Posted on 02/12/2005 4:51:47 AM PST by fight_truth_decay
For those of us in the information business, this is truly an earth-shaking time. Who would have imagined that the downfall of one of the world's most powerful news executives would be precipitated by an ordinary citizen blogging his eyewitness report at Davos in the wee hours of the morning on Jan. 27? It's simply stunning.
The courage of Rony Abovitz cannot be overstated. This ordinary American citizen raised his voice at an international forum of media and political heavyweights--also attended by Europe's most influential America-haters--and demanded that Eason Jordan back up his poisonous assertion about the American military targeting journalists. Abovitz's remarks prompted Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to press Jordan for details. Abovitz also received thanks from Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for standing up. After the event, Abovitz bypassed the MSM and exposed the controversy with a simple click of the mouse.
Fellow attendee/former CNN journalist/blogger Rebecca MacKinnon confirmed Abovitz's account, fielded questions from Hugh Hewitt, and added reporting with her e-mail exchange with Jordan.
From there, a few standout bloggers picked up on the story and refused to let it die. The MSM calls it a lynch mob. I call it a truth squad. Ed Morrissey, Hewitt, La Shawn Barber, Jim Geraghty, and LGF kept "baying"--which got the attention of the blogosphere's most powerful player, Instapundit. Bill Roggio quickly created the group blog, Easongate, to keep on top of the story. Legions of smaller bloggers, too numerous to mention, kept the heat on. N.Z. Bear pitched in with a helpful Easongate tracker.
The relentless Hewitt used his blog, radio show, and Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis to cover the story, observing, "You can't cover the press if you don't press the coverage."
On Feb. 4, intrepid blogger Sisyphean Musings contacted the World Economic Forum in an effort to obtain a videotape of the forum--which was eventually rebuffed. Rosen, meanwhile, went to work and contacted BBC journalist Richard Sambrook, who was on the Jordan panel, for a statement. Sambrook backed Jordan.
But what about the other panelists? Enter this blog.
I myself came "late" to the story--by blogospheric standards, not MSM standards. On Feb. 1-2, I was traveling and only had time to briefly glance at a on Captain's Quarters about Jordan's remarks. I noticed coverage on Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt when I returned home, but did not take the time to read up on all the background until the weekend. My first brief posts on Easongate weren't until Feb. 6, when I simply provided to others covering the story.
The next day, Monday Feb. 7, I thought it might be helpful to try and advance the story by calling up some of the panel participants. Rep. Barney Frank returned my call first thing Monday morning. David Gergen returned my call in the early afternoon. Sen. Chris Dodd's office provided a statement by late afternoon.
Powerline concluded prophetically: "Eason Jordan is finished."
And the dam broke bigtime.
On Tuesday Feb. 8, CNN employee and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz finally published a story on the controversy, rehashing much of what I'd reported on this blog--except with a transparent coat of whitewash. Kurtz was roundly mocked by the blogosphere and has done permanent damage to his reputation as an effective media critic. Roger L. Simon said it best: "All in all, this is not an article, more of a place holder..." See also Kaus.
Among the MSM, the Toledo Blade's Jack Kelly, the Riverside Press Enterprise editorial page, and the Washington Times editorial page, and Investor's Business Dail were on the ball. So, too, the New York Sun. The New York Post published my column on Wed. Feb 9. That night, CNBC's Larry Kudlow had three senators on who agreed with the column's conclusion that Jordan had recklessly slimed our troops. Then came the rest, including a strange footnote from the WSJ op-ed page that will look even stranger in hindsight for ridiculing the "usual Internet suspects" that brought down a previously untouchable MSM giant.
The shock waves that have overwhelmed CNN started with a single blogger and reverberated worldwide. I agree with Rony Abovitz that there should be no joy in watching Eason Jordan's downfall. But there is certainly great, unadulterated satisfaction in seeing the collective efforts of the blogosphere--citizens and professional journalists among them--produce the one thing the MSM has for too long escaped in its walled-off world: accountability.
Cue the Carpenters music: We've Only Just Begun.
*** Other analysis...
Mark Coffey's take on The Lessons of Easongate.
The tireless Captain Ed on the moral of Eason's Fables.
Jim Geraghty says "we learned that a lot of people in major media institutions thought this was a tempest in a teacup, unworthy of even a paragraph of coverage." Yup.
Instapundit has more.
Jeff Jarvis, who will be on Kurtz's CNN show on Sunday, sez: "Oh, yes, and before we forget... Davos: Release the tape! You, too, can't stonewall or your little club will become known as the place where the powerful can try to lie."
Ditto to that.
Rebecca MacKinnon and Jay Rosen follow up. Most interesting comment on Rosen's site comes from a poster named "veteran journo:"
A few things strike me that I haven't yet seen others pick up on. The "mis-spoke" defence is all very well, but if there's anyone who knows or should know how to be quoted, how not to be quoted and how to avoid being misquoted it's a journalist with Jordan's experience.
If he were a "civilian" I could understand the "tempest in a teapot" view but this guy is a journalist who quotes people everyday.
Ditto, for telling stories that CNN hadn't aired. If they hadn't broadcast the story about the Al Jazeera journo forced to eat his shoes, it's because they couldn't get people to talk about it on the record. A news executive can't go passing on those rumours in a semi-public forum. If the standard of proof wasn't good enough to get it on CNN, it 's not good wnough to discuss at a forum in Davos. Maybe at Jordan's dinner table but not Davos.
To me, these two mistakes are inexcusable coming from a news executive. And they are indeed grounds for firing or resigning.
I still believe it would be better to show the tape because I think journalists can't possibly argue against that given the nature of the Davos forum.
...there's something very wrong about journos and power brokers attending huge "off the record" gatherings.
Honestly, I would never agree to be off the record at such an event.
Anyway that's my take -- inescapably bad errors of judgement. He had to go.
Excerpt from LA Times:
"Also, a website called Easongate.com, featuring the executive's corporate portrait on its home page, offered a clearing-house of criticism related to Jordan's statements. The website linked to 25 other sites in its "Blogroll," with mainstream columnists such as Roger L. Simon and more obscure bloggers such as "Red State Rant" and "Winds of Change."
"Don't start a fight with someone who has a modem".
And thus will peace eventually prevail over all the earth.
well, I can hope, can't I?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1245826/posts
The Soros connection (to the ABC Memo)
The Washington Times ^ | 10/15/04 | Greg Pierce
"Remember that infamous Oct. 8 memo from ABC News political director Mark Halperin, which instructed ABC correspondents to slant their reportage in John Kerry's favor? " conservative author Richard Poe said on his blog (www.RichardPoe.com).
"Well, it turns out that Halperin's father is none other than Morton H. Halperin, head of George Soros' Open Society Policy Center. Lowell Ponte reveals Mark Halperin's Soros connection in [yesterday's] FrontPageMagazine.com, in a stunning expose titled, 'The ABC's of Media Bias.' "
"He did the right thing in this situation when it would have been easy to just fake a lapse of memory or attention."
Barney Frank, hometown: Bayonne, NJ where I live now. It's a very patriotic town.
After 9/11 there suddenly appeared, everywhere, placards declaring:
Bayonne NJ
We defend America
Any time
Any place
Anywhere
Barney Frank has lived up to that. GOOD FOR HIM!
I LOVE BAYONNE!
NBC Reporter Was on U.N. Lobby Payroll
NBC's Brian Williams Admits Stealing Documents from Carter White House!
Frank did do the 'right thing'; and that is good. I would offer that his motivations for doing might be a thoughtful consideration; rather than an 'gut response'. I can give him the benefit of the doubt; but no more than that.
All the reports I read by eyewitnesses indicated that Frank was quick to challenge Jordan and appeared genuinely upset by the slander. In fact, if it weren't for Frank's corroboration the story would probably have died. He has no political motive to embarass CNN.
Don't forget Howell Raines of the NY Times. The truth caught up with him, too. We're on a roll.
In that case and I will take your word on that. . .I will just skip my speculation and move directly to my appreciation that Barney responded.
Thanks for the 'rest of the story'. . .I missed that.
that's funny.
the "lynch mob" are the leftists manufactured by universities here and in europe that create news for the purpose of changing the world to their viewpoints.
talk radio and the internet have made these leftists transparent.
My pleasure. I'm certainly not joining the Barney Frank Fan Club but he did OK this time.
I mean consider these cases: remember when the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines made her flippant comment denouncing President Bush just before Operation Iraqi Freedom started during a Dixie Chicks show in London? Thanks to the public Internet, the result was a near-destruction of their popularity. Or how about what happened to Linda Ronstadt when she opened supported Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11? Or how about Sean Penn's ill-advised trip to Iraq before the war that ended up costing him a major acting role? Or how about Whoopi Goldberg's foul-mouthed performance during a fundraiser for the Kerry campaign?
Methinks the Hollywood Left better start understanding that in today's world of hyperspeed communications anything they say anywhere in the world will get reported very quickly indeed, much to their detriment.
Well, the hyperlinks made it easier for me. I appreciate the work it took to make them 'hot'.
Are we assuming what someone is feeling or thinking? Only Frank knows what he really was thinking at the time. I guess I might be the only cynic here; but if Jordan's statement could be proved true then this would surely embarrass the White House and Frank was in the right place at the right time; and could have just as easily flip flopped. What a politician thinks and what he says can be apples and onions.
..."After the panel was over and he returned to the U.S., Rep. Frank said he called Jordan and expressed willingness to pursue specific cases if there was any credible evidence that any American troops targeted journalists. "Give me specifics," Rep. Frank said he told Jordan. [pretty eager guy!]
I am not so easily convinced.
Just my opinon based on no evidence whatsoever..
F_T_D
"I think the MSM and the Hollywood Left are finding out much to their major chargrin that with the public Internet, anything they say will get reported around the world at breathtakingly fast speeds. "
"I mean consider these cases: remember when the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines made her flippant comment denouncing President Bush just before Operation Iraqi Freedom started during a Dixie Chicks show in London? Thanks to the public Internet, the result was a near-destruction of their popularity. Or how about what happened to Linda Ronstadt when she opened supported Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11? Or how about Sean Penn's ill-advised trip to Iraq before the war that ended up costing him a major acting role? Or how about Whoopi Goldberg's foul-mouthed performance during a fundraiser for the Kerry campaign?"
"Methinks the Hollywood Left better start understanding that in today's world of hyperspeed communications anything they say anywhere in the world will get reported very quickly indeed, much to their detriment."
Thanks for posting this. I have been thinking about the disclosures of the MSM and Follywood in the past couple of years, which has cost them a ton of money and loss of respect. In some case, their vile mouths have cost them, their jobs.
The entertainment maggots have been trashing America, our military, republicans, Christians and our families for years in Europe.
A very close friend in the early to mid 1990's, spent a lot of time in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Lisbon and London with his job at that time.
He said that he knew when a so called star was losing their appeal in America, he would see them on the Eurotrash talk shows in those cities, read their comments and hear them on radio. They would trash America to appeal to the Euro Trash scum to sell their movie reruns, dvds, music and upcoming concerts.
Thanks to the internet we are hearing about these vile outbursts. The MSM can't spike the news anymore when these
vile scumbags open their vile mouths to trash America.
YOOLING: They are called hyperlinks! Was that only sarcasm?(..plays both sides as well not to appear void of "not gettin' it".)
Lots of big wigs in politics, media, business...don't necessarily like the "free" exchange of thought/ideas.
So it's only natural for many of them to try and corral it/control it.
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