Jordan = Lott?
Today, Geraghty warned bloggers not to jump the gun on comparing Eason Jordan's remarks with the Rathergate fiasco.He's right.
The better comparison is Trent Lott.
Like Lott, Jordan said something profoundly dumb. Arrestingly, stupefyingly, skip-the-needle-on-the-record-WHAT-DID-YOU-SAY?? dumb. Lott's comment sorta festered for a while, though, whereas Jordan was immediately challenged on his remarks.
The excuse for Lott is, well, he didn't really mean to celebrate segregationism per se, yada yada yada. An ineffective, and when you get right down to it, irrelevant explanation: Strom Thurmond and the cause of racial segregation are so inextricably bound that you have to uncouple the racist baggage before you spout off with "we wouldn't have had these problems all these years."
Jordan's defense isn't even that good; instead of That's not what I was saying, he's got That was what I was saying, that's just not what you were hearing. In other words, with Lott the listener had to assume malicious overtones; with Jordan the malicious overtones were right there.
So even if you buy into Jordan's explanation — I'm willing to give him the benefit of that doubt — you've still got the disparity between what he meant and what it sounded like he meant. Of course, Trent Lott was, at the time, the Senate Majority Leader, wielding a significant amount of power along with prestige and honor. I don't know how much power Eason Jordan wields at CNN, but he does represent CNN and, in part, all of American media: while CNN gets killed domestically by FOX News, CNN represents American media overseas and has virtually since its inception.
So what then for Jordan? Should he resign in disgrace? I don't know. Lott stepped down from Majority Leader only after the news clip was aired constantly and his attempts at damage control only made the situation worse. Jordan's been fortunate that whatever tape there is hasn't yet surfaced and evidently no transcript exists. Some of the other players in the discussion are starting to talk, but nobody is calling for his ouster.
But it's irresponsible for a head of an American newsmedia organization to say "journalists are being targeted by the U.S. military" before an international panel, even if it's an economic panel, with an audience full of representatives from other countries, especially Arab nations who just love anti-U.S. tidbits. Whether they're actually true or not doesn't really matter, as long as it's juicy gossip.
If no real fallout occurs, it will be awfully tough to bring enough pressure on CNN/Time-Warner to fire him. Of course, if I were them, I'd seriously begin thinking about whether or not a chief executive should be saying idiotic things. But like Lott, the pressure's going to have to come from the inside if Jordan is to lose his job.
posted by Marsh @ 7:16 PM
<< Home