CNN news chief clarifies comments on Iraq

[struggle4progress]

By HOWARD KURTZ
The Washington Post
Published on: 02/08/05

<snip> Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who attended the World Economic Forum panel at which (CNN chief news executive Eason) Jordan spoke, recalled this week 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 Monday 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." <snip>

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. <snip>

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/business/cnn/0205/08cnnjordan.html

[autorank]

1. The elite hide out in Davos, Switzerland to avoid the people!

Unlike the working reporters, the soldiers, the people who get nailed regularly in this country by * and company greed, the elitists hob-nob in a small town in the Alps. This makes the Ivory Towers of the academy seem down-right populist by comparison.

Does anyone get a Dr. Zhivago vibe out of these world economic summits?

[burythehatchet]

2. the US troops do, in fact, intentionally target journalists

especially European and ME journalists.

[theresistance]

3. I don't see how you can argue that US forces

haven't targeted journalist. Just two examples being the bombing of Al Jazeera's offices in both Afghanistan and Iraq. But of course the US military will deny it. I don't think his comments were controversial. In fact, I'm sick of how people have to always back track and deny what they said just because it causes a stir or people don't like it.

[struggle4progress]

5. I thought Gergen's description was especially telling.

[girl gone mad]

4. Wow.

I guess he feared for his job or his life. I don't doubt that there is a lot of animosity on the part of soldiers to wards journalists in Iraq. Remember the footage released a few months ago of the soldier killing a wounded, unarmed man? Many on the right were publicly calling for soldiers to go after that reporter.

[applegrove]

6. Was in that documentary the one called the "newsroom".

Was in that documentary the one called the "newsroom".

All journalists give coordinates to the US army of where they are located so they will not be bombed in war. So the US army knows where they are. Then if a bomb happens - um - what are you supposed to think?

This is afterall Rumsfields 'intelligent war with no casualties'.

[enough]

7. strange story

snip>

No stranger to controversy

Jordan's comments have sparked controversy before. He drew widespread criticism in 2003 for saying in a New York Times op-ed piece that CNN had withheld information about some of Saddam Hussein's abuses out of concern for the network's Iraqi employees in Baghdad. "Withholding information that would get innocent people killed was the right thing to do, not a journalistic sin," Jordan told his staff in a memo.

Three CNN staffers have been killed in Iraq, two of them in January 2004 when the cars they were traveling in came under fire by insurgents.

Gergen said Jordan had just returned from Baghdad and was still "deeply distraught" over the journalists who have died in Iraq. "This was a guy caught up in the tension of the moment," Gergen said. "He deserves the benefit of the doubt."

snip>



Seems the scandal is that he said it, not that they did it (as usual).

[Kimber Scott]

8. "using as much care as they should" when journalists are involved"

Yes, you have to make sure you only kill the bad guys and innocent Iraqis - not innocent journalists.

[MaineDem]

9. Kick for the daytime crew

I can only shake my head at what passes for journalism these days.

[saigon68]

10. Its disgusting

Isn't it !!!!

[cthrumatrix]

11. media?.... we don't have an honest investigative media

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Does "targeting propagandists" sound as bad?

:shrug: