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February 6, 2005
Eason Jordan's Job is the Political Job in TV News"...CNN also works like a private network among the powerful, who can shoot mesages to each other (see what trouble I cause?) with headlines. TV news is often used for the propaganda of the word, but so much more effectively it sends the propaganda of the deed."(Background is PressThink, Weekend Note on Eason Jordan (Feb. 5). See also Richard Sambrook of the BBC: What Eason Jordan Said in Davos (Feb. 7) We have a poor vocabulary for describing just what an operation like CNN actually is. A 24-hour cable news network, yes. But there are aspects of a sovereign state about it, in “negotiation” with other states and heads of those states. Sometimes CNN works like a private network among the powerful, who can shoot mesages to each other, (see what trouble I cause?) with headlines. TV news can be used for the propaganda of the word, and often is, but so much more effectively it sends the propaganda of the deed. So CNN is a lot of things. Eason Jordan’s job, as I interpret it, is a political post. High pressure one, too. For CNN wants to operate in every country in the world. It needs permission of some kind from each and every prince. Someone has to meet all those princes to open the bureaus. Someone has to explain CNN and its intentions to governments and critics— and paranoids. It is Eason Jordan who has to “get CNN into Baghdad,” and get his people out of there when they are in danger. It is Jordan who goes to the military with CNN’s complaints. It’s there in his bio, which is listed under anchors and reporters: He chairs the CNN Editorial Board, is a member of the CNN Executive Committee and provides strategic advice to CNN’s senior management team. Jordan’s global portfolio includes managing CNN’s editorial relationships with international affiliates, governments and major newspapers. He oversees CNN’s World Report Conference and the CNN International Professional Program. Jordan travels the world both as a CNN executive and a working journalist. Eason Jordan is not the President but the Colin Powell of news at CNN, and his skills have to be diplomatic, as well as strategic. Therefore being diplomatic in what you say, especially in a public forum, is in the essence of his role. He deals with governments in tense situations. Much of what he does never becomes known. It can’t be. (See Jordan’s op-ed about it and Bob Steele, “The Secrets He Kept: Eason Jordan’s moral dilemma.”) Yet he is listed as a reporter and anchor, officially. Officially, he travels the world as a working journalist. He “represents” CNN newsgathering to the world as a senior statesman. I have met Jordan, who is a very nice—and interesting—man, extremely gracious for someone in his position. I didn’t have a chance to interview him, which I regret. (I did, however, question Princell Hair, then executive vice president and general manager of CNN’s U.S. operations.) You could easily picture Jordan as a candidate for office, or let’s say a Senator’s chief of staff. He’s a politician of news— a difficult and necessary job. He’s also the chief diplomatic officer for CNN, which, in certain respects, is a kind of principality among the states: the information states. Sovereign in global video, which can trigger events and end regimes. I said Jordan negotiates with governments. He does not have to beg. Some of his worldy outlook comes through in an interview he gave to Sarah Sullivan in 2002. There is one part I find fascinating. He describes CNN International as a supra-national player, synthesizing in its offices scattered worldwide a kind of World Journalism or global professionalism in news that, in Jordan’s vision, transcends the bias of any one nation, and certainly of the “base” country. Listen…
The reality is that we are a US-based news channel, but that doesn’t mean we’re American in perspective with our international service. In fact the person who oversees all our international outlets is not an American at all, he’s British, and we hired him from the BBC several years ago. There are more than fifty nationalities of journalists who work at CNN International producing that service. If we were to move CNN’s base to Egypt maybe they’d say we’re Egyptian?you have to be based somewhere. It’s a political job and this is Eason Jordan’s political philosophy. It has global reach. And big implications for a journalism of global voices. But he’s no per-fessor. He has to speak with a diplomat’s tongue, in all situations, and certainly the World Economic Forum is one. These are facts to keep in mind if there is a tape, and you are interested enough to listen. After Matter: Notes, reactions & links I was a guest on NPR’s On the Media this week, talking with host Brooke Gladstone about the rise of the term “MSM,” or mainstream media. Listen here. (It’s 3-4 minutes.) See also PressThink, Weekend Note on Eason Jordan. “Before Eason is stoned, are we sure that we are all without sin? Right wing bloggers: are you holding our leaders to the same standard of accountability that we are now holding Eason Jordan?” Rony Abovitz has doubts, newly expressed (Feb. 6). He’s the one who first wrote about Eason’s comments in Davos. Swarms of bloggers, in a furious feeding frenzy that I have only seen before in sharks, are tasting blood and moving in for the kill. What has now been dubbed “Easongate” by Rebecca MacKinnon has begun to leak into comics, hundreds of blogs, as well as the Washington Times… I just saw on NBC’s Chris Matthews show fellow blogger and political pundit Hugh Hewitt break the story on American television, promising that next week Easongate would blow open as big news. A lynch mob of bloggers is asking for Eason’s head, and it seems that all of the excitement is moving towards a seemingly inevitable conclusion: the deposing of a news media chief disliked by the right, but apparently loved by an Aljazeera audience to whom he is supposedly pandering. Hugh Hewitt replies: “No one is about to ‘stone’ Eason Jordan —he is catching hell for slandering the good men and women in uniform. That’s all. You can’t blast heroes as killers and walk off the field to cocktail parties in Davos and pretend nothing happened.” See this by (former CNN-er) Rebecca MacKinnon on CNN’s “American” identity and its commercial nature.
Posted by Jay Rosen at February 6, 2005 12:24 AM
Comments
The differences betweem diplomatic and journalist credentials are not so great, and both are ombudsmen of sorts. Posted by: Ross Mayfield at February 6, 2005 1:06 AM | Permalink Most of the time, I am able to at least understand why a particular post is made. This time, this one escapes me. Posted by: Joe at February 6, 2005 1:40 AM | Permalink This time, this one escapes me. in case you haven't noticed, Rosen has been sucking up to the warbloggers like crazy of late. Spy Magazine used to have a monthly feature about "logrolling"---how authors would provide quotes for use as jacket copy to hype each others' books. That is what we are seeing here. Rosen, Hewitt, and Jarvis are now involved in a three-way orgy of self-congratulation, and Rosen is consistently featuring issues favored by warbloggers (and has managed to ignore a truly significant story that, unlike the Jordan story, actually relates to the interaction of journalism and the internet. That is the "Bush bulge" story, and how the mainstream media ignored that story while going batsh*t over the "memogate" thing.) Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 6, 2005 9:39 AM | Permalink Dear lord, Lukasiak, you're indefatigable, aren't you? A parody of a parody.... Posted by: Jeff B. at February 6, 2005 12:07 PM | Permalink Jay is quite right to emphasize CNN's image of itself as supra-national, a soverign power alongside the political states. Which raises the question, of course, of how such an entity can (and whether it should) be held accountable for its actions. This is not a new question - the same thing is being asked about a variety of NGOs with global aspirations. CNN and other news outlets will make their own choices about what forces will guide their behavior and reporting. On the one hand is the very powerful force of the market - as I recall the numbers, CNN has a relatively modest audience in the US vs. a large and growing audience in the Middle East, for instance. On the other hand is the profession's code of ethics - if, in fact, a sufficiently transnational code may be said to exist. Readers, viewers and shareholders must similarly decide where their best value lies. An increasing number of Americans are indifferent to the major media because they view it as providing content of indifferent quality and factuality. Just one comment on the "international vs. American" nature of CNN. For all that Jordan and others might insist on their international identity, I seriously doubt his reported statements in Davos would have attracted much attention if CNN had originated and were based elsewhere than here. In that sense Jordan may well be attempting to have it both ways, to CNN's benefit each time. Posted by: Robin Burk at February 6, 2005 12:23 PM | Permalink One other comment. Like Abovitz, I am uncomfortable with mob action on this story, primarily because I haven't seen the videotape of the incident. Until I do, it is hard to come to a firm conclusion about Jordan's intent and impact. So much of this sort of communication is paralingual - body language, tone, setting and the responses he gave to the responses he got. Hugh Hewitt has famously expressed a desire for his political opponents to be crushingly defeated, which gives me pause on this story. I too have strong political beliefs, which are not the same as Hewitt's on many issues. Those beliefs are tempered by a number of factors, not the least being the important role of checks and balances throughout our political system - including the value of having two coherent, thoughtful and different political parties. Similarly, I want unfiltered, fact-based reporting and thoughtful analysis from a variety of political viewpoints. I am deeply dismayed by what I see as earned lack of credibility on the part of many professional journalists and commentators. I am equally dismayed by sharks in the water before firm evidence is at hand. My solution? Press for the evidence and firmly refuse the judgement until the facts are known. If Jordan tossed out incendiary allegations as factual, without having evidence for them, then he is guilty as charged. If, on the other hand, Hewitt et al are guilty of deliberately exagerating the situation in order to take down a news executive whom they detest, then he and those who join him will lose the respect and credibility of people like me and the next election may well turn out to his disliking. Posted by: Robin Burk at February 6, 2005 12:59 PM | Permalink If Jordan tossed out incendiary allegations as factual, without having evidence for them, then he is guilty as charged. Guilty of what? I mean, seriously, what crime did he commit? The fact is that he probably did say something "incendiary" along the lines of what has been widely reported. But what has not been as widely reported is that he immediately retracted the statement when challenged. Members of the news media lie every day---especially the right-wingers. Yet they are never held to account---they seldom even admit they were wrong. Why the double standard here? Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 6, 2005 3:22 PM | Permalink Rony Abovitz is such a hoot! Rony sez: "Right wing bloggers: are you holding our leaders to the same standards of accountability that we are Eason Jordon?" Hey Rony---we hold our leaders accountable by what is commonly known as "elections". I didn't vote for Eason Jordan, but please tell me how to vote against him. Rony then seems shocked by the "furious feeding frenzy that I have only seen before in sharks tasting blood..." I guess Rony doesn't pay much attention to the media, if he did, he'd see this kind of "freeding frenzy" daily, except this time someone in the press is the victim instead of the perpetrator. How deliciously ironic----hey, pressies---if you're gonna dish it out, you had better learn to take it! Posted by: paladin at February 6, 2005 3:50 PM | Permalink Rony Abovitz is such a hoot! Rony sez: "Right wing bloggers: are you holding our leaders to the same standards of accountability that we are Eason Jordon?" Hey Rony---we hold our leaders accountable by what is commonly known as "elections". the point is that you didn't hold Bush accountable for his lies, exaggerations, and deliberate distortions---instead you voted for him. I mean, if you treat Jordan the same way you treated Bush, you will be tuning into CNN 24.7. Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 6, 2005 6:18 PM | Permalink "Joe" says earlier in this thread..."Most of the time, I am able to at least understand why a particular post is made. This time, this one escapes me." I am not certain there's an answer to that. Like others in this thread, I am amazed at what some people seem to know of others' motivations. I see that as an area that is difficult to ultimately understand. We should be cautious about making statements based on a thin slice of facts. Many posts I write have an educational purpose. If you think of them that way, they sometimes make more sense. Excuse me, but who are you to educate us? is a perfectly valid question. I would say essential. PressThink, the weblog, is the answer I am providing. This doesn't mean posts are "purely" or only educational, or that is my one and only aim, or "I have no politics, just knowledge" or anything remotely like that. Posts have many reasons for being written. No, educational simply means a post that is saying: well, I thought you should know this. Or here's a lot of knowledge, dig in. Or let's break this down into parts. Or here I have plotted the discussion... where do you fit? Sometimes, it's, "I know what some of you want, you want one post with all the key links and some sense of what people are buzzing about..." and that is the why. Journalist and blogger Joe Gandelman has a similar style. There are others. See the updates from LaShawn Barber. I don't keep myself out of it, at all, but you asked a "why?" question. Sometimes, the post may be that way because that is the best way I could devise to get some knowledge to the most people. Or hook them on the discussion. This is a knowledge blog, and its preferred style is dialogic. But it is primarily about giving people access to high quality thought, and the clash of articulate views. PressThink tries to arrange the world in conversational terms because I find that is the easiest way people can enter. The doorway is dialogue. If Hugh Hewitt takes the time to ask me a question at his blog, I am inclined, yes, to answer it. It's dialogic to do it that way. If Atrios asked, I am quite sure I would reply. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 6, 2005 6:40 PM | Permalink I keep seeing Mr. Lukasiak popping up in the comments of the media blogs I read, and I have to say (after my meek admission earlier on this blog of being mostly a lurker) that he adds nothing to any of the discussions or comments of value. Everyone to disagree with him is just a parrot of mindless consequence blah blah. Would that it were so, Mr. Lukasiak. As it stands, I think you're just rowing your canoe with one paddle, and you may circle all you wish. More of us out here want and engage in honest discussion, warts and all. What a shame, or probably more accurately, you don't realize how many readers of these sites think you are a complete waste of time, prattling on and on. Take it elsewhere and stop wasting intelligent peoples' bandwidth with your paranoid effluvium. Please. Posted by: Mark at February 6, 2005 7:12 PM | Permalink And the fact that Jay Rosen replies means that the new form of journalism is advancing much more quickly than old media. I have posed questions of Rony, Rebecca, Jay and Jeff Jarvis and all four have responded. CNN remains buttoned down and hoping that the storm will pass. That won't work anymore, at least not if credibility remains a value for a news organziation. When a critical mass of bloggers pose a set of questions --such as "What exactly did you say and where's the transcript?"-- then big media has to respond, or lose credibility, and after that, market share. The same dynamic will work vis-a-vis any media source. It isn't an ideological dynamic --just a responsive one. Posted by: Hugh Hewitt at February 6, 2005 7:13 PM | Permalink I found this to be an interesting post on another blog. I fear there is more truth to this than any of us would want to acknowledge. " I have a lot of respect for the work, writing, passion and positions of Hewitt, but surely he is being disingenuous here. Surely he knows about the "Unwritten Blacklist" of mainstream media today. Unlike the oooga-booga Hollywood Blacklist still used today to convince credulous freshmen that something under the Conservative Bed is always drooling and stalking their freedom, the "Unwritten Blacklist" is quite real and quite tangible. And its primary function is to keep the MSM gravy train moving down the track. To take on an Eason Jordan and expose him would be a noble thing for a major journalist to do, but it would also put a large check mark against his name on the Unwritten Blacklist as a traitor. Even if Jordan were brought down, especially if Jordan were brought down, the journalists behind it would find their chances for other lucrative job offers, for advancement, and for invitations to all the right parties in New York, Washinton, and the Hamptons severely curtailed. Their actions against an Eason Jordan would be quietly noted by those in hiring and assignment positions higher up the media food chain. After all, to take on one is to take on all. It used to be the case that if you "struck at a prince" you had to be sure to kill him. Things are not that simple in the upper realms of the unelected powerbroker's of MSM. Now if you strike at a prince you have to kill all the others around them. Unless, of course, you don't care about appearing on cable news shows to sooth your vanity and pump your book, or care about landing that book deal to begin with, or care about someday having a show of your own, or care about advancing at your institution or receiving a better offer from another newspaper, magazine, television network. Strike at someone like Eason Jordon and all these things will, somehow, just not be offered to you. And, in their hearts, journalists and columnists understand this. Eason Jordan is a member of a caste system and that system punishes those who tell tales out of school by labeling them "untouchable." At the end of the day, nothing's going to happen with the Jordan story. The videotape will be lost and the transcript will not surface, and all will move on to the next four-hour news cycle. Jordan will be back working the room and being worked next year at Davos. You see you can blast heroes as killers and walk off the field to cocktail parties in Davos and pretend nothing happened if you and your cohort control the careers of all that might expose you. That's how, absent a net worth of at least $500 million, you get to Davos in the first place." Posted by: Joe at February 6, 2005 7:30 PM | Permalink On purposes of posts - sometimes I get confused too . Explicit framing helps the reader to prepare, and its absence can be disconcerting. (Example - a former colleague who would read a few lines aloud from the newspaper, then look up at you expectantly, when you had no idea what she was getting at) So in some cases, it might help your denser readers (me) if you were to provide a one-sentence 'frame' for what you're posting. Admittedly this won't always be appropriate - too simplistic, or too limiting, or...) Posted by: Anna at February 6, 2005 8:09 PM | Permalink If we were to move CNN's base to Egypt maybe they'd say we're Egyptian—you have to be based somewhere.I'd like to hear from anyone familiar with the Egyptian state/press and media how CNN might be different if it moved its base to Egypt. I'd then like to know if anyone finds it an odd statement for Jordan to make. Posted by: Sisyphus at February 6, 2005 10:05 PM | Permalink Hugh, Making any money off the Iraqi dinar ads? I suspect that if CNN International moved its headquarters to Egypt, it would be regarded as an American news operation basing itself in Egypt. It's a very odd statement, but I wouldn't attach much significance to the choice of country. He could have said The Hague or Madagascar or Singapore. Anna: I like your suggestion about framing. I am not sure I could do it, but... In this post, I realized on re-reading that I did describe what it was and why. It's the last line: "These are facts to keep in mind if there is a tape, and you are interested enough to listen." Jordan's diplomatic role is something to keep in mind in interpreting anything factual about the episode. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 6, 2005 11:42 PM | Permalink "These are facts to keep in mind if there is a tape, and you are interested enough to listen." There's really not a lot of "if" in either part of that sentence. That there is a tape we know from those in attendance. Where the tape is and who made it, or caused it to be made (Davos, CNN, A.N.Other) is what is not currently know. There was also an audience, two of whom have written about what was said that I know of. (Source, named, and corroborating source, also named.) There are others that were in the audience and several of them are known and of political and economic weight. In fact pretty much everyone in the room carried weight. It's not rocket science. If we saw a tenth of the resources used on the Sponge-Bob business deployed on this story it could be wrapped up and put to bed in one-third of a news cycle. There's no "if." There is only do or do not do. Posted by: Van der Leun at February 7, 2005 12:07 AM | Permalink Until you have the data, someone telling you they have the data, and promising to send the data next week, does not resolve all the IF. I'm sorry, but let's wait to hear the tape is a common sense position. You're not arguing anyone out if it. Especially not by declaring: There's no "if." There is only do or do not do. But, Van, I ask you: What advantage is gained by projecting premature certainty over matters soon resolved anyway IF and when the tape is heard? You know who was previously famous for doing just that? Journalists! The mighty pundits of the famous MSM. I can think of one advantage jumping to certainty has. It makes for a convenient loyalty test... who will jump with me? Who will go to Certain Status as soon? Who's with us in our great cause? And who's not reliable. Posted by: Jay Rosen at February 7, 2005 12:40 AM | Permalink That's more than a fair criticism and I accept it. Patience must be our firm watchword. Posted by: Van der Leun at February 7, 2005 12:56 AM | Permalink "The press should be allowed to just make sh!t up without consequence-----the Reality Base Community demands it. " translation....when the right wing echo chamber decides something is important, the media has to cover it. (this rule, of course, does not cover the center and left wings of the spectrum, as noted by the lack of interest in holding right-wingers accountable for their words.) " If Atrios asked, I am quite sure I would reply." How about Kos? Or Jerome? or any number of other bloggers. Atrios isn't going to ask you why you haven't written about something, because that is not his style. The wingnuts that you respond to like Hewitt and Jarvis think that there is a media bias, and that you represent the thinking of "liberal media", and so they complain to you about lack of coverage. And you are duped into responding to complete non-stories like this Jordan story (if he hadn't retracted the statement, it MIGHT be a story) and that Boxer piece in the Times. The right wing is not interested in rational discourse---they support a President who is the antithesis of rational discourse. Their goal is no less than the destruction of the fundamental principles of fairness and equality on which the Constitution was based. Where is Hewitt's outrage on the detention and torture by the US of Arab/Muslim journalists, and the indefinite detention (with no explanation) of an al Jazeera cameraman? Why doesn't Hewitt get the video of attack on the Palestine Hotel where most of the "non-embedded" journalists were located, and start demanding answers about the murder of two foreign journalists (hint--the US claimed that they were being fired on from the hotel. The video proves that didn't happen.) And when will Hewitt demand an explanation of how the US also attacked both al Jazeera and Al Arabiya hqs on the same morning, despite knowing which buildings both organizations were located in. Hewitt (and his right wing buddies) have not demanded answers to the real questions raised by Eason Jordan----Has the US targeted journalists in Iraq for harrassment? detention? torture? murder? Instead, they are obsessing about a statement which was retracted, and may have been the result of a lack of clarity in an off-the-cuff statement. (Twelve journalists have been killed by "coalition" forces in Iraq, and scores of journalists have been harrassed and detained, and there are credible reports of torture---plus there are the bombings of buildings known to harbor journalists who do not toe the US line. How likely, given that Jordan retracted his statement, is it that he simply and erroneously conflated the two by mistake? Was the unretracted version of Jordan's statement reported in the Arab press? IS THIS REALLY A STORY?) When Hewitt organizes his right wing buddies to insist that Rush Limbaugh be taken off the air for conflating torture with fraternity pranks, THAT will be a story.
Posted by: p.lukasiak at February 7, 2005 4:16 AM | Permalink You mean it *wasn't* a fraternity prank? Who knew?! Posted by: Van der Leun at February 7, 2005 2:40 PM | Permalink The Sambrook thread (next) is already better, now -- but it's good to see Jay, Hugh, and Van der Leun (the "blacklist" writer) in the comments. Because the media has become SO biased, most stories are really two -- the facts (what Jordan said), and the media coverage of those facts; or coverup. Robin Burk, and Jay, keep counseling "patience" -- which IS good with respect to facts about what Jordan said. But it's NO GOOD with respect to the MSM coverup, denial by non-coverage, denial that there even IS a story. Jordan should be treated like ... Trent Lott! Lott made racist comments (unrelated to his votes), he got booted out of his prestigious job. And the Rep bloggers were Against him for his mouth. This Davos LIE (?) is combined with Jordan's prior statement that US military tortures journalists (implying targeted torture? lousy story, not clear); AND his admission that CNN acted like Iraq's Min. of Info for Saddam. Jordan should be fired. Unless he can show reason why not. The burden of proof, in the mostly non-accountable CNN, MSM, Contraption world, is now on Jordan. The FACTS include the stonewall coverup. Nixon got "fired" over the coverup. Actually, Rather did too -- a "next day" apology would have saved him (prolly). Jordan should be fired, too. And maybe his CNN boss -- who IS that, by the way??? Lousy, lousy reporting on the MSM power structure; little accountability, all that power ... corruption should surprise nobody. Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at February 8, 2005 12:32 AM | Permalink |
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