Eason Easin' Into MSM

Here's a bibliography of all the Eason Jordan media (not blog) coverage from the last week, courtesy of Nexis. I got 17 hits (16 unique), up from one the previous week -- and that was about a very kind and low-key charitable donation he made. This is an improvement, but the story still is not being picked up broadly in the big papers.

Here's what we've got today. [Sorry, some links are to home pages, not to stories, because I've got to take Incredible Daughter #3 to school in less than an hour].

The Boston Globe: The brief (426 words) news story leads with Jordan's retraction, throws in a good summary of the allegations, including the Frank and Dodd quotes, and concludes with a bit of reporting:

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization based in New York, says nine journalists and at least two media support workers have been killed by fire from US forces in Iraq, according to the organization's Middle East program coordinator, Joel Campagna. Campagna said that the group has not concluded that any deaths resulted from deliberate targeting of journalists but that some cases raised issues of "fire discipline and indiscriminate fire."

Hannity and Colmes had a spirited discussion with lots of interesting points from their guests. The transcript isn't posted, but if you want to read it, e-mail me at laer@laer.com

Backpeddling at Frontrunner (a pay-for-summaries news service):

The Washington Post (2/8, C1, Kurtz) reports, "What CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan said, or didn't say, in Davos, Switzerland, last month has become a burgeoning controversy among bloggers and media critics. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who attended the World Economic Forum panel at which Jordan spoke, recalled yesterday that Jordan said he knew of 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq." Jordan "later 'modified' his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this 'maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger. ... He did say he was talking about cases of deliberate killing,' Frank said."

The National Journal's paid service Hotline provided a good, straightforward summary. I imagine the subscription list of this little number will raise some eyes at CNN.

Jay Nordlinger's NRO article and Larry Kudlow's article also in NRO both showed up, as did Roderick Boyd's New York Sun article, the Washington Times editorial, and Howard Kurtz' WaPo article, which I won't bother to link. The hypocrite.

There's the Kudlow & Cramer pre-Hugh interview with Ann Coulter. Again, e-mail me at laer@laer.com if you want the transcript.

Chris Matthews' interview of Hugh is up. You can get the transcript at Hugh's site. Hugh's Weekly Standard column on the subject was also quoted at length in a Washington Times article on the subject, which brought up the rear as the 17th Nexis hit.

Jack Kelly's breakthrough column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette appeared, with its succinct statement:

The scandalous remarks of Eason Jordan, CNN's top news executive, last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (where Europe's elite goes once a year to sneer at the United States), and the failure of the major media to report them suggest the distortions are deliberate.

The Riverside County, CA Press Enterprise ran an editorial I can't find on their Web site. Here's a digest of it:

CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, said Jan. 27 on a
world stage that "he knew of 12 journalists who had not only
been killed by U.S. troops, but they had in fact been targeted,"
according to Rony Abovitz of the World Economic Forum's weblog.

Problem is, Jordan has provided no facts to substantiate this
very serious charge. Now the claim, which Jordan floated at the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is spreading through
anti-American circles in Europe and the Middle East.

Jordan's words matter because CNN is, in the eyes of much of the
world, the "voice of America." If its news chief is reporting
fabrications to global leaders at elite summits, it's another
blow to media credibility at home, and to the United States'
reputation abroad.

Officially, CNN says, "Mr. Jordan emphatically does not believe
that the U.S. military intended to kill journalists and believes
these accidents to be cases of 'mistaken identity.'"

Nice try, but that's not what he said in Davos, according to
multiple news accounts, including one from a former CNN reporter
who was there. ...

CNN bills itself as the "world's most respected news network."
If the network expects to sell that slogan, it will need a more
honest top executive than Eason Jordan.

The Global News Wire ran a lengthy report on the conference and even quoted Jordan -- but not about deliberate targeting. Interesting that an international reporter didn't see the significance.