February 11, 2005
CNN's Jordan resigns
CNN's Eason Jordan has thrown in the towel amid the unsubstantiated remarks he made last month in Switzerland. Jordan claimed that US soldiers had purposefully targeted journalists in Iraq.
Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.Men (and women) in Pajamas 2, MSM 0.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.
2 down, how many to go?
Posted by: Tony iovino at February 12, 2005 11:43 AMAll this talk of Blogosphere vs Main Stream Media occasions a question.
Where do you get your stories and exposes etc from?
Posted by: Nick Saunders at February 12, 2005 12:19 PMBlogs, message forums, the MSM (and an analysis thereof).
At the same time, reporters in the MSM do the same things and go to the same sources (and I should know; I'm a former reporter).
The larger question is one of "legitimacy." The "Old media" (as a whole) does not consider blogs and bloggers to be legitimate sources of news and information (even though many reporters pay just as much attention to the "New media" as we do). We, on the other hand, certainly acknowledge the MSM, but not to the exclusion of other sources and resources.
Posted by: mhking at February 12, 2005 04:56 PM