February 11, 2005

After Jordan, Who's Next?

Humor when done well offers insight better than straight talk. In the aftermath of Eason Jordan's resignation Jim Geraghty writes,

I have a feeling that the discussion of the "blogs as a lynch mob" is going to get a lot of coverage in the coming days.

ScrappleFace gives us this wallop:

Even as embattled CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan announced his 'resignation' tonight, the ad hoc consortium of unedited writers known as the blogosphere met online to discuss which journalist should be the next to fall.

Still riding high from its role in the 'memogate' firings at CBS and the demise of two editors at the New York Times, the blogosphere took less than two weeks to turn rumors from Davos, Switzerland, into a pink slip for the 23-year veteran of CNN.

In a brief statement just after the networks' Friday evening newscasts, Mr. Jordan condemned the "targeting of journalists by bloggers."

However, some bloggers contend they have not gone far enough in their attacks on the mainstream media.

"So far, we've just weighted [sic] for some one [sic] to say or do something stupid before we ride them [sic] like a coal car into the ground," wrote one unnamed blogger. "But now it's time to get proactive. We're going to pick the next soon-to-be-former journalist and then force him into some career-ending vortex of deception and denial."

The blogosphere will get burned. It's not a question of if but when.

I felt a bad twinge while reading Captain Ed's attack on Brett Stephens. It seemed to me Ed was taking seeing a conspiracy when none existed.

A mob mentality is the opposite of conservative political philosophy and temperment. I'm reading Edmund Burke right now, so I'm riveted on the damage mobs can do. A mob destroys. Rarely does it create. Is it the intention of some in the blogosphere to destroy the MSM? If so, they should be clear about their mission to their readers. Or do they want better, more accurate news?

UPDATE: Howard Kurtz has a front page story in Saturday's Washington Post. He writes,

Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of "defamatory innuendo," and the Associated Press moved a story. As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC.

Gergen said last night that Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his original comments. "This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he's brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water."

[Added to Wizbang's The 10 Spot.]