NEWS: CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan Falls on Sword

So let's see: someone at CNN got fired for saying something that they may not have actually said, and probably was true if they said it anyway.

disappointing but not very suprising. liberal media my ass. i think really fun part of the jeff gannon scandal is going to be finding out how in the hell did someone without clearance or "need to know" receive a copy of a classified CIA report and no action has been taken yet. props to mediamatters, dailykos, and all the others for bringing that information into the light of day.

Two things:

1) The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the American Red Cross (ARC) are different organizations with only a loose connection. The ICRC has drawn a lot of fire from conservative bloggers and others for their political stance on a number of issues. There is a case to be made that the purpose of the ICRC is to stand outside of all politics and do their mission. I do not agree with the ICRC's decisons on a number of matters, but I still regularly donate to the ARC blood services.

2) Eason Jordan set policy for CNN as the Chief News Executive for more than a decade, he was one of the ten most important people in journalism until last week. Jeff Gannon was a reporter for a minor news service, he was one of thousands, distinguished only by his access to the White House. Jordan is a whale and Gannon is a minnow. Jordan denied any wrongdoing for more than a week while Gannon apologized and quit almost immediately. Jordan was a much bigger story.

Type U.S. bombed journalists into your web surfer and see what you get.

You know, not that the left wing or the right wing opinion on this matters to me, but bullets and artillery don't much care if you're holding a gun or a camera. If you're running around in a warzone, I'd imagine chances are pretty good you're going to get shot at.

Maybe he wsa slow to realise that telling the truth is wrongdoing. (in the eyes of the right wing media)
In my opinion, his only crime was apologising and distancing himself from the remarks and that is the closest thing he did to a resignable offense

How about just the plain honest truth: _We_ don't target journalists, no matter how asinine they act. Journalists do a pretty damn good job of putting themselves into harm's way on their own without any help.

1) gannon didn't report for a minor news service, he reported for an arm of GOPUSA (a right wing organization funded by one of ralph reed's cronies). a little truth in advertising please pat, calling talon news a "minor news service" is like calling faux news "fair and balanced". calling dog shit haut cuisine doesn't make it so.

2) a 2 day seminar does not a report make (his only journalistic credential). yet he still received access to white house press conferences (so just anyone can into these now given the hightened security requirements these days?).

3) had access to classified information (a violation of federal law) and report on such.

4) also had ties to robert novak (see 3 above) who you have also remained conspiciously silent on.

to sum it up patrick, when one of regualr media (the right's so called "liberal media") opens the door to censure (note: no one has been able to verify jordan's comments, yet he has been forced to step down on what amounts to heresay evidence) you and others of your ilk don't hesitate to shout it from the rooftops. but when one of your own, i.e. novak, "gannon", gallagher, armstrong william, etc., etc.,gets caught with their hands in the cookie jar you remain silent or try to brush it off like you did above. why is that patrick?

edited to add: if it can be verified that jordan did say the american military was deliberately targeting journalists with out being able to prove it then yes, he deserves what has happened to him. but if it can't be proved that he actually said that then you and your partners in crime will have punished a mna that was innocent of what you accused him of. if this is the case i won't hold my breath waiting for an apology we all know will not be forthcoming.

[Edited on Feb 13, 2005 6:32PM]

Crank site?

I remember when everyone said "Donate to the Red Cross" -- all the news stations, all the web sites, etc -- all of them said "donate to help the victims of 9/11". I can't recall a single one that said "donate to help the Red Cross update their infrasturcture".

I don't think 15% is *totally* unreasonable, although I think they could do a lot better. (I don't think they need to pay their CEO $400K+/year, that's for damn sure!) I do think that they should use the money for what people donated it for -- period.

Maybe the Red Cross was unaware of what everyone was donating the money for. I dunno. I sincerely doubt that, if they had thought about it for a few seconds, they would have come to the conclusion that all of this money was donated for phones.

At least they did the right thing in the end.

Yes, I donated to them before it. Although, not much. I don't have tons of money. However, now, I'll stick to smaller charities, with lower costs and more interest in seeing the money go to the right places without a huge fight.

This is your cited source. Please.

And if you define "help" like three year old, I suppose thats you prerogative, but guess what? They did that too. They blew nearly all their cash reserves, right there on the ground, before those donations started rolling in. They spent 140 million dollars in under a month. They were giving out $18K grants for emergency housing, They spent over 60 million on food and housing fro rescue workers, they funded a multi million dollar counseling program to help the surviving rescue workers deal with PTSD and they continue to do so. Your not going to get that on asshole talk radio, though nor are you going to get the remotest sense of the very obvious lingering realization that if this happens again, its not going to happen in Seattle its going to be New York and maybe the best thing to do with that largesse is to be ready for it.

That is close to the most wailing ignorant thing I've read here, and thats saying something. Major problems require major institutions to handle them. Major institutions require people to run them, and those people don't grow on trees. They guy you want to crucify for his salary took a pay cut to take the job, as do virtually all executives of these NGOs. There are no bonuses, no stock options, no corporate jets or any of the perks that are part and parcel of the for profit world. Maybe you think that they guy running a massive multinational corporation should live in a yurt and grow his own food, but really, thats not going to happen.

It is not the IRC that is at issue here, it is the ARC. There really is no debating that.

The significance of the Gannon story was not Jeff Gannon, it was the behavior of the press office of the White House, a body chock full of the few people more important in journalism than Jordan. They credentialled and unqualified partisan black bagger under an assumed name to promote the administrations policies. Calling that a "much[smaller] story" than something Eason Jordan may or may not have said at a round table discussion is beyond asinine.

Well, regardless of how you feel about that site, I first heard about the problem through NPR -- not exactly "right wing" propoganda. It was covered by traditional media outlets. Left and right. You have not disputed the statements made, you've only tried to suggest that I am wrong because of the source I pasted (the source including many articles from many places), and that the donors were largely wrong about what they donated the money for..

For the record: I have never watched Bill O'Reilly. I lean way towards the left. I don't think you have to be on the right to expect accountability in charities.

Are you even aware of which organization we're talking about? You say "he" took a pay cut, "his" salary was less. "His" name is Bernadine Healy, and she (as far as I'm aware) is not a he.

I don't think they need to live in yurts. I do think that an executive that was truly charitable would not take a salary that was so outrageously high. It is nice that they've taken a pay cut, but if they want me to be impressed (I know, it's not all about me, just stating my opinion here) they need to come on down to reality and either live a normal person's life, or life off of their massive wealth from before their "pay cut", and let the organization use the salary, that they would apparently otherwise pay, to benefit the charity's recipients. If they don't want to do that (or "can't") then maybe non-profit work is not for them.

DPK, fwiw, you're not going to get a higly competent CEO with lots of experience for, say, $50k. You don't have to pay them 3 million plus bonus, but you do have to pay someone what they're wort, because it's a full-time job for them.

Do you work for free? No?

I expect you wish to be paid what you're worth. So do the vast majority of other people.

Its not so much how I "feel" about the site so much is the fact that the site is a fucking joke. It has a 500 line rant about how the police in Alaska are all unconstitutional on its front page.

Dr. Healy ran the ARC for roughly six whole weeks after september 11th and was forced out for sequestering the 9/11 donations in a separate fund which infuriated the local voting chapters. All of the decisions you were bitching about were made by those that followed her and by the Board of Directors itself. Before you start making snide assertions you might just want to have the slightest clue what the fuck you're talking about.

If you think $450,000 is outrageously high for a job of that magnitude and complexity you clearly don't get out much.

But theyre not normal people. They are exceptional people, which is the fucking point. I'm sorry, but you don't get someone with a decade of post baccalaureate schooling, a cum laude degree from harvard medical school, a former dean of Hopkins and director of the fucking NIH for minimum wage and dental insurance.

Well, thats very nice of you to say so, but since the Red Cross can't exist without them, and they can indeed exist just fine without the red cross, what say we recognize their education leadership, experience and skill and I dunno, pay them what theyre fucking worth

still waiting for an answer pat.

I wish I had a nickel for every time I saw one of those.

Me, too. "Post N' Run Pat", not defending his articles?

What a surprise.