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EasongateOn January 27, during a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Eason Jordan raised the issue of journalists being killed in Iraq. What exactly he said is still unclear. The event was officially off the record, although keeping it off of the record did not keep the public from hearing about it when several bloggers interviewed eyewitnesses, or, in some cases, posted their own eyewitness accounts. Mainstream news outlets covered the forum but for the most part ignored Jordan's comments. It was not until conservative bloggers began chattering that several cable news pundits and talk radio hosts started talking about his comments, mostly criticizing him for defaming US troops and spreading anti-American sentiment. Eventually these criticisms reached such a fever pitch that Jordan resigned in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy. While the discussion of Jordan's comments would spread to many political and media oriented blogs, the initial coverage was coordinated by an exceptionally organized circle of conservative bloggers. For many conservatives on the internet, what used to be called the liberal media became the mainstream media and eventually just MSM. The term does not signify an overarching conspiracy, as is the case with leftist criticism of mainstream conservative outlets, but a tendency to dismiss conservative viewpoints and report stories that support a liberal point of view. As they demonstrated during Dan Rather's national guard memo fiasco, these bloggers are very good at organizing around single issues. While the discussion played out across countless blogs, the site pushing the story the hardest was easongate.com. This site was a collaboration between four bloggers that promoted a petition to express the displeasure of its signatories, call for the release of the World Economic Forum tape, and pressure CNN to take real and meaningful disciplinary action against Mr. Jordan. The site aggregated information from prominent online conservatives such as Hugh Hewitt and Glenn Reynolds, cable news outlets, and material contributed by the site's readers. Although this site is in no way any objective account of the entire story, it provides a comprehensive support of the staff's view and links to opposing viewpoints that the writers address. As the story gained momentum, it attracted the attention of bloggers that take an interest in the press, blogs, and the places they intersect. They have no aggregating website for their community, but they cite each other often and form a loose network of blogs that tend to cover the same stories. Several bloggers were in an excellent position to report the story. Rebecca MacKinnon, a former CNN reporter, was present when Jordan made the comments and posted an email she received from Jordan. Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, posted an email from Richard Sambrook detailing his firsthand account. Since many bloggers in this circle see this as a journalism (as opposed to a political) issue, they were less likely to gloat over forcing a bigwig journalist to resign and more concerned about whether or not what Jordan said was true. Danny Schechter, who addressed the issue of journalists being targeted in his recent film Weapons of Mass Deception, devoted several blog posts to pushing this aspect of the story and discussed it on Fox News as well. The New York Times covered the Easongate story in it's technology section. Although the story was initially titled Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters, at was later changed to Resignation at CNN shows Growing Influence of Blogs. Although it was not an opinion piece, the article expresses the Times' attitude toward blogs. In selecting quotes from internet sources, the author chooses individual accounts from a vast sea of views. Since anyone can print anything on the internet (an they do), linking to or printing a view means validating it and, in a way, supporting it. The New York Times found that out the hard way when they ran a story about an Iraqi blogger and quoted a troll, which is internet jargon for an anti-social anonymous commentator who deliberately provokes vicious arguments. This troll accused Ali of Iraq the Model (whose brother and fellow blogger ran in the recent elections there) of being a CIA agent. Although Sarah Boxer, the author, did not make the accusation herself, putting in the New York Times gives it more credit than it deserves. Ali, who Boxer interviewed for the piece, called it a bad piece of journalism. It was in acknowledging this view that the New York Times made the same mistake: At the same time, some in the traditional media are growing alarmed as they watch careers being destroyed by what they see as the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue. Steve Lovelady, a former editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal and now managing editor of CJR Daily, the Web site of The Columbia Journalism Review, has been among the most outspoken. "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail," he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. He said that Mr. Jordan cared deeply about the reporters he had sent into battle and was "haunted by the fact that not all of them came back." The notion that conservative bloggers led a witch hunt to ruin the career of Eason Jordan is completely inaccurate. Although their ultimate goal was to hold Jordan accountable for whatever statement he made, most conservative bloggers insisted that the Davos tape be released, not that Jordan resign. When the tape was not released, they did their best to publicize the firsthand accounts that lead them to believe Jordan made reprehensible statements. What forced Eason Jordan to resign was not bloggers, but a better known group of salivating morons. Although they initially ignored the story, cable news pundits jumped on it once the controversy escalated. When Danny Schechter discussed it on Fox News's Hannity and Colmes, the issue of journalists being targeted in Iraq is set aside in favor of screaming about Jordan putting our troops in harm's way with his irresponsible comments. Joe Scarborough used the word assassination over and over again when he talked to eye witness Rony Abovitz. Most importantly, the standard background factoid to accompany the issue was that Jordan turned a blind eye to Sadaam's atrocities in order to maintain a bureau in Baghdad. Conservative bloggers brought this story to the public and this allowed their cable news counterparts to exploit it. CNN, having abandoned any attempt to field competitive talking heads in favor of better hard news, was completely defenseless. If Eason Jordan hadn't resigned, bloggers would have continued to chatter about his comments, and Fox News would have hammered him (and by extension, CNN) with allegations of anti-Americanism. With CNN trying to distinguish itself as a more neutral brand of cable news, taking any kind of responsibility for Jordan's statements would be fatal.
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