to get too blunt about his hostility towards the American military and his failure to substantiate his charges.
Kurtz does a better job of reporting the lack of media coverage of the issue, making Jordan's resignation a bit difficult to explain to media consumers:
Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of "defamatory innuendo," and the Associated Press moved a story. As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC.
One supposes that the editors of all the silent outlets have some tapdancing to do with their viewers and/or readers to explain how the chief operations executive of CNN had to resign over remarks about which they know nothing, thanks to their favorite news shows and papers. At least Kurtz reported on the subject ... once.
EASONGATE: A RETROSPECTIVE
By Michelle Malkin · February 11, 2005 10:56 PM
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 courage of Rony Abovitz cannot be overstated. This ordinary American citizen raised his voice at an international forum of media and political heavyweights--also attended by Europe's most influential America-haters--and demanded that Eason Jordan back up his poisonous assertion about the American military targeting journalists. Abovitz's remarks prompted Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to press Jordan for details. Abovitz also received thanks from Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for standing up. After the event, Abovitz bypassed the MSM and exposed the controversy with a simple click of the mouse.
Fellow attendee/former CNN journalist/blogger Rebecca MacKinnon confirmed Abovitz's account, fielded questions from Hugh Hewitt, and added reporting with her e-mail exchange with Jordan.
From there, a few standout bloggers picked up on the story and refused to let it die. The MSM calls it a lynch mob. I call it a truth squad. Ed Morrissey, Hewitt, La Shawn Barber, Jim Geraghty, and LGF kept "baying"--which got the attention of the blogosphere's most powerful player, Instapundit. Bill Roggio quickly created the group blog, Easongate, to keep on top of the story. Legions of smaller bloggers, too numerous to mention, kept the heat on. N.Z. Bear pitched in with a helpful Easongate tracker...
Actually, given his original comments, it is not a high enough price to pay. This guy should be hauled into court, or before a congressional hearing, and made to reveal his evidence. He literally accused the US military of murdering (tatgeting) journalists. I would like to know how deep into CNN Eason's anti-US military bias extends. CNN needs to clean out more of the house than just Eason.Kathianne said:Gergen said last night that Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his original comments. "This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years.
onedomino said:Actually, given his original comments, it is not a high enough price to pay. This guy should be hauled into court, or before a congressional hearing, and made to reveal his evidence. He literally accused the US military of murdering (tatgeting) journalists. I would like to know how deep into CNN Eason's anti-US military bias extends. CNN needs to clean out more of the house than just Eason.
Crossing The Jordan: What Comes Next After Eason Gets Eased Out?
Now that CNN has solved its Eason Jordan problem, at least for the moment, the next question we must ask is who takes his place. One of the candidates for Jordan's job, especially considering the importance of its international service, has to be Chris Cramer, currently president of CNN International. Jordan lured Cramer away from the BBC several years ago, and judging from Cramer's public statements, a shared revulsion of Western militaries formed part of the mutual attraction. Cramer may receive less scrutiny than Jordan, but his track record looks remarkably similar.
Several instances appear in my CNN category. For instance, Cramer gave this speech to the International News Safety Institute in November 2003, recommending in emotional terms a book by Nik Gowing called Dying To Tell The Story, a book which alleges a deliberate policy of assassinating journalists by the US military as a means of removing accountability from the battlefield. Cramer said this:
I want to commend to you the very sad, very traumatic and very important book which INSI has backed from the start.
Its a first of its kind.
A detailed tribute to each and every one of our colleagues who died or went missing.
Important contributions from the freelance community.
From the security industry.
From Nik Gowing on the worrying trend of journalists who died at the hands of the coalition - in the crossfire - through screw ups - however you want to portray it.
"However you want to portray it" appears to be Cramer's motto for news management. Last September, in an interview with Businessworld India, Cramer continued his strange and completely unsupported allegations:
But the profession is in trouble. Around the world, there is scepticism about journalists. Some even want them killed. This year more than 60 journalists have died in Iraq and we are just into August. ...
There is no alchemy involved in accessing news. People can find it themselves. So what you offer them is your version. Plus, the Hutton Enquiry and some incidents in the US show bad journalism. So trust is down.
Cramer has a long and strange relationship with the British military as well. In 1980, a group of purportedly Iranian terrorists took over the Iranian embassy in London, capturing 23 hostages -- including BBC reporter Chris Cramer and his partner, soundman Sim Harris. Cramer faked a heart attack to get the terrorists to throw him out of the embassy the next day, but five days later the terrorists killed one of the remaining hostages. After the British commando team SAS debriefed Cramer, they stormed the embassy and killed all but one of the terrorists while saving 19 of the remaining 21 hostages. Operation Nimrod is widely considered one of the most successful counterterrorism operations in recent history.
Instead of being grateful for the SAS rescuing his partner -- who pointed out the sixth terrorist to the SAS as the Iranian/Iraqi attempted to hide among the freed hostages -- Cramer described the SAS in terms that sounds unsettlingly familiar to those who monitor radical leftists:
And I was released after 27 hours into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in London and two days later into a dreadful bunch of terrorists called the SAS, who were probably worse than the terrorists inside the Iranian embassy.
And four and a half days later, Maggie Thatcher, in one of her rare moments of triumph, deployed the SAS in broad daylight to storm the embassy and they rescued all but maybe one or two of the hostages. Two were murdered. The SAS conveniently took out five members of the terrorist group and forgot to take out the sixth. So that was my brief, humbling experience
Chris Cramer has just as much antipathy towards Western military organizations as Eason Jordan, and his public statements also show the same lack of restraint and substantiation as the erstwhile news chief. If CNN selects Cramer to succeed Jordan as president, then we have gained nothing. CNN needs to clean house at the highest levels and ask Cramer to follow Jordan out of CNN's executive offices.
We will watch their next move. We will not allow yet another serial slanderer to take charge of a major news organization without setting the record straight.
UPDATE: Rebecca MacKinnon looks at the future of media-military relations.
onedomino said:Cramer seems even worse than Eason. Amazing! Thanks for the info.
onedomino said:You are right, Kathianne. The game is changing. Without the blogs, Eason would still be working at CNN, and his anti-US military mindset would still be directing the CNN insurgent bombing campaign television show. The blogs targeted Eason, and they took him out.
Eason Jordan affair: when bloggers appear as the sons of Senator McCarthy
Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers than the defense of reporters' work (and sometimes life)! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the "sons of the First Amendment", they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy. And this is very worrying to see this new wedding between self-proclaimed citizen's media and maintstream journalists scalps' hunters. Fifty years ago, it was enough to be communist to be fired, today, it is enough to raise questions about the Bush administration policy in Iraq to be denounced as "anti-American". Maybe the only difference is that you are not fired, but that you must dismiss! What's my conclusion? Real promoters of citizen media would have to take some distance with those who have fueled and organised the Eason Jordan hatred. If not, the "new era of journalism" opened by the blogosphere will appear as the old clothes of American populism.
According to the New York Times, "Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN who was responsible for coordinating the cable network's Iraq coverage, resigned abruptly Friday 11 February, citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month in which he appeared to suggest that United States troops had deliberately aimed at journalists, killing some.
Though no transcript of Mr. Jordan's remarks at Davos on Jan. 27 has been released, the panel's moderator, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, said in an interview last night that Mr. Jordan had initially spoken of soldiers, "on both sides," who he believed had been "targeting" some of the more than four dozen journalists killed in Iraq. Almost immediately after making that assertion, Mr. Jordan, whose title at CNN had been executive vice president and chief news executive, "quickly walked that back to make it clear that there was no policy on the part of the U.S. government to target or injure journalists," Mr. Gergen said."
In a memorandum released to his colleagues last night, Mr. Jordan, 44, who had worked at the network for more than two decades, said he had "decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq."
Bret Stephens, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board who attended the session in Davos, wrote in Thursday's Journal that Mr. Jordan had "made a defamatory innuendo" but added: "Mr. Jordan deserves some credit for retracting the substance of his remark, and some forgiveness for trying to weasel his way out of a bad situation of his own making."
Source: New York Times. See also the first posting on 28 January 2005 about the Eason Jordan affair: it was posted by Rony Abrovitz on forumblog.org, the official weblog of the World Economic Forum.
Posted by Bertrand Pecquerie on February 12, 2005 at 11:46 AM in a. Is blogging journalism?, j. Staff changes, n. New sources for Editors, o. Ethics and Press Freedom
Bertrand Pecquerie, an expert in newspaper syndication and press networks, has been appointed Director of the World Editors Forum in October 2003.
Mr Pecquerie, who is French, is the founder and former Director of World Media Network, a press syndicate that linked more than 20 major dailies around the world, including El Pais, La Stampa, Libération, Irish Times, Tages Anzeiger, La Nacion, Al Ahram, Yomiuri Shimbun and others.
He was also the Director of the syndication and special events service of the French daily Libération and, most recently, he was General Secretary of the French governments Best Practices Agency (Agence des Bonnes Pratiques) which promoted good administrative and public service practices in local and national government.
Mr Pecquerie, 47, also brings an extensive background in online publishing to the WEF. He was Director of World Media Live, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal specialising in cultural websites. He has also been a professor of history and communication at the University of Paris and was an adviser to the President of the French National Assembly on educational and cultural matters.
