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In the past, U.N. agencies have also sponsored "traveling seminars" for journalists so they write positive stories about U.N. projects. When conservative commentator Armstrong Williams was exposed for taking money from the Bush administration, his credibility was cast into doubt and news organizations expressed regrets for having had him on the air to comment on public policy issues. Williams was tainted by a conflict of interest that should have been revealed to the viewing audience. He was said to be a channel for Bush administration propaganda.

Rony Abovitz didn't intend to be a media star, a darling of the right, a villain to the left. He just wanted to take in one of the more interesting sessions at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, a panel called "Will Democracy Survive the Media?" He was drawn by the prestigious lineup of speakers: CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan; David R. Gergen, adviser to four presidents; U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.); Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC World Service; and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's minister of foreign affairs. But as Abovitz listened at the January...

When Dan Rather departed on March 9, at least he beat his competitors at ABC and NBC for the first time in five years. What seems to have been overlooked by media managers and journalists in their exhaustive discussion of Rathergate and Easongate is what news organizations are supposed to do for a living--- report and publish the news “without fear or favor,” as The New York Times' owner, Adolph Ochs, once put it. Whatever CBS and CNN may have done wrong originally, both organizations compounded it by going into a coverup mode worthy of the Nixon White House or...

Pseudo-journalistic Web sites are another way conservatives get around “the filter” of mainstream media. It’s a new medium, but, for the Republican Party, it’s an old story. During one especially hectic week in mid-February, the Internet took three scalps in what appeared to be unrelated events. Liberal bloggers forced Talon News White House correspondent James D. Guckert, a k a “Jeff Gannon,” to resign after it was revealed that he was writing under a false name for a Republican activist group (GOPUSA), that he was not really a journalist at all, and that he had posed nude on the Internet...

Over the weekend, I caught CNN removing a damning quote from a story about Italian Communist journalist Guiliana Sgrena, recently released from some form of captivity in Iraq for a reported $6 million ransom, about why she was in Iraq in the first place. She was there, in her own words, to agitate against America and the war-- Sgrena said she "risked everything" to challenge "the Italian government, who didn't want journalists to reach Iraq, and the Americans," who she said don't want the public to see "what really became of that country with the war, and notwithstanding that which...

Tonight on the Fox Show "Foxwatch," its weekly show on the media itself, a letter from a Freeper was read concerning Easongate. Kristinn from the D.C. Chapter was sharp enough to catch it, and call me. Here is the entire e-mail. They read all or part of the first paragraph as being from "John in Highlands, NC." That's me. I hope I spoke for most of you in what I said: Lordy, Lordy, folks, Of course the bloggers forced Eason Jordan out. We tried to force him out years ago when he published his mealymouthed justification for slanting the CNN...

Who is this award named for? Judge Elihu Smails, the character in the film Caddyshack who asks of the obnoxious but lovable Al Czervick (played by Rodney Dangerfield), “Good Lord, what has this buffoon done now?” As a special tribute to Judge Smails, every week we will issue this award to the biggest buffoon of the week … the person who, through his or her actions or public statements, has made a buffoon of themselves and everyone associated with them. Please note that since we slam Kerry on a daily basis, and he could win every week,he and his family...

Last year, the very smart political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio completely unwrapped the orthodox newsroom view of religion and politics. Writing in First Things magazine, the authors conclude that secularists and religious people have been struggling against each other for many years, but in the newsroom accounts, one struggler (secularism) essentially disappears, leaving the religious side as oddly divisive people who want to take over the culture and "impose" (vote) their values. The authors believe newsrooms have been partisan in the debate for many years, partly because so many reporters are Democrats who do not go to...

Bloggers go big-game hunting As Internet `journalists' bag another prize, Tim Harper considers the consequences for mainstream media TIM HARPER Often witty, sometimes racy, certainly irreverent, frequently sanctimonious, the blogosphere has been bulking up for years. But the mainstream media have long taken a largely dismissive approach to this world of online political journals: Open. Peek. Chuckle. Close. No more. The growing army of American cyber-pundits hunched over their search engines has begun to wield strength that no one predicted. The bloggers have brought down the powerful. They have unmasked an impostor in the White House briefing room. Perhaps most...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - First CBS's Dan Rather, then CNN's Eason Jordan, Internet bloggers have come of age as media watchdogs with their part in the downfall of these influential, high-profile media heads. Jordan, a top CNN executive responsible for the network's coverage in Iraq, resigned Friday following remarks suggesting the US military was deliberately targeting journalists. The January 27 comments were initially ignored by mainstream reporters, but picked up and trumpeted across the Internet by an army of bloggers. Jordan's downfall follows that of veteran CBS television news anchor Dan Rather, who announced he will resign in March after bloggers...

FOR TWO WEEKS Eason Jordan has been engulfed in a blogswarm. During remarks at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, the now-former CNN executive accused the U.S. military of deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq for murder. The unleashed fury of the blogosphere eventually overcame a media blackout to force Jordan from his job, discredit the American media, and start a debate on the nature of blogging that derived directly from the mainstream media's attempt to cast the entire effort as a partisan witch hunt.But the media has no one but itself to blame--as it stubbornly refused to acknowledge the existence...

Real fear is mixing with snarky disdain in the "mainstream" media's attitude toward web loggers in the wake of the resignation last Friday of Eason Jordan as CNN's top news executive. "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," said the headline in the New York Times Monday, the first time many of the newspaper's readers were made aware of a controversy which had been roiling for nearly two weeks. "The New York Times media beat reporters got beaten badly on the Eason Jordan story — by (gasp!) web logs and cable news — and so how do they react? By catching...

Hey kids, check out my nifty new tagline above. (Thanks to my web guru, Mark Jaquith, for the design.) You like? I think it's a keeper. If you don't get the allusion, click on the asterisk for a refresher and then come on back here and read on. I've got a calm, cool, and collected bit to say about this. Wall Street Journal editorial writer Bret Stephens appeared on Hugh Hewitt's radio show last night to defend his paper's strange and snotty treatment of the Eason Jordan "kerfuffle." (Full transcript at Radioblogger.) I found the following remarks, in which the...

Their latest victim: Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive. He resigned on Feb. 13 after conservative bloggers feasted on a controversial statement he made in late January at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, about the U.S. military. His allegation -- that coalition soldiers in Iraq mistook journalists for enemies and killed them -- brought down a storm of criticism on him and his network.

Journalist group calls US to account over Iraq Dominic Timms Friday February 18, 2005 The US government was today accused of hiding behind a "culture of denial" over the deaths of at least 12 journalists who are alleged to have perished at the hands of the US military in Iraq. Re-igniting the debate that US soldiers deliberately "targeted" journalists during the Iraqi occupation, a press freedom body called on the US to take "responsibility" for its actions in the country. Responding to what it said was the "hounding out" of the CNN news chief, Eason Jordan, the International Federation of...

This page is dedicated to journalists who were assassinated in the exercise of their profession. It remembers their contribution to freedom of expression, democracy and peace. UNESCO encourages press freedom and campaigns for greater safety of media professionals. UNESCO is the only United Nations agency with a mandate to defend freedom of expression and press freedom. Article 1 of its Constitution requires the Organization to “further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion,...

EAGER TO DIVERT ATTENTION from the incredible incompetence displayed in the handling of Eason Jordan's remarks before the Davos audience (and Jordan's November 2004 accusation that the U.S. military was torturing journalists), a number of voices within the mainstream media have argued that the credentials of bloggers are suspect and that in their amateurism there lays a danger to the public discussion. The most surprising of these attacks came in an unsigned editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal chose to ignore Jordan's November 2004 accusation about the American military torturing journalists, and pronounced the Davos pratfall as...

It was inevitable from the moment the World Economic Forum decided to change its mind about releasing the videotape of Eason Jordan's remarks at Davos. Consider these "statistics" from an op-ed today in the left-wing Seattle P-I (ht Greg Ransom via Lorie Byrd): Mainstream media reportage in the United States about the occupation in Iraq is being censured, distorted, threatened by the military and controlled by corporations that own the outlets. Recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Eason Jordan, a CNN executive, told a panel that the U.S. military deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. He said he...

While the Staff of Easongate would have preferred the release of the tape to fully air all concerns, we believe Eason Jordan’s resignation is an admission of guilt and he has been properly disciplined by stepping down from his responsibilities at CNN. We will continue to follow various stories directly related to Easongate, however the pursuit of the tape will occur elsewhere. The issue of the tape remains a serious impediment to getting to the bottom of this story. Eason Jordan’s resignation did not clear up the serious allegations of United States military personnel intentionally targeting journalists. The media has...

Blog pundits claim CNN scalp Roy Eccleston FEBRUARY 17, 2005 "THEY'RE scared spitless," says Glenn Reynolds. "But they shouldn't be." The University of Tennessee law professor and author of the popular web log - blog - InstaPundit.com is talking about the reaction of the mainstream US media in the week after bloggers gleefully claimed the scalp of a top CNN executive. This scalp belonged to Eason Jordan, who was claimed to have accused the US military of deliberately targeting reporters in Iraq and killing a dozen of them. Exactly what Jordan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos isn't...

Net gains A top executive at CNN has been forced to resign as a result of pressure from campaigning bloggers. Has the new media now become more powerful than the old, asks Gary Younge Gary Younge Wednesday February 16, 2005 Guardian On forumblog.org, the World Economic Forum web log, there is a link to a site called Ohmynews, "where every citizen is a reporter". Rony Abovitz is one of those citizens. The 34-year-old co-founder of Z-KAT, a medical technology company from Holywood, Florida had never written a story in the mainstream press when Forumblog asked him to write his first...

Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) is continuing to spread at an epidemic rate through the US media. The syndrome is characterized by blindness to anything other than US transgressions, paranoia regarding the US government, delusions of conspiracy, and a feverish hostility toward President Bush. Like the common cold, the famous and powerful are not immune. Dan Rather was stricken and succumbed to the lure of forged documents. Walter Cronkite was caught babbling that Karl Rove "set up" Usama's last tape. Now Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, is displaying symptoms. Eason-gate (or Eason-a-Quiddick depending on your inclination) is being touted as...

Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities. "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.

An article by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post on the Eason Jordan resignation quoted Steve Lovelady "of Columbia Journalism Review" as saying of this event, "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail." This struck me as a grossly unprofessional remark by anyone who claimed to be a journalist. So, I wrote a detailed letter to the Editor of the Review, demanding an apology. Back came a letter this morning from Mr. Lovelady, which makes it clear that neither he nor the Review have a clue about the blogosphere. They do not understand our work, nor do...

The Wall Street Journal has a very strange editorial this morning regarding the controversy (which it gently labels a "kerfuffle") that resulted last Friday night in the resignation of CNN's chief executive, Eason Jordan. The Journal's editorial page is generally superb and fearless, so one is reluctant to call this "damage control." Suffice it to say, though, that the analysis is not up to the paper's gold standard. Jordan was evidently pushed out at CNN over what appears to have been an unconscionable assertion that the U.S. military targeted journalists for assassination, uttered at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF)...

Jordan stated that a number of journalists had been killed by the US military in Iraq and that some of those killings were intentional, not ''collateral damage." Representative Frank and others sharply questioned him on whether he was saying that American forces had deliberately targeted members of the press. Jordan replied that what he meant was that some journalists were killed intentionally rather than accidentally --

With the resignation of chief news executive Eason Jordan (search), CNN hopes to end a distracting controversy that had threatened to rival the Internet campaign last fall against Dan Rather (search) for a CBS story about President Bush's military service. During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month, Jordan said that he believed several journalists who were killed by coalition forces had been targeted.

Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers than the defense of reporters' work (and sometimes life)! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the "sons of the First Amendment", they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy. And this is very worrying to see this new...

WASHINGTON, February 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan quit on Friday, February 11, over remarks he made at last month's World Economic Forum in Davos in which he accused US forces of targeting journalists in Iraq. “After 23 years at CNN, 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,” Jordan said in a letter to colleagues posted on the Web site of the all-news American network. The resignation...

On the day that terrorists flew jets into New York's World Trade Center, CNN's head of newsgathering appeared remarkably impassive as he stood in the network's frenetic main newsroom in Atlanta. His expressions were sphinx-like, as they often were. But unconsciously, his hands fiddled nonstop with the ring from a plastic bottle cap. "It's important for someone to remain calm," he said at the time. "We have a lot of excited, anxious, busy people. . . . I'm trying to think two or three steps ahead. Where do we need to be?" Jordan, CNN's chief news executive and one of...

Eason Jordan made comments at the WEF in Davos about the US military targetting and killing 12 journalists. I use Reporters without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF)in French) to investigate his claims. On its homepage RSF says 46 reporters and 'media assistants' have been killed in Iraq since the start of fighting. 31 Journalists, 15 media assitants. They link to a list of names which links to a short blurb on each of the deceased reporters. They do not have blurbs for the assistants, but I tried to piece together what I could. CNN's Eason Jordan said 12 dead journalists...

Eason Jordan, a senior executive at CNN who was responsible for coordinating the cable network's Iraq coverage, resigned abruptly last night, citing a journalistic tempest he touched off during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, late last month in which he appeared to suggest that United States troops were targeting and killing journalists. Though no transcript of Mr. Jordan's remarks at Davos on Jan. 27 has been released, the panel's moderator, David Gergen, editor at large of U.S. News & World Report, said in an interview last night that Mr. Jordan had initially spoken of...

February 12, 2005 -- The red-faced news chief of CNN, Eason Jordan, resigned yesterday after making outrageous claims that American troops deliberately tracked down and killed certain journalists in Iraq. Jordan put his foot in his mouth two weeks ago during a panel discussion at a world economic summit in Davos, Switzerland. He startled his listeners when he said he believed that several journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been deliberately targeted.

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...

Freepers...in this moment of triumph, let us never forget the first crime committed by Eason Jordan. In April 2003, he confessed in a New York Times column that CNN covered up many of Saddam's crime in order to keep a news bureau in Baghdad. It is for this reason that I will never again turn to CNN...not even for a second. Never forget.

NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq (news - web sites). Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy. 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...

(Atlanta 2005-02-11) 6:35 EST -- Bowing to the blogstorms of the insidious right to become transparent, CNN this afternoon issued a clarification of their previous clarification via CNN's official spokeswoman, Christa Robinson. "At a meeting between Eason Jordan and CNN executives this afternoon," Robinson stated, "it was agreed that this unfortunate incident was a learning opportunity for CNN on many levels. Accordingly, it was the consensus of all those at this high-level meeting that CNN immediately adopt the high-principles of journalistic professionalism, consistency, and transparency demanded by the blogosphere. "It is, then, the official position of CNN News that, since...

Friday, February 11, 2005 Eason, Ward, meet Al ZawahiriPosted: February 11, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern By Kevin McCullough © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com The corrupt media, the fascist academia, and our enemies the terrorists are united against America. You may not believe it, but they are betrayed by their own words. Late on Thursday, al-Qaida's No. 2 – Ayman al Zawahiri – released an audio tape. On it, he makes statements that only our enemies would say – right? WRONG! "The [U.S.] concept of freedom is a cloak for spreading corruption and injustice," said al Zawahiri. "It is not the freedom of Guantanamo and...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version February 11, 2005, 12:36 p.m. Eason Jordan vs. the BlogosphereThe heat is on. This week on CNBC’s Kudlow & Cramer I asked three influential U.S. senators about the CNN scandal regarding news executive Eason Jordan. To recap, at last month’s economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jordan publicly accused the U.S. military of deliberately targeting journalists in order to assassinate them. Senators George Allen, Jeffrey Sessions, and Norman Coleman all agreed with columnist Michelle Malkin’s characterization that Jordan and his CNN defenders have “slimed the military.”...

By Mickey KausUpdated Monday, Feb. 7, 2005, at 7:29 PM PT Kurtz answers an email invitation to respond:  I have a story in tomorrow's paper. Had you been kind enough to check earlier, I would have told you that I flagged it for The Post on the day that I was crashing on CBS naming Bob Schieffer as Rather's temporary replacement and said we should pursue it. Two other Post reporters pursued it, spoke to Jordan and decided not to write anything based on the fact that what was actually said was in dispute. I had nothing to do with that decision....

Kurtz Does CNN's Damage Control: If you were worrying that WaPo's conflicted Howie Kurtz would bend over backwards to be tough on his own CNN bosses, you can stop now. Kurtz's article ... well, let's just say that if a p.r. agent or damage control spinner produced a piece designed to try and save CNN exec Eason Jordan's job, it would be the piece Kurtz wrote in the Post today. Why? Here are some of the blatant and subtle pro-Jordan tricks: 1) Witness Protection: Kurtz has Barney Frank recalling Jordan--after he "modified" his shocking remarks--still saying shocking things at Davos about U.S. forces "maybe knowing they were killing...

&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;The Easongate petition is online and ready for signature gathering! The petition is hosted over on my site. You can access it via the petition link on the menu bar above or by clicking on this link. As of 9:44:32 PM Pacific on 2/10/2005 1542 people have signed the petition. Update 6:04 PM Pacific: Your humble webmaster moved the petition database to a new database server with the capacity to handle more requests earlier today. This move was done to accommodate the CNN Advertisers database we are building. Long story short, I forgot to update the petition page code and this...

Blogger's news on news hits nerve CNN's chief news executive is under fire after comments he made at a Swiss economic summit made their way round the world via Internet blogs. BY GLENN GARVIN ggarvin@herald.com 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...

CNN Exec Clarifies Comment on Military CNN Executive Says He Doesn't Believe Military Intended to Kill Journalists in Iraq War By DAVID BAUDER The Associated Press Feb. 10, 2005 - Despite comments that may have left a different impression, CNN's chief news executive said Thursday that he does not believe the U.S. military intended to kill journalists in the Iraq war. CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan is involved in a controversy over comments he made at the World Economic Forum last month. One Web logger has already called it "Easongate," and an online petition is circulating calling on CNN...

Senator Calls for Release of Comments by CNN News Chief By Marc Morano CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer February 10, 2005 Washington (CNSNews.com) - A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Wednesday the videotaped comments of a CNN news executive claiming that U.S. troops in Iraq had targeted journalists should be released. The senator also condemned the remarks, saying they could provide fodder for enemies of the United States. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) called the comments by Eason Jordan, the head of CNN's news division, "outrageous and wrong," and said he wants to see the videotape of Jordan making...

BY BRET STEPHENS Thursday, February 10, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Did Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, actually say the American military has deliberately killed journalists covering the conflict in Iraq? It's a serious question, at least to judge by the heat it's generated. Google "Easongate" and you get 2,500 results. There is an Easongate.com Web site, on which more than 1,000 petitioners demand that Mr. Jordan release a transcript of his remarks--made recently in Davos--by Feb. 15 or, in the manner of Saddam Hussein, face serious consequences. Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in....

Washington Insiders Cautious About CNN Official's Controversial Comments Washington (CNSNews.com) - Politicians and journalists who gathered for a press dinner in Washington Wednesday night mostly expressed ignorance about comments made by Eason Jordan, the head of CNN's news division, that the U.S. military intentionally shot and killed journalists in Iraq. One U.S. senator called for the release of a videotape showing Jordan's January 27 comments at a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) heard Jordan make the comments last month. In an interview with the New York...

Did Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, actually say the American military has deliberately killed journalists covering the conflict in Iraq? It's a serious question, at least to judge by the heat it's generated....Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in. So has Michelle Malkin, who sits suspended somewhere between meltdown and release. There's a reason the hounds are baying. Already they have feasted on the juicy entrails of Dan Rather. Mr. Jordan...was bound to be their next target. And if Mr. Jordan has now made a defamatory and unsubstantiated allegation against U.S. forces, well then...

Did Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, actually say the American military has deliberately killed journalists covering the conflict in Iraq? It's a serious question, at least to judge by the heat it's generated. Google "Easongate" and you get 2,500 results. There is an Easongate.com Web site, on which more than 1,000 petitioners demand that Mr. Jordan release a transcript of his remarks — made recently in Davos — by Feb. 15 or, in the manner of Saddam Hussein, face serious consequences. Sean Hannity and the usual Internet suspects have all weighed in. So has Michelle Malkin, who sits...