Gray Lady Trying to Whitewash the Jordan Scandal

The mainstream media have begun to cover up the real significance of the Eason Jordan resignation by portraying the entire incident as a pack attack by politically motivated blogs. Writing in The New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye prefaces the Jordan scandal with: "In September, conservative bloggers exposed flaws in a report by Dan Rather..."

Later, there is this: "...thousands of messages, many of them from conservatives, had been posted." Then she quotes Steve Lovelady, "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail."

More: "Mr. Jordan's comments zipped around the Web and fired up the conservative bloggers..."

David Gergen is quoted: "I think he was attacked because of what he represented as much as what he said..." Gergen is said to be troubled by "...news media...being drawn into the nation's culture wars."

And there's this: "Rebecca MacKinnon...contacted him after seeing that conservative blogs had picked up on his remarks."

And this: "The online attack of Mr. Jordan, particularly among conservative commentators, appeared to gain momentum when they were seized on by other conservative outlets."

And closes with this quote from Rony Abovitz: "At times it did seem like an angry mob, and an angry mob using high technology, that's not good."

Whether Seelye is deliberately trying to marginalize the bloggers who kept the Eason Jordan scandal from being buried, or is simply displaying typical journalistic superficiality is open to debate. The fact is, any loyal American would have been outraged by Jordan's unsubstantiated slander against American troops. The Dread Pundit Bluto thinks that Seelye's article is a deliberate attempt to relegate Jordan's remarks and subsequent resignation to petty partisan politics. She should be asking why her profession has tolerated the likes of Dan Rather and Eason Jordan, not trying to smear the bloggers.

Ranks Closing: WSJ Opinion Journal Joins Pity Party for Jordan: "Yet the worst that can reasonably be said about his performance is that he made an indefensible remark from which he ineptly tried to climb down at first prompting. This may have been dumb but it wasn't a journalistic felony." That's a large part of the problem. It should be.