INDCJournal: Eason Jordan Resigns <strong><em>(UPDATED)</em></strong>

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February 11, 2005

Eason Jordan Resigns (UPDATED)

Posted by Bill

CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amid a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum 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.

I'm actually shocked. I'm starting to believe in Hugh Hewitt's theories about blogs having the omnipotence to warp space and time, cure baldness and raise the dead.

(Via Malkin)

UPDATE: LaShawn Barber has another great blogger/MSM round-up. And via INDC commenter Dave, see if you can spot CNN's coverage of the story on a screenshot of their homepage yesterday.

I agree with Goldstein's analysis:

My guess is that in the cold, clarifying light of morning, how Jordan�s remarks actually played on that Davos tape was even worse than we�d been led to expect�and that, recognizing this, Jordan didn�t so much resign as he was coached by the CNN brass on how to best salvage whatever remained of his dignity.

Jim Geraghty, who approached the story with sobriety and appropriate caution, also has a smart summary.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, and I'm starting a transmutation/alchemy blog.

Lorie Byrd:

I hope that Jordans resignation didnt stop the momentum to discover exactly what CNN knew and when they knew it. I still want to know why CNN didnt call for the tape or transcript of the Davos panel discussion to be released.

Posted by Bill at February 11, 2005 07:57 PM | TrackBack (10)

Comments

But certain bloggers may soon discover that while defaming & slurring politicians or media moguls is par for the course, doing so to a private citizen can be co$tly

Posted by: beautifulatrocities at February 11, 2005 08:15 PM

And all Jordan had to do was come clean right away, release the video, and say his mea culpas. He could have set an example of taking responsibility for unprofessional behavior, demonstrating to the world the difference between unsubstantiated innuendo and carefully researched charges. He could have recommitted CNN to professional standards of journalism.

But all he did was weasle for a week and then resign.

Posted by: Yehudit at February 11, 2005 08:50 PM

"I'm starting to believe in Hugh Hewitt's theories about blogs having the omnipotence to warp space and time, cure baldness and raise the dead."

Yeah, sure, but can they cure eczema?

Well done, blogs.

{scratch, scratch}

Posted by: Retread at February 11, 2005 09:02 PM

Bill - I think I was the first blogger to post about this. That's my story, anyway. ;)

Posted by: La_Shawn at February 11, 2005 09:04 PM

heh, heh. You said "potence". Heh heh.

Posted by: Roberts at February 11, 2005 10:00 PM

Look at how CNN is reporting the story (screen shot of CNN.com)

It might take you a while to find it.

Posted by: Dave at February 12, 2005 12:41 AM

Yeah, but can they get me a date for saturday night. My local paper (Toledo Blade) has a small 1 paragraph story on the resignation, of course they ignored the story to begin with. It seems that NPR is ignoring the story this morning.

Posted by: rbj at February 12, 2005 09:25 AM

Wow. That was fast. Last night I remarked to my husband that in a week or two he's resign for family and/or health reasons.

Fired up the blogosphere this am and there was the story of his resignation.

Fantastic!

Posted by: erp at February 12, 2005 11:18 AM

Hope you will include my new theory of Blogiston.

Blogiston - (pronounced Blog-JISS-tunn) Blogiston leaves the combustible story to combine with the blogosphere or saturate search engines. �Blogisticated� substances are those that contain blogiston and, on being burned, are �deglogisticated." See also: Eason Jordon; Dan Rather: Naked Debbie Gibson.

Posted by: SarahW at February 12, 2005 01:31 PM

Hope you�ll let me contribute to the new transmutation blog. I�ve actually been to see a few of the fraudsters...Joe Champion was one we visited. Claimed to be turning lead into gold. Pathetically unconvincing to me but he almost had my old boss signing a check. Well, he would have done if I hadn�t told him to stop being stupid (and no, I no longer work for him and yes, he did continue being stupid).

Oh,you were kidding, right?
Sigh.

Posted by: Tim Worstall at February 12, 2005 01:45 PM

Just as CBS News' credibility problem neither begins or ends with Dan Rather, Eason Jordan is only a sympthom of CNN's credibity program. CNN is a corrupt network.

David

Posted by: David at February 13, 2005 06:37 AM

Transmutation? So that's what Kim and the Iranians are really up to...

Posted by: ProfShade at February 13, 2005 03:41 PM