Quite a few new interesting facts coming out in regards to the Eason Jordan comments.
Apparently a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephans, wrote a piece that smeared us in the blogosphere and white washed the Eason Jordan comments. (hat tip Dinocrat and Captain’s Quarters)
Al Michaels understood that the 1989 San Francisco earthquake was the real story, not the World Series game (thanks, Brian); Bret Stephens apparently did not see the significance of Eason Jordan?s comments, which were merely a ?defamatory innuendo? being hyped by the lower classes:
Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in. So has Michelle Malkin, who sits suspended somewhere between meltdown and release.
Was he just a clueless reporter on the wrong beat? Hardly.
Mr. Stephens says this in his WSJ piece: ?By chance, I was in the audience of the World Economic Forum?s panel discussion where Mr. Jordan spoke.? Well, whether he was in that particular audience by chance is not the story. Stephens has a relationship with the World Economic Forum that he did not disclose in his op-ed. He is a newly minted member of one of the world?s most exclusive clubs, the Forum of Young Global Leaders, a kind of YPO on steroids, featuring precisely 1111 men and women under forty worldwide. The Forum is affiliated with, though governed separately from, the World Economic Forum:
The Young Global Leaders have their own distinct autonomous governance structure but act in close cooperation with the World Economic Forum. The Forum of Young Global Leaders was created and endowed by Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum.
Mr. Stephens was named a member in 2004. Therefore, he just passed through the nominating process:
The Nomination Committee, which is chaired by Her Majesty Queen Rania of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is composed of the world?s most eminent media leaders.
But of course this reporter wouldn’t be biased huh?
Then Bluto over at The Dread Pundit Bluto has a interesting irony:
Delicious irony (from CBS News):
“It’s a shame that it came to that,” CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan said, “but once the tape came into our hands, it would have been journalistically irresponsible to ignore it.”
No, not that Davos tape; Jordan is referring to a videotape that caused a tiff between CNN and al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera and CNN had an agreement to share material. When al-Jazeera decided not to use an interview they did with Osama bin Laden, saying it was “…not that newsworthy”, CNN obtained the tape and aired portions. Al-Jazeera execs then flew into a snit and severed relations with CNN.
Jordan also had this comment:
“I think Al-Jazeera has some tough questions to answer” as to why it never made the tape public, Jordan said.
Hold that thought, Eason.
Very interesting. There is a videotape of Eason spewing his lies about reporters being shot dead by the US military and where is he? No where to be found. He is not demanding the tape come forward is he. The Captain adds this:
The irony continues, as an anonymous reporter with al-Jazeera explained why they didn’t want to air the tape (emphasis mine):
A journalist with Al-Jazeera told Reuters that the tape was shelved because the satellite station did not want to appear to be too close to bin Laden.
“We decided under the circumstances at that time that airing the interview would have strengthened the belief that we are a mouthpiece for bin Laden. We decided against airing it,” the journalist said.
“The interview was not that newsworthy. It was full of preaching and looked like a (Muslim) Friday sermon,” added the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous.
Doesn’t that sound exactly like what Jordan did in Davos — deliver a sermon to the presumed faithful of the anti-American religion? Only when Rep. Frank stood up to challenge Jordan did he realize that he finally pushed his luck once too often.
Yup, The Captain hit the nail on the head.
And here is something of interest. Could the MSM actually be picking this story up a little? No way you say?
A Broward County businessman has touched off a firestorm of controversy with an Internet report that the news chief of CNN accused American troops in Iraq of deliberately killing journalists.
”I’m about as apolitical a guy as you can get,” said Rony Abovitz, co-founder of the Hollywood medical technology company Z-Kat Inc. “I’m just amazed at the blood frenzy.”
Abovitz’s account of remarks he heard from Eason Jordan, CNN’s chief news executive, during a panel discussion at an economic conference in Switzerland have not only rocketed around the Internet, but triggered fierce attacks on CNN from mainstream media critics.
They’ve also touched off another major credibility crisis for television news, still reeling from the scandal over a botched preelection CBS report on President Bush’s military service. And they’ve demonstrated the new power of the independent Internet diaries known as Web logs, or blogs.
….
The outcry over that statement, however, has been dwarfed by the response to this one.
Since Abovitz posted his original account of the panel, more than 400 other blogs have taken up the cry. They located the first corroborating witnesses, pressed the World Economic Forum to release its videotape of the panel (Forum officials initially agreed, but changed their minds earlier this week and said the panel’s ground rules prohibited any direct quotations) and taunted mainstream news organizations into covering the story.
That finally happened this week with stories in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and other papers, as well as on CNN’s rival cable news networks.
Media critic Shafer said the sheer immensity of the blog response forced the story onto newspaper front pages. ”What they were practicing was virtuous pack journalism,” he said. “Everybody thinks pack journalism is bad, but sometimes, like on 9/11, you want a pack. This was pack journalism at its best.”
This marks the second time in a few months that blogs have surfaced a major controversy over television news. Blogs were the first to accuse CBS’ 60 Minutes of using forged documents in a story last year on President Bush’s Vietnam-era National Guard service.
Finally Michelle Malkin has a letter up from a wife of a Marine:
To: Mark.Adams@WEForum.org Cc: eason.jordan@turner.com Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 6:13 AM Subject: Release Jordan tapes/transcript
Dear Sir,
I am a military wife and mother of two who has just heard about the outrageous remarks made by CNN’s very own news chief, Eason Jordon, at your recent forum.
I can’t begin to tell you how disheartening it is to hear of powerful media figures creating an image of my husband and his fellow US Marines as murderers and torturers of journalists–without backing his statements up. If they were true, isn’t this a major news story? Why is CNN not covering it? If there are really US military members intentionally targeting journalists, we need to know who they are and hold them accountable.
If this Jordan’s story is NOT true, why is he making these remarks at a public, international forum? Does he not know that his words will be used in the Arab media to further disparage men like my husband–putting them at greater risk of harm or retaliation? If journalists believe they might be “targeted” by the US military or coalition forces, wouldn’t they be more inclined to report their stories with this in mind?
Really, this must be hashed out in the public. Jordan should not be able to drop such verbal “bombs” and then just walk away. Please let the public read for themselves what Jordan’s words were, and in what context. Then we can determine whether this man was leaking a huge news story, or perpetrating slander on the US military and coalition forces who are dying every day for freedom in Iraq and elsewhere.
Sincerely,
K. Doyle
Solana Beach, CA
USA
Oooh Rahhh!

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