February 10, 2005
Eason Jordan
Update (later the same day): Roger Simon posts on his and Charles Johnson's French Channel 2 interview tomorrow. The topic is the Mohammed al-Dura case from several years ago (read Roger's post to get up to speed). Why is this a relevant update here? Again, we have a story "pushed" by a compelling picture in a direction that appears to be less than truthful. Imagine the reaction to date had a videoblogger captured Eason Jordan "red-tongued"?
This post by Glenn Reynolds on Bret Stephens' take on the whole Easongate affair is really nothing new: yet another Davos eyewitness corroborating that Eason Jordan did in fact accuse the coalition forces of intentionally targeting journalists.
Anyone who has been following this story I would suspect believes the allegations to be essentially correct. Yet why has it not spilled into mainstream consciousness? One could lay the reason at the feet of mainstream media refusing to "turn on" one of their own. In my opinion, that is part of the story, but not all.
To me the issue is the withholding of the video. No video, no critical mass, no MSM sex appeal. Had Sisyphean Musings been able to procure the video as intended, Jordan would have already been well on the way towards early retirement, despite any MSM machinations, even though the video would do nothing more than corroborate the very credible witnesses.
A similar (in an opposite way :-) is the "John Adam/Cody the GI JOE" incident. Really the only reason it gained purchase in the MSM is that there was a picture of a helpless American soldier. No picture, no critical mass.
Will Eason Jordan eventually be confronted and have to answer for his remarks? Eventually.
Posted by nopundit at February 10, 2005 09:15 AM