Blogger's Success - CNN's Eason Jordon Quits
By Warner Todd Huston (02/14/05)
After taking down CBS and Dan Rather in the Bush National Guard document fiasco the Bloggers have won another round with the Main Stream Media. Several weeks ago it was reported that CNN’s chief news executive, Eason Jordon, claimed that US forces were hunting down and assassinating journalists in Iraq. He claimed at a conference in Davros, Switzerland that he knew of 12 journalists killed by US soldiers. And Davros wasn’t the only place Mr. Jordon has said such outrageous things.
Bloggers called for his proof. They said he simply cannot be allowed to gallivant across the Globe, harming the USA’s reputation as he travels, offering no proof what so ever for his comments yet being considered an upstanding representative of CNN, and by extension, the country.
We in the Blogosphere clamored for the video tape of the conference at which Jordon gave his unsolicited comments. Curiously, the people at the World Trade Conference refused to reveal it. Bloggers speculated on how bad this looked for Jordon. We all wondered aloud, and quite loudly at that, if the tape was so damning in evidence against Mr. Jordon that they didn’t want to get involved. And, save some weak disclaimers from CNN, Jordon did not respond publicly on the controversy.
Jordon did pass a memo to his coworkers at CNN trying to explain away his comments which said, in part "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." But this seems a rather weak protest since he said the very same things he is attempting to distance himself from at other times and in other places as reported by The Guardian Newspapers in England, just for one.
In his resignation announcement, Jordon said "I have 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."
However, it would seem to many that his desire to prevent the tarnishing of CNN is a day late and a dollar short. CNN is fast losing an audience as the recent numbers showed. For example, viewership of Fox News was at a 5 to 1 ratio to that of CNN’s audience during President Bush’s recent State of the Union speech showing CNN’s weakness. It is fast becoming the CutRate News Network.
Now Eason Jordon has been toppled. A man who is responsible for passing wild eyed, anti-American conspiracy theories in foreign lands is not the kind of person who should have such a high standing position at a world wide and highly visible news network such as CNN.
So, mark another victory for the Bloggers. Well fought for a noble end.
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