Logically, we can predict what will happen: Jordan will find Jamil Hussein did exist, but was deliberately targeted for assassination by U.S. forces.

Malkin called San Francisco a hate-filled city last week and now she's getting an all-expenses-paid trip to Baghdad. Will there be a film crew involved? :)

It would seem to me that the desired end point is to prove that the immolation and mosque burnings DID or DID NOT occur. The simple finding of someone claiming to be Jamil Hussein really doesn't make that determination, and as Curt points out, accepting the mission of "Find Jamil Hussein" is a simple setup by which the AP and Jordan can claim to have proven that this DID happen, without actually proving anything.

Bill:

his admission that CNN covered up for Saddam Hussein's regime to maintain access

Eason Jordon's explanation:

"telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk."

So Bill, what would you have done if you were Eason Jordon?

Of course, either decision Eason Jordon made, you will always find some way to spin it into some self-serving indictment of his character. It's like Malkin calling Rosie O'Donnell the 'diva of political correctness' while expressing outrage over O'Donnell's mimickery of Chinese. So, which is it?!

Where's the logical consistency?

This is about true journalism (Associated Press) vs. phony journalism (bloggers). True journalists actually do research and travel places and interview people and do things that are really, really dangerous, all in order to present truth as best as they can. Bloggers like Malkin never travel to the countries or talk to the people they write about, and research hardly extends beyond other blogs. But that doesn't stop Malkin somehow ascribing innermost feelings and motivations to these people she has never once met or talked to.

I applaud Malkin for taking up Jordon offer and I hope she finds the truth and is honest enough to report it.

So Bill, what would you have done if you were Eason Jordon?

Had a policy to not hire local Iraqi cameramen and stringers susceptible to torture w/o consequence. And to preempt your argument, such a policy no more compromises the news than soft-pedaling atrocities to maintain access.

This is very simple. Your failure to grasp this point - just because you don't like Malkin and she happens to be condemning it - nearly astounds me. Nearly, because I'm familiar with your predictable arguments. You work backwards from who you don't like, rather than objectively analyzing the scenario.

But don't feel bad, that's awful common, almost universal.

It's like Malkin calling Rosie O'Donnell the 'diva of political correctness' while expressing outrage over O'Donnell's mimickery of Chinese.

Nope. And I recognize the hypocrisy you point out. (Another example, conservatives complaining about grievance politics while bemoaning a 'war on Christmas')

This is about true journalism (Associated Press) vs. phony journalism (bloggers). True journalists actually do research and travel places and interview people and do things that are really, really dangerous, all in order to present truth as best as they can.

Like Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and me going to Iraq? Or me hiring a forensic document examiner? Or Patterico interviewing a nurse at Gitmo? Or Mary Katharine Ham interviewing Michael Steele? Or Ali Eteraz interviewing the Muslim excommunicated from his Mosque for writing a letter to the editor? And on and on and on. Your simplistic paradigm is false.

And even where it has resonance - in that professional journalists have greater resources and ostensibly binding professional standards of conduct, and let's face it, a lot of bloggers ARE indeed annoying backseat drivers - it is still remarkable how many times the MSM fails to utilize these resources or flout that conduct to build a narrative. Because they are human beings, after all.

Which makes other human beings checking their work, partisan gripes or no, very useful as a system of checks.

Hmm. I'll jump in and out of here real quick. Michelle's deal with Rosie O'Donnell was pure bullshit. She stooped to playing a childish game. The 'war on Christmas' is not bullshit - ask a befuddled Sasha Cohen. Or me, every year when we set up a display in the library.

"True" journalism can be pretty faux sometimes -- like Rita Skeeter and her Quick Quotes Quill if she were to also scold people like children for questioning her work.

I think the "war on Christmas" is taken a bit far. Last time I checked, Christianity was very, very healthy in the US, despite all that separation of church and state.

(guess my post was too big, here it is in two parts)

Had a policy to not hire local Iraqi cameramen and stringers susceptible to torture w/o consequence. And to preempt your argument, such a policy no more compromises the news than soft-pedaling atrocities to maintain access.

So you would have had a policy against hiring Iraqi journalists, in your Iraq-based news bureau, to write about Iraq, because there's a chance that one of them might get kidnapped. Perhaps you recall that Saddam has kidnapped westerners as well, so no journalist under your employ is really safe.

Reacting to the perception of danger is still a compromise in itself, perhaps an even bigger one. I get the impression that many journalists accept danger as part of their occupation and might even agree with me on this.

This is very simple. Your failure to grasp this point - just because you don't like Malkin and she happens to be condemning it - nearly astounds me. Nearly, because I'm familiar with your predictable arguments. You work backwards from who you don't like, rather than objectively analyzing the scenario.

I'm afraid your projecting, skippy. I'm..uh..condemning... Was I condemning something?!

Nope. And I recognize the hypocrisy you point out. (Another example, conservatives complaining about grievance politics while bemoaning a 'war on Christmas')

Well, no, that is not hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would be, say, being hyper-sensitive stereotypes and being lumped into one race of "Asian-Looking Peoples" while confusing Arabs with sort-of-Arab-looking people and writing a book supporting the notion that people who fit a racial profile should be rounded up and imprisoned en-masse as potential terrorists.

That is hypocrisy.

Like Bill Roggio, Michael Yon and me going to Iraq? Or me hiring a forensic document examiner? Or Patterico interviewing a nurse at Gitmo? Or Mary Katharine Ham interviewing Michael Steele? Or Ali Eteraz interviewing the Muslim excommunicated from his Mosque for writing a letter to the editor? And on and on and on. Your simplistic paradigm is false.

Congrats to that, by the way. You're much braver than I. But yes, blogging is not really journalism. It's a football game. You make it pretty clear that you have a political viewpoint, even though I know you aren't anywhere as partisan as some of your comrades, but are really interested in truth or scoring a few yards for the team? If it's the latter, you'll never really get to the former. If engineers produce cars like bloggers produce news, cars would only drive in circles. You choose the stories interest you, as every other bloggers does, to fit a theme and that's perfectly fine. But if I were getting all my information from blog sites, I'd probably believe a lot of crazy stuff.

A lot of blogging is writing about things other bloggers do and say. Is that journalism or soap opera? Real journalist's don't insert personal drama and childish vendettas into their writing, especially when American's are being killed every day.

So IMHO, true journalism can't be partisan. Partisanship dilutes it's purpose by spending too much time going in circles about itself rather than on a clear goal of reaching something truthful. When you have a breakdown of truth, bullshit readily fills the vacuum and really, really bad things happen. You know, like incredibly stupid and corrupt people elected into power and horrible, bloody preventable wars, and reality tv shows.

But then I really do love blogs, too. Journalists rarely have real hands-on understanding of things that say, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (whom I've been a fan of long before he was a blogger, or really political at all) had in finding the forged CBS documents, and you can't beat the power of the internet community in tracking down things like the online identify of domestic anthrax terrorist to the stars who worshipped Malkin. None of it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but it sure makes for fun readin'.

it is still remarkable how many times the MSM fails to utilize these resources or flout that conduct to build a narrative. Because they are human beings, after all.

We all are human beings but journalism is a science like architecture. There's a certain rigorousness to how it is done or it collapses completely. 'Narrative' is not necessary for real journalism, that's for the op-ed pieces and comic section. I want to be able to just read the facts and be able to trust that source. The whole mainstream-media-is-leftist crap has basically made it difficult for people to get facts. The trend of media providing 'both sides' of any issue is making people drooling idiots because it gives an excuse for Fox News to broadcast known disinformation. Here's a novel idea... Maybe those journalists/pundits who were so very wrong about Iraq in 2003 are still very wrong now? Maybe the ones who were right are still right.