Two Recent MSM Incidents

Two incidents highlight the mainstream media's defects and biases.
Hugh Hewitt
The Weekly Standard
2.3.05

Even though attention will turn today to the president's speech to the exclusion of almost everything else, let me underline two recent media events which deserve more scrutiny than they have thus far received.

The first is the genuinely scandalous assertion by CNN's Eason Jordan, made at the World Economic Forum, that the United States military has targeted and killed a dozen journalists. The account of Jordan's remarks -including his backpedaling and the crowd's reactions--is available at ForumBlog. Thus far no major media outlet has demanded an accounting of Jordan, but the idea that a major figure from American media traffics in such outlandish and outrageous slanders on the American military deserves attention and criticism, not indifference. It is no wonder that anti-American propaganda gains traction in the world when American news executives set fantasies such as this one in motion. If Jordan had no grounds for peddling this grassy-knoll garbage, he should be fired. If he did have even the flimsiest of grounds, he ought to share his evidence and let the public decide whether his judgment is as flawed as it was when he covered for Saddam all those years.

THE SECOND SUBJECT for mulling is John Kerry's extraordinary interview with Tim Russert last Sunday. There's a lot to absorb here, including Kerry's assertion that he did indeed run guns and CIA men into Cambodia on secret missions--and to aid the Khmer Rouge no less!

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A few weeks ago I posted and discussed the MSM love of blood.
'If it bleeds, it leads' and how they loooooove bad news. Now
I'm reading two of the latest blunders of the MSM - two things
they did and that their fellow newsmakers have let slip by.
The Kerry statement is big. Very big. I hope the news keeps
clips of it for 2008 when the 'never was' trys to run for President
again (Against Hillary?? Good luck! ) The comment by
CNNs Eason Jordon was awful. Nothing to back it up. Just the
usual anti-American rhetoric.

Well there were many journalists killed by US forces in Iraq :

www.cpj.org...
Ali al-Khatib, Al-Arabiya, March 19, 2004, Baghdad

Cameraman Abdel Aziz and reporter al-Khatib of the United Arab Emirates­based news channel Al-Arabiya were shot dead near a U.S. military checkpoint in Baghdad.......

.........According to press reports, the U.S. military commander in Iraq at the time, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, ordered an “urgent review” of the incident. On March 29, the U.S. military said it had completed its investigation and accepted responsibility for the deaths of the two journalists.

Burhan Mohamed Mazhour, ABC, March 26, 2004, Fallujah

Mazhour, a freelance Iraqi cameraman working for the U.S.-based television network ABC, was killed in the city of Fallujah, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) west of the capital, Baghdad.

The Washington Post reported that 15 Iraqis were killed in Fallujah following a firefight that occurred “as U.S. Marines conducted house-to-house searches” in the city. Agence France-Presse reported that Mazhour, who had been freelancing for ABC for nearly two months, was standing among a group of working journalists “when U.S. troops fired in their direction.”

Hussein Saleh, Al-Iraqiyya TV, April 19, 2004, near Samara

A driver for the U.S.-funded Al-Iraqiya TV, he was killed by gunfire from U.S. forces near a checkpoint close to the Iraqi city of Samara, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. Correspondent Asaad Kadhim was killed and cameraman Jassem Kamel was injured.

Mazen al-Tumeizi, Al-Arabiya, September 12, 2004, Baghdad

Mazen al-Tumeizi, a reporter for Al-Arabiya television, was killed after a U.S. helicopter fired missiles and machine guns to destroy a disabled American vehicle, international news reports said. Seif Fouad, a camera operator for Reuters Television, and Ghaith Abdul Ahad, a freelance photographer working for Getty Images, were wounded in the strike.

That day at dawn, fighting erupted on Haifa Street in the center of Baghdad, a U.S. Bradley armored vehicle caught fire, and its four crew members were evacuated with minor injuries, according to news reports. As a crowd gathered, one or more U.S. helicopters opened fire.

Dhia Najim, freelance, November 1, 2004, Ramadi

Najim, an Iraqi freelance cameraman, was shot and killed in the western city of Ramadi, where he had been covering a gun battle between the U.S. military and Iraqi insurgents.

Najim, who worked for a number of news organizations, was on assignment for Reuters that day. He was shot in the back of the neck while working near his home in the Andalus District of Ramadi, 70 miles (112 kilometers) west of the capital, Baghdad, Reuters said.......

..... On November 3, The New York Times reported that the Marine Corps had opened an investigation. “‘We did kill him,” an unnamed military official told The Times. “‘He was out with the bad guys. He was there with them, they attacked, and we fired back and hit him.”

As far as the Cambodia claims are concerned, I don't have much doubt that they are authentic. Even John E. O'Neill, one of the Swift Boat Vets for Truth guys, said that they were in Cambodia although he has since changed his claim after accusing John Kerry of lying.

There is a difference between the CNN statement that the US Military
was TARGETING journalists ... and journalists who get shot because
they are in the wrong place, or they aren't wearing their protective
gear, or they went to Iraq while ill, or they don't use common sense
in a deadly situation and think that they won't be shot at because
they are journalists and not soldiers.

'Targeting journalists' vs accidental death in a deadly war zone.
Big difference.

An update on the CNN remarks -
www.forumblog.org...

Oh, never mind I'm just going to get flamed again. MSM is BS.

Go ahead Dr H. You should be used to being flamed by now.
You have built up a sort of resistance to it ... kinda like being
vacinated or something! Say what you were going to say.

Update:
This is from February 10th:
CNN Exec Clarifies Comment on Military

Feb. 10, 2005 - Despite comments that may have left a different impression, CNN's chief news executive said Thursday that he does not believe the U.S. military intended to kill journalists in the Iraq war.

CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan is involved in a controversy over comments he made at the World Economic Forum last month. One Web logger has already called it "Easongate," and an online petition is circulating calling on CNN to release a full transcript of what Jordan said.

Jordan, speaking at the Jan. 27 panel in Davos, Switzerland, said he believed that 12 journalists who were killed by coalition forces in Iraq had been targeted.

CNN said that Jordan was responding to a comment made by another panelist that journalists killed in Iraq were collateral damage. He had intended to draw a distinction between reporters killed because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because someone mistook them for the enemy, CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said on Thursday.

And this is from February 11th:
Lies, damned lies and network 'news'

Ironically, Jordan, who also chairs the CNN Editorial Board, made his most recent unsupported allegation of American military war crimes during a panel discussion titled, "Will Democracy Survive the News?" The short answer to the rhetorical question is: "not if Democracy has to depend on people like Jordan to report the news."

And therein lies the problem -- not just with Jordan's calumny about our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines, but with his colleagues in the so-called mainstream media.

The CNN executive's slander went unreported -- and apparently unchallenged -- by other potentates of the press who heard him accuse America's military of deliberately targeting and killing journalists in Iraq. Worse still, other "leaders" in the Fourth Estate are now rushing to Jordan's defense. David Gergen, editor-at-large for U.S. News & World Report and moderator of the discussion in Davos, now says Jordan had recently been to Iraq, and was "caught up in the tension of the moment" and "deserves the benefit of the doubt."

Why? Aren't news reporters supposed to have a thirst for truth? Isn't there some standard of proof or corroboration required before someone in the "news business" makes such a horrific accusation? Furthermore, why should any member of the media in attendance be let off the hook for failing to immediately jump up and demand: "Prove it!" when Jordan made his unsubstantiated charges?

And also from February 11th:
CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits

NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being "unfairly tarnished" by the controversy.

--snip--

He quickly backed off the remarks, explaining that he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place where a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.


"I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise," Jordan said in a memo to fellow staff members at CNN.

Journalist integrity. You make assertions, you'd better be able to back them, cause if not, they will undoubtedly be exposed. Just ask Mr. Rather and CBS. Now you can add another casuality to that list. Seems that cliche' of 'what goes around comes around' is profoundly true, in one form or another. Definately in the current environment of the blogosphere.






seekerof

[edit on 11-2-2005 by Seekerof]