The bias of the Associated Press has been well documented here and elsewhere. Last year, the AP’s Tom Hays made up the story of Republicans booing President Clinton when asked to wish him well by President Bush during surgery. The AP used partial, misleading quotations in a story to falsely accuse Arnold Schwarzenegger of lying about his past. The AP’s bias was in evidence again in January just before the Iraqi election. In John Hinderaker’s words, the AP assembled “a rogues’ gallery of anti-American, anti-Semitic Bush haters and, without identifying them to its readers, presented these far-out extremists as though they represented a sober consensus of world opinion to the effect that the elections in Iraq can do no good.”

Now it appears that David Bauder may be added to the AP’s own rogues’ gallery of reporters who wilfully or lazily inject bias into their stories. Let’s take a look at elements of the piece he did on Eason Jordan’s resignation, which implies that Jordan’s quitting CNN was an act of self-sacrifice in the face of persecution from the blogosphere for a one-time slip up.

The mis-characterization of Rathergate as an Internet vendetta against Dan Rather

Bauder: “With the resignation of chief news executive Eason Jordan, CNN hopes to end a distracting controversy that had threatened to rival the Internet campaign last fall against Dan Rather for a CBS story about President Bush’s military service.”

Comment: Rathergate may have started on Free Republic and in the 61st Minute on Powerline, but within two days it was on ABC, and then all over the Old Media, with damning effect, such as in these pieces in the Washington Post. Further, Rathergate was about forged documents, not about the Internet pursuing Dan Rather because of a report on George Bush.

Implying the Jordan’s statement was a one-time slip up instead of part of a well-established pattern

Bauder: “During a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month, Jordan said that he believed several journalists who were killed by coalition forces had been targeted. Jordan quickly backed off his statements, both at the Jan. 27 panel and afterward. He said he meant to distinguish between journalists killed because they were in the wrong place when a bomb fell, for example, and those killed because they were shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy.”

Comment by Captain Ed: Bauder’s report “omit[s] any mention of Jordan’s earlier comments in Portugal in 2004, or the comments made about Israel in 2002.” There is no mention of the three previous occasions when Jordan accused the american military of targeting journalists or other war crimes, including torture. There is no mention of the passionate nature of Jordan’s comments about the targeting of journalists.

Implying that a videotape or transcript would exonerate Jordan

Bauder: “But the damage had been done, compounded by the fact that no transcript of his actual remarks has turned up.”

Comment: This is an intentionally misleading sentence, because it implies that a transcript could exonerate Jordan. Otherwise, a transcript would “compound” the problem, not the lack of a transcript. Further, Bauder fails to mention the numerous, and consistent, eyewitness reports. As Easongate reported, eyewitness-blogger Rony Abovitz was not alone in his observations: “Sen. Dodd, Rep. Franks, David Gergen, Richard Sambrook, Justin Vaisse, Bernard Rappaz and Bret Stephens…..accounts confirm Rony’s assertions.”

Implying that there may be no videotape or transcript with which to exonerate Jordan

Bauder: “A Web site, Easongate.com, was created and distributed a petition this week calling on CNN to find a transcript and fire Jordan if he said the military had intentionally killed journalists.”

Comment: Find a transcript? This is again deliberately misleading reporting by Bauder. The World Economic Forum made a videotape of the panel discussion, and Mark Adams, Head of Media of the World Economic Forum, has it. Indeed, Easongate itself suggested “contacting the Mark Adams, who is in possession of the videotape from the World Economic Forum,” and supplied his email address. This is very different from “calling on CNN to find a transcript,” and the only purpose of the mischaracterization can be to imply that finding the exonerating evidence may be impossible.

Portraying Jordan as self-sacrificing instead of guilty as charged

Bauder’s article implies that Jordan may have been unfairly accused and hounded by the blogosphere for a one-time slip up, which he immediately retracted. The piece further suggests that a transcript, if unearthed, might exonerate Jordan, but that, sadly, finding this exonerating evidence might be impossible. Therefore, Bauder’s lead paints Jordan as something of a martyr: “Worried that CNN would be ‘unfairly tarnished’ over remarks he made about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq, one of CNN’s most visible executives chose to quit.”

Comment: The truth is that Jordan’s comments were not one-time events, but part of a pattern. The videotape would confirm what the eyewitnesses reported, namely that Jordan did in fact claim at Davos, as he had in the past, that the American military was killing journalists on purpose — comments that he tried to walk away from after the cat was out of the bag. It is our opinion that not only did Jordan know that the video would do him no good, but the World Economic Forum and the other panelists and participants also did not want to get dragged into releasing its damning videotape of the Jordan session, and may have helped Jordan with his decision. (We note that many of the sessions of the WEF are available as webcasts, and some of them are very good.)

A bit of irony and, perhaps, inadvertent journalism

Bauder: “After several management restructurings at CNN, Jordan actually had no current operational responsibility over network programming. But he was CNN’s chief fix-it man overseas, arranging coverage in dangerous or hard-to-reach parts of the world.”

Comment: Captain Ed thinks that this sentence by Bauder is meant to communicate that Jordan, despite his title of chief news executive, was not really in charge of anything, but Bauder may have inadvertently committed journalism in his eulogy of Jordan. Prior to this dust-up about American soldiers torturing and killing journalists, Eason Jordan was best known for his role in slanting CNN’s coverage of Iraq to please Saddam Hussein and ensure the network’s access to that country. Jordan revealed his revolting work in his confession in the New York Times two days after the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Baghdad in 2003. Bauder’s description of Jordan’s duties as a “fix-it man” in “dangerous” locales overseas could well mean that Jordan was negotiating news-slanting agreements among CNN and dictatorships worldwide. Now that would be an interesting story.

Conclusion

Bauder’s piece reveals the low standards and bias of the Associated Press. It may also illustrate the emergence of a “blogosphere vendetta” template in stories chronicling the fall of Old Media figures, such as Dan Rather and Eason Jordan. If so, the Old Media, in their blindness, still have a long way to fall.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 12th, 2005 at 10:37 am and is filed under General, MSM, New Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.