What a Difference a Word Makes

The Times also takes up the question of bloggers as "media trophy hunters."

But look at the way they characterize Jordan's original sin:

Mr. Jordan, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in late January, apparently said, according to various witnesses, that he believed the United States military had aimed at journalists and killed 12 of them. There is some uncertainty over his precise language and the forum, which videotaped the conference, has not released the tape. When he quit Friday night, Mr. Jordan said in a statement that, "I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists." (My emph.)

Boy, no spin there.

In point of fact the word "aim" refers to the physical act, with no stand taken one way or the other regarding intent. Had Jordan actually used that word initially, it is highly unlikely that this storm would have resulted. And this phrasing is disingenuous in the extreme, because as far as I can tell there is disagreement about what he meant, and disagreement about what he said after his initial comment, but no one disagrees that he used the word "target" first, and that it was the use of that word -- which implies intent on the part of the shooter, whether that was Jordan's intent or not -- that got him into trouble.

Now, take a look at this:

Some of those most familiar with Mr. Jordan's situation emphasized, in interviews over the weekend, that his resignation should not be read solely as a function of the heat that CNN had been receiving on the Internet, where thousands of messages, many of them from conservatives, had been posted. (My emph.)

Keep that in mind when next you hear that bloggers are busily posting rumours. If not that, what? The Times reporters aren't interested in telling us.

They also aren't interested in letting that impact the rest of the article, all of which is about the influence of the blogs in ending a career. Even though they start the article with the point that it wasn't the blogs that ended the career. Interesting.

They continue:

But while the bloggers are feeling empowered, some in their ranks are openly questioning where they are headed. One was Jeff Jarvis, the head of the Internet arm of Advance Publications, who publishes a blog at buzzmachine.com. Mr. Jarvis said bloggers should keep their real target in mind. "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth," he cautioned.

Excellent point.

How about mentioning the large number of bloggers who weren't calling for Jordan's head, but for the release of the video? Isn't that something journalists and media outlets should be getting behind?

More:

At the same time, some in the traditional media are growing alarmed as they watch careers being destroyed by what they see as the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue.

Of course, unedited presumes that there are no standards, no metrics for quality whatsoever. I don't think that's true. If you aren't making reasonable arguments, if you aren't backing up your claims with links, I just don't think you'll ultimately be able to hold an audience or have an impact.

I jokingly refer to my little tirades as "rants" but at the end of the day, if that's all they were, I'd be talking to myself.

Then (how could they resist) they quote Lovelady from Jay Rosen's site.

Steve Lovelady, a former editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal and now managing editor of CJR Daily, the Web site of The Columbia Journalism Review, has been among the most outspoken.

"The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail," he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. He said that Mr. Jordan cared deeply about the reporters he had sent into battle and was "haunted by the fact that not all of them came back."

Once again it is asserted without qualifier that the session was off the record, making it seem as if the first blogger who posted the session's events broke confidence -- more evidence that the amateurs simply do as they please. I still say that if I had seen the rules posted in the way the published booklet had them -- with a videographer there, no less -- I would also have assumed the session open. For God's sake, the Davos people were promising one blogger a copy of the tape for days before they changed their mind. This session was declared off the record post hoc. I suppose that's their right, but to suggest otherwise permits the press to paint the amateurs in a particular, unflattering light, and that is both inaccurate and unfair.

This simplistic view of what happened is just beneath what we should expect of the New York Times:

He did not think it would get much attention. But Mr. Jordan's comments zipped around the Web and fired up the conservative bloggers, who saw the remarks attributed to Mr. Jordan as evidence of a liberal bias of the big American news media.

Barney Franks was pretty fired up too, you'll recall. Jordan made remarks he couldn't back up. They didn't meet CNN's standards, or the network would have aired a story, yet he felt free to toss around rumours in a meeting of the world's elite. Why is that a conservative issue? Don't liberals care about journalistic standards? Don't liberals care if one of the most important representatives of one of the most important faces of America to the world is spreading rumours against the American military he can't back up?

And do you have to be a conservative to be pro-military?

I'm so sick of these pigeon holes I want to scream.

Gergen's not happy with the role he played in this apparently.

"I think he was attacked because of what he represented as much as what he said," said David Gergen, who moderated the panel at Davos and who has served in the White House for administrations of both parties. He said he was troubled by the attacks on Mr. Jordan and said that his resignation was a mark of the increasing degree to which the news media were being drawn into the nation's culture wars.

Chicken.

This is absolutely unbelievable:

Through the latest uproar, the substance of Mr. Jordan's initial assertion about the military targeting journalists was largely lost. Those who worked closely with Mr. Jordan at CNN, as well as on behalf of other news organizations, said he was aggressive and passionate about making life safer for journalists working in Iraq. (My emph.)

So, in other words the right wing nut bloggers simply went off because he had the temerity of making the suggestion that our beloved military did something wrong?

Not hardly.

This entire controversy has been about nothing but the substance of Jordan's charges -- and his inability to back them up.

It gets worse:

Ann Cooper, executive director for the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that 36 journalists, plus 18 translators who worked for journalists, had been killed in Iraq since 2003. Of those 54, she said, at least nine died as a result of American fire.

"From our standpoint, journalists are not being targeted by the U.S. military in Iraq," Ms. Cooper said. "But there certainly are cases where an atmosphere of what, at best, you can call indifference has led to deaths and other problems for journalists."

As an example, Ms. Cooper cited the shelling by American troops of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, well known as the residence of journalists, in April 2003, killing two journalists. .

But the notion that journalists are "targeted" by the military did not first emerge with Mr. Jordan at Davos. Nik Gowing, a presenter, or anchor, for the BBC, has advanced the theory in writings and speeches that because the media can now convey instantaneously what is happening in a war zone, military commanders may find journalists a hindrance. The Pentagon has dismissed such theories. (My emph.)

No one had disputed the fact that journalists have been killed, or even that some were killed by American fire. (For example, no one disputes the Palestine hotel incident occured.) The dispute has been over the meaning of "targeted" and over other comments made by Jordan over American treatment of journalists. The notion of military indifference is hard to swallow since no one seems inclined to discuss incidents where reporters have been rescued by the American military.

But to throw in Gowing's comments? What does he mean -- that American troops find reporters a hindrance so they're trying to take them out? Where's his evidence? And without evidence, why is the simple conspiracy theory in the Times article? (Again, note the contrast here: bloggers are being indicted for not having standards, but they'll toss an unevidenced and unsupported conspiracy theory and just leave it sitting there -- plop! -- in the middle of the article, like something ugly. Just a thought. A suggestion. Just something we heard. Hey, there's a guy from the BBC and he says -- wink wink -- that American soldiers do find reporters on the battlefield a hindrance after all. And it's the unedited bloggers who are making unsubstantiated claims in a problemmatic way?)

I like this too:

The online attack of Mr. Jordan, particularly among conservative commentators, appeared to gain momentum when they were seized on by other conservative outlets. A report on the National Review Web site was followed by editorials in The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as by a column in The New York Post by Michelle Malkin (a contributor for Fox News, CNN's rival).

Yes, we got word from higher headquarters, you see.

Update: Much more. Via Instapundit, Eugene Volokh destroys the "lynch mob" analogy. Money quote:

Maybe if a persuasion bunch tries to persuade people by using factual falsehoods, they could be faulted on those grounds (though that too has little to do with lynch mobs). But I've seen no evidence that their criticisms were factually unfounded, or that Jordan quit because of any factual errors in the criticisms. (Plus presumably releasing the video of the panel would have been the best way to fight the factual errors.)

We should love persuasion bunches, who operate through peaceful persuasion, while hating lynch mobs, who operate through violence and coercion. What's more, journalists -- to the extent that they love the First Amendment's premise that broad public debate helps discover the truth, and improve society -- ought to love persuasion bunches, too. When the only power you wield is the power to speak, and persuade others through the force of your arguments (and not through the force of your guns, clubs, or fists), that's just fine. Come to think of it, isn't that the power that opinion journalists themselves wield?

Jeff Jarvis meanwhile is busy eviscerating the Times:

The New York Times media beat reporters got beaten badly on the Eason Jordan story -- by [gasp] weblogs and cable news -- and so how do they react? By catching up their readers on what they missed? Of course not. They react by lashing out at weblogs.

This morning's story by Katharine Q. Seelye, Jacques Steinberg, and David F. Gallagher -- under the headline, "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters" -- is another example of the disdain in which many quarters of The Times -- not all -- hold citizens' media.

This being The Times, many of the slaps are subtle. When they quote Edward Morrissey of Captains Quarter, who stayed on top of the Jordan story, they make a point of saying he is "a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis" Read: "He's not one of us. He's not a real journalist."

He notes that they pulled a quote from his blog -- using it to misrepresent his own position -- yet failed to interview Jordan.

More:

And there's one more subtle dig:

The online attack of Mr. Jordan, particularly among conservative commentators, appeared to gain momentum when they were seized on by other conservative outlets. A report on the National Review Web site was followed by editorials in The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal, as well as by a column in The New York Post by Michelle Malkin (a contributor for Fox News, CNN's rival).

Read: "Nobody would pay attention to this story if it weren't picked up by real papers." Also read: "Blogs are a conservative lynch mob."

But, of course, what this doesn't say is that the story was reported by the publication that used to be The Times' nemesis before citizens' media and cable news came along: The Washington Post. It was reported there by Howard Kurtz even though he had to navigate the conflict of interest of being a CNN employee. (Note, by the way, that Kurtz was also the person who brought the discussion to CNN's air yesterday and let it be known that I felt free to say anything about the story, the network, and Jordan there and it was made clear that we would be emphasizing Jordan as the major part of our discussion.) You'd think that The Times would have beaten Kurtz to the story. But they were beaten by the Post, blogs, cable news -- oh, the shame; oh, the humiliation -- and why: Because they dismissed this as the mutterings of a rabble, not the news judgment of the people.

But he ends with a peace offering to Bill Keller.

Here's a roundup of other important reactions from some important folks, including some emails with the now infamous Lovelady,

Update: Slate's media critic weighs in:

If Jordan ever harbored thoughts that U.S. forces had targeted journalists, a position that could be supported by the Kurtz story, then it was his duty as a newsman to pursue the story by assigning a CNN investigative team to it. If he did, I'd love to see the results. But it's fairly obvious that he didn't. Jordan's dereliction is less a mistake than it is proof of brain rot. The supreme editor of a news organization can't expect to make unsupportable inflammatory statements and maintain the respect of his truth-seeking troops at the same time. CNN did the right thing to show him the door. I would have done the same.

And he asks a pretty good question:

It troubles me that Davos policy prohibits attendees from citing specific quotations from its sessions and yet the proceedings are videotaped. What do they do with the videotapes of the "not for quotation" session after recording? Burn them?

Comments

[Media Hound]

Now, this is a "news" article, right?

[Bachbone]

Gergen, a la Dick Morris, is a political hired gun who works both sides of the road, depending on who is paying most at the time.

What Mr. Jordan "said" actually is what he "represented." Opinions presented as fact, long-standing dislike, if not 'loathing,' of the military, deceitful backroom dealings with a murderous dictator to gain advantage over the CNN competition, active purveyor of leftist political culture, and, when finally called on these predilections, a whiner who reverted to playing the "McCarthyism" and "victimized" cards to cast red herrings on the trail he left.

Shame on Jordan and Gergen.

[Chris Sgarlata]

The long-term value of Easongate:

Exposing the *enormous* lengths that the Old Media (OM - MSM is losing currency as OM is losing audience) will go to in order to protect those individuals who are perceived to hold career-making/breaking power. Like EJ.

The widespread silence (and post-firing attacks) by the OM indicate that there is heavy, heavy duty cronyism in the OM. Now OM figures are shitting their pants trying to figure out what to do - 1) hide the truth to protect OM powerbrokers
and run afoul of the shockingly powerful blogosphere or 2) tell the unvarnished truth (there's a concept) and watch the network invites evaporate.

EJ could make/break careers at CNN (despite falling ratings, still a big swinging dick in OM media circles) - so no OM figure was going to piss in *that* punchbowl by speaking (or even inquiring after) the truth.

By exposing just how frequently the OM manipulate the "facts" to promote their own personal, institutional, and industrial interests, Easongate may actually be more important historically than Rathergate.

[Eno]

Thank you for getting the main point that the MSM types are missing. This was a "fact", not an opinion, stated by an executive at a Major Media outlet. Had he said, "I think the American military is full of thugs who target journalists," then he should not lose his job. He is entitled to his opinion, no matter how ignorant or uneducated. Jordan state that our (and Israeli) soldiers"targeted" journalists without any facts to back this "fact" up.
It is not "McCarthyism" to point out unsubstantied coments in the MSM. They are just furious that someone can now do it!
If Gergen is right, and Jordan's opinions and reporting are so joined that an attack on one is an attack on the other, then doesn't that admit that CNN has a left wing bias? Oops, that damn blogger logic again! Keep up the good work.

[louielouie]

releasing any tape of a WEF proceeding would set a dangerous precedent. numerous individuals comments, i.e., bill gates, bill clinton, could not frankly discuss matters of concern among the assembled america haters.

[dauber]

I appreciate all the comments, but I still think there's room for too much blogosphere triumphalism here. Tis a powerful tool, no doubt, but we still don't know for sure why he resigned, and the blogosphere was not able to get the ultimate goal -- the tape released. I just worry what happens if the media sees (or can represent) all of this as nothing but partisan headhunting. If that's what the 'sphere comes to represent, people ready and waiting to use any mistake as an opportunity to see heads roll, then it's real power isn't being fully articulated. No doubt old media, legacy media, msm, whatever you want to call it/them, has every incentive to misunderstand and misrepresent what this tool is about, but this is a delicate moment.

Right after the fall of the Berlin Wall the White House had a strictly enforced "no gloat" rule. Bloggers who wrote about the Jordan case should impose the same.

I don't think I'm being very articulate about this, perhaps because the argument hasn't gelled yet in my own mind. And I don't mean this as a critique of what's been said here, but more as a caution. Old media still has an awful lot of audience share. More people won't come over to the 'sphere, or use it as an additive, the real goal, if they see it as nothing more than shrill or as partisan.