More On Eason Jordan
Ace kicks butt with a good post blowing apart the memes currently put forth by the Eason Jordan handwringers out there.
Just one thing to add. He says:
Second, the WSJ is all wet about Jordan's offense being non-fireable or non-felonious. Reporters are supposed to report verifiable, or at least confirmed, facts. They are not supposed to traffic in ludicrous Al Jazeera level conspiracy theories, whether acting in their official capacity or a semi-official capacity as a CNN representative at a media panel.
I agree, but I want to go a little further. To me the main offense isn't just what Jordan said...but the MSM's decree that what he said wasn't that big of a deal. Journalism is supposed to report facts, as Ace points out in a rather, ahem, indecorous manner (Ace, I think Jordan Golson will soon be giving you a call about your Instalanche...). That's all anyone was asking here...that the MSM report the facts of what Jordan said. The offense was in the MSM deciding from its ivory tower that it wasn't a big deal and certainly didn't merit coverage...in other words, they showed lousy editorial judgement, and are rightfully getting hammered for it. One thing you can't do (or ought not do) as a journalist is let your biases decide what the news is. It's a breach of ethics.
Finally, if the MSM was trying to bury something like this into oblivion, it makes you wonder what else is sitting on their Spike Pile.
Posted by John Tant at February 14, 2005 02:27 PM
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