L’Affaire Eason Jordon was at best a mildly interesting diversion to this member of the pajama brigade: a princeling of the M.S.M. says something anti-American (that U.S. soldiers “target” members of the press) in public (Davos) and has to “walk it back” (the immortal words of David Gergen).
I basically agreed with the now-infamous Opinion Journal piece that dubbed Easongate a “kerfuffle” and argued that Easongate was not Rathergate, a journalistic sin committed in prime time using un-vetted, faked documents.
But, hey, the fallout from Easongate has been great:
“Add ’salivating morons’ to the mainstream media’s growing canon of stupid things to say about the ever-vigilant bloggers. Steve Lovelady, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, the self-styled flagship of journalism, said this in the fallout of CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan’s resignation on Friday: ’The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail.’ …The meme among those outlets that didn’t provide coverage is that the bloggers were on a headhunting spree, when in fact very few called for Mr. Jordan’s immediate resignation. If any underlying theme could be found, it is called truth-hunting — and CNN had an obligation to get it. When influential members of the media defame our troops, they should answer for it. If that’s moronic, sign us up.”
Michelle Malkin wrote:
“The resignation of CNN executive Eason Jordan last Friday night caused near-fainting spells in the journalism world. And now the backlash against the blogosphere — the legions of Internet citizen journalists who pressured Jordan to come clean about controversial remarks he made at a World Economic Forum panel in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 27 — has begun.
“Take Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editors Forum, the organization for editors within the World Association of Newspapers, please. Mourning Jordan’s decision to step down, Pecquerie likened bloggers to the ’sons of Senator McCarthy’ and ’scalps hunters.’
Malkin notes that one reader on a liberal site has fumed: “Jordan has just been tire-necklaced by a bloodthirsty group of utopian, bible-thumping knuckledraggers that believe themselves to be bloggers but are really just a street gang.”
“And these unhinged heavy-breathers accuse bloggers of being a lynch mob?” Malkin comments.
The important thing: We’re watching a monopoly in the process of being broken up by small-time entrepreneurs known as bloggers. The big guys don’t like it any more than Standard Oil liked having Teddy Roosevelt come after them.