WaPo breaks the silence on Eason Jordan
Well, it’s a start, I suppose.
Maybe now that Howard Kurtz has spoken on this in the Washington Post (login), other media outlets will pick up on it.
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. At first, said Frank, “it sounded like he was saying it was official military policy to take out journalists.” But 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.
Jordan denied that last night, saying he had been responding to Frank’s comment that the 63 journalists who have been killed in Iraq were “collateral damage” in the war. “I was trying to make a distinction between ‘collateral damage’ and people who got killed in other ways,” Jordan said last night. “I have never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalist. Never meant to suggest that. Obviously I wasn’t as clear as I should have been on that panel.”
In some of the cases, “with the benefit of hindsight, had more care been taken, maybe this could have been avoided,” Jordan said, referring to shootings that involved mistaken identity. But, he said, “it’s a war zone. Terrible things happen.”
Two other panelists backed Jordan’s account. David Gergen, editor at large at U.S. News & World Report, said he “sort of gasped” when Jordan spoke of journalists being “deliberately killed,” but that Jordan “realized, as soon as he said it, he’d gone too far” and “walked it back.” Jordan then expressed “a very deep concern about whether our soldiers on the ground level are using as much care as they should” when journalists are involved, said Gergen, who moderated the discussion.
BBC World Services Director Richard Sambrook, in a note to New York University journalism professor and blogger Jay Rosen, said Jordan was objecting to the phrase “collateral damage.”
“He clarified this comment to say he did not believe they were targeted because they were journalists, although there are others in the media community who do hold that view (personally, I don’t),” Sambrook wrote. “They had been deliberately killed as individuals — perhaps because they were mistaken for insurgents, we don’t know. However the distinction he was seeking to make is that being shot by a sniper, or fired at directly is very different from being, for example, accidentally killed by an explosion.”
No transcript exists of the Jan. 27 session, which was supposed to be off the record, and a videotape of the event has not been made public. The dispute erupted when Rony Abovitz, co-founder of the technology company Z-Kat, posted an account on the forum’s Web site of what Jordan said, while also noting that he had backpedaled when challenged.
This triggered widespread denunciations of Jordan by conservative bloggers, who have also criticized the mainstream media for not reporting the remarks.
…
Frank said he found Jordan’s remarks “troubling” and in a later phone conversation asked him for specifics about the journalistic casualties so he could make inquiries at the Pentagon. Jordan said Frank was responding to a note from him and that there had been a “misunderstanding” if the congressman expected a further response.
[Emphasis mine.] What an arrogant bastard.
Nothing earth-shattering in this piece, but as I said, it’s a start. I’m a little pessimistic on how this will end up, unfortunately. Suffice it to say, if this lightweight piece is indicative of Big Media’s opinion on the issue (as in “no big deal”), it’s going to fade away. I’m not even sure that a videotape will matter. The only thing that will make any difference to them is if Rep. Frank and Senator Dodd make a big stink about it. I’m not holding my breath.
Michelle Malkin has much more on this than I do, so read her review.
Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of developments on his MSNBC site, including video from Kudlow & Cramer, where the Eason Jordan story was discussed.
Others all over this: Easongate, TKS, La Shawn Barber.
UPDATE: The New York Sun also has an article today.
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