A Call for Prudence From Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen is reserving judgement on the Eason Jordan blogstorm, writing in Pressthink:

The original account was too ambiguous for me. It had him saying United States soldiers targeted journalists, and then claiming that's not what he meant. He later explained it as: the soldiers were trying to kill these people, but did not know they were shooting at journalists. Not much of a scandal in that.

Rosen recommends waiting for the transcript promised to Sisyphus. The points made are prudent and correct, as far as they go, but ignore the bigger issue of the mainstream media blackout on Eason coverage.

In an epilogue to the post, Rosen quotes Rebecca MacKinnon, who says:

So far, most of the activity is on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, with center and left blogs plus non-rightwing MSM largely silent.

Well, of course it is. CNN has a reputation for bias as unsavory as that of Dan Rather. And by the way, "non-rightwing MSM" is a tautology.

The reason for the Blogkrieg in this case is that, had someone of equal standing outside of the world of mainstream journalism made similar remarks there would be no waiting for the transcripts. Journalists would be ripping the flesh of this hapless individual even now, and exculpatory explanations would wait until after the transcript was made public. Just ask General Mattis.