The pressure against CNN news executive Eason Jordan is building, after he accused the US military of deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq then attempted to backtrack on his words. (There’s a whole blog devoted to ‘Easongate’!)
Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters reminds us that Jordan made a similar claim against the Israeli military in October, 2002, which was later demonstrated to be completely unfounded. Jordan said then:
The Israelis say they’re actually trying to restrict our access to these areas and they say it’s too dangerous for you to be there and my response to that is that it wouldn’t be nearly as dangerous if you didn’t shoot at us when we’re clearly labelled as CNN crews and journalists. And so this must stop, this targeting of the news media both literally and figuratively must come to an end immediately.
But Morrissey points out that:
The only CNN journalist wounded in that region was Ben Wedeman, who got shot when he wandered into a crossfire. [Jordan’s] own producer, Bruce Conover, told CNN that no one could tell who shot him, as the bullets and mortars were flying in from all directions.
