Friday, February 11, 2005

Niggardly Coverage of the Eason Jordan Scandal

"Niggardly" accurately sums up the mainstream media's response to allegations that Eason Jordan of CNN accused US military personnel of deliberately targeting and killing journalists in Iraq. Apparently, whatever Jordan did or did not say in Davos is not considered newsworthy. There just isn't enough there to justify a story, so coverage has been limited to a few opinion pieces, and, of course, the blogs.

In 1999, though, one word was considered so newsworthy that it generated enough attention to force a high official of the Washington, DC Mayor's office to resign 12 days after he used it in a meeting. That word was "niggardly".