CNN Says G.I.s in Iraq Target Journalists

The New York Sun reports "The head of CNN's news division, Eason Jordan, ignited an Internet firestorm last week when he told a panel at a World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland, that the American military had targeted journalists during operations in Iraq."

It has taken legacy media over a week to report on this story after initial silence. Why speak out now?

Bloggers, that's why. More and more legacy media are being shamed by bloggers into doing their job - reporting the news.

Now Jordan's in the stew again. Speaking last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jordan made an arresting charge. He claimed the U.S. military, while pacifying Iraq, had targeted both American and foreign journalists.

Panel chairman David Gergen, according to insider accounts, gasped. The man who'd worked in administrations from Nixon's to Clinton's demanded evidence. Liberal Congressman Barney Frank, who was there, also demanded proof.

Jordan backed off — slightly. But afterward he accepted congratulations from Arab reporters who called him heroic.

That's when the bloggers stepped in, including some who were actually there. Then master blogger Hugh Hewitt took up the case. Soon the blogosphere was electric with outrage over Jordan's irresponsible charge. Now there's an easongate.com, tracking the scandal's every fact, every claim, every angle, and demanding CNN come clean.

Why "scandal"? Jordan was spouting outrageous charges with no basis in fact. In journalism, even in High Church Journalism, that is a cardinal sin. Rising to the topmost reaches of media power does not exempt one from the first rules learned in journalism class.

The bloggers, who've done so much recently to correct the elite media's misbehavior — including sending CBS's Dan Rather to newsman's purgatory — now have Eason Jordan as quarry.

Deservedly so. It's time for him to go.

Now if we could just get the blogsphere ignited with a firestorm to correct the BBC and the Guardian. We bloggers in the UK just don't seem to have the clout our US counterparts have.

I only have five blogs listed under the blog roll heading of BBC Unspun. If anyone knows of other blogs who keep tabs on the BBC or other British media, let me know and I'll add a link.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------