27 Comments

1. Mikey:

They are probably as shocked as naval staffs were when the Prince of Wales, a modern dreadnought, was sunk by aircraft, despite being alert, maneuvering, and shooting back.

The battlefield has changed, and they better adapt to those changes or face more losses.

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:22 am 2. Charlie (Colorado):

Roger, this is a mild pet peeve of mine, but I think you’re looking for the word “sedition” — “incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority”. “Treason” is “the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance”, and I frankly doubt that Jordan feels he owes any allegiance to the United States.

In fact, based on the evidence, I’d say rather the opposite.

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:31 am 3. Rick Ballard:

How far will the debate on the meaning of “is” be taken?

How kind of the BBC fellow to jump right in and interpret English for us. Why, if we didn’t have help we might think that Jordan actually meant what he said in his own milk tongue. But then, why would Barney Frank lie about it? I know what Sambrook and Eason gain by lieing (aside from maintenace of a habit) but what does Barney gain?

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:36 am 4. La_Shawn:

Visit my blog for the complete background and latest developments in “Easongate.”

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:37 am 5. Roger:

Charlie, point taken. Text corrected.

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:38 am 6. Catherine:

OT

I’ve just watched the Anheuser Busch ‘Thank You’ ad twice on my laptop . . .

Today’s WSJ has this:

“It’s 33 years overdue,” said Robert Lee, a creative director at Publicis Groupe’s Kaplan Thaler Group, of the Anheuser spot, referring to the cold reception that Vietnam veterans often got after returning from that war.

Somehow, the final image of the one soldier turning around to take a last look at the applauding travelers stays with me.

All of it stays with me, actually. The black woman airline employee jumping forward to shake the hand of a white soldier who is followed, directly behind, by a black soldier whose hand she would have been able to shake if she had been thinking about or even seeing color: that moment alone captures the ideal of a color-blind country reached at last, after all these years.

I’m going to have to look at it some more, to see whether it uses imagery or music to convey the sense that this is an “ET” event, that these soldiers are coming back at long last from Vietnam as well.

I’m thinking it does: even though we see a wide and high establishing shot (Ed & I used to call it the Establishment Shot when we watched Dallas) I don’t think we see any soldiers in it. They seem simply to materialize in the midst of an otherwise normal day. They materialize; they walk through the people; and then they are gone.

And then fade to black.

It is an incredible piece of work.

You may be able to vote for best Super Bowl ad at the WSJ web site (subscribers can definitely):

http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110773373835347210,00.html

You can also watch the ad at the Anheuser Busch site:

http://www.herosalute.com/states/big_game_ad_QThi.html

OK, I can’t watch this ad without crying . . . and I also can’t see it well enough on a small screen to tell if any soldiers are visible in the establishing shot–or if the audience has any sense of whether the soldiers are coming or going.

I don’t think we do.

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:50 am 7. Catherine:

‘Thank You’ is winning hands down.

Feb 7, 2005 - 9:53 am 8. Lola:

Just saw this commercial at the website – wow, it’s powerful.

Feb 7, 2005 - 10:21 am 9. Lola:

And sure it’s turning out to look more and more like stonewalling. Chatham Rule? Why didn’t Mr. Adams say that the first time? Course, it might just have slipped his mind the first time he was contacted. But certainly he had to be well aware of the controversy before then. It will be interesting to see what Gergen has to say about all this.

Feb 7, 2005 - 10:24 am 10. LouMinatti:

Roger,

As an author and screenwriter, I know that you appreciate the English language. And so does a major Dutch university (Universiteit Leiden), which provides an English language test for prospective students.

You can take the test yourself. The link is from this page:

http://www.languagecentre.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=9&c=77

The Word document is here (virus-safe):

http://www.languagecentre.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/zelf-test_engels_2003-4.doc

Do you think the professors at the Universiteit Leiden have an agenda when their test includes the following (and this is a mild section) fill-in-the-blank questions?

“It comes as no surprise to foreigners that Americans, who love to (30) revel their simplicity would “elect” a president who (31)….. reads anything ó including his own briefing papers ó and thinks Africa is a nation, not a continent.”

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:24 am 11. gerald:

Something has troubled me since I saw it during an interview with Brokaw, post Rathergate and pre Tom’s departure from anchor. And, honestly, Brokaw was, of the big 3 anchors, by far, the most reliable in my estimation. This is a paraphrase regarding blogs and Rather’s troubles, but a tight one. “WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE ONES WHO DECIDED WHAT WAS NEWS.”

I was stunned at the casual arrogance of that comment. I knew there was an agenda behind all their news casts, but that remark displayed to me how ingrained elitist’s self importance is in MSM. And I’ve been surprised that I have never seen anyone blog about that episode. Sorry, I can’t recall which show it was on, but I’m certain it was an MSNBC program.

So, maybe this is the filter through which we should view the “Jordan Affair”, and all the others to come. “I decide, you shut up and follow”, is the marching order from on high.

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:27 am 12. thibaud:

Here’s a different view. I believe that Jordan and Richard Sambrook are trying to create and exploit some semantic confusion around their use of the word “targeted.” Most people, upon hearing of a “targeted” killing, would think in terms of a concerted effort by the killer to track a particular individual, to seek him out among others, to kill him precisely for who he is. The adjective is often used, redundantly, with the word assassination, which is a targeted killing of someone who is hors de combat.

So when a journalist or editor like Jordan or Sambrook complains that their people are targeted by the US military, he is immediately understood to mean that, contrary to all norms and laws of war, US soldiers prior to engaging in combat have defined the journalists in and around their ranks as their quarries. Like Oswald, they have identified the target, they track him and seek circumstances that will allow them to finish them off.

But wait. There’s something very odd in Sambrook’s elaboration to Jay Rosen.\:

In his parlance, “targeting journalists” describes a US sniper who, seeing in his gunsights what appears to be an enemy combatant, intends to and succeeds in shooting that target. No a priori definition of journalists-as-quarry; no tracking; no calculated effort to lure the quarry into the kill zone

This construction–served up by Sambrook in his response to Jay Rosen– glides over the crucial issue of whether the soldier knew that the target of his shooting was a journalist.

Here’s Sambrook’s construction (my highlights in bold):

They [the journalists] had been deliberately killed as individuals– perhaps because they were mistaken for insurgents, we don’t know. However the distinction he was seeking to make is that being shot by a sniper, or fired at directly is very different from being, for example, accidentally killed by an explosion.

OK, they’re different. But the core difference is not the efficiency and precision of the killing method but the intent of the soldier and his awareness of the professional status of the person he killed. The sequence of events implied is that the shooter has in mind a profile of a particular target so that when it appears in his line of view, he is ready to pull the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. Lee Harvey Oswald targeted Kennedy, tracked his target : “X was targeted for assassination”.

Note also the use of weasel words (”very different”, “killed as individuals”) that no journalist, were he interviewing a public official, would let go unchallenged. Sambrook knows his game here: he is trying to assert, without saying so, that the sniper who kills a journalist intended to kill his victim because the man was a journalist.

Intent is of course enormously difficult to prove, so the only possible way that Sambrook can be correct here would be if the sniper had reasonable certainty that the person in his gunsights was a journalist. But Sambrook offers no evidence of such knowledge. Neither are we given to believe that the journalists killed were either segregated from the enemy combatants– certainly not the case in the Baghdad Hotel incident, as tragic as it was– or else clearly marked as journalists to all concerned. The latter seems extremely unlikely, given the terrorists’ penchant for kidnapping and hacking the heads off of foreigners. Are there really any foreign journalists in Iraq who wish to advertise that fact?

Sambrook and Jordan are playing a very dangerous semantic game here. We all know what targeting means. If they have evidence of intent and awareness on the part of US soldiers that they were killing journalists and not enemy combatants then they must bring it forth. We must not allow them to get away with their semantic bob-and-weave.

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:28 am 13. Walter E. Wallis:

Eason Jordon mostly owes his stockholders an appology for having put their value at risk for petty political gratification.

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:31 am 14. thibaud:

Another weasel word used in Sambrook’s note to Jay reason was “deliberately.” Of course a sniper deliberates before shooting. His form of killing is by definition “deliberate.”

But Jordan and Sambrook are using the term deliberately as a mask for intentionally, with malice aforethought.

Disgraceful. How stupid do they think their audience is?

Note also that a translator into, say, arabic or german or french will of course not make any mention of spurious semantic distinctions. We can be sure that “targeting” will be translated in a term that clearly indicates the intentional killing of journalists because they are journalists.

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:38 am 15. WichitaBoy:

I wish to expand on what gerald said.

What is at stake in the emerging MSM-blogosphere war is democracy itself. How is information flow going to occur? Is it going to be a top-down system with a few privileged illuminati in control of everything or is it going to be a bottom-up system where any individual can make a contribution if she or he is so inclined? He who controls information flow will control the society. We’ve all seen in the last few months the numerous attempts by the MSM to control the election by controlling the flow of information.

In a sense, we are refighting exactly the same issues we fought during the Civil War and before that during the English Civil Wars.

100 years ago we were much more a bottom-up society vis-a-vis our media than we are today. 100 years ago every big city and most towns had competing newspapers, competing voices. Now we have five large corporations controlling almost all access to information outside of the Internet. The issue is critical to the survival of democracy itself and extends in all directions throughout the new media. Who’s going to control the Internet, a committee appointed by don Kofi?, or will it remain disjointed? Who’s going to control your access to the Internet, Microsoft alone?, or will you have other choices? Who will control the indexing of the Internet, Google alone?, or will there be other viable choices?

Feb 7, 2005 - 11:47 am 16. David Burge:

“If it can proven that he actually made these statements and that he is unable to prove their veracity, the results could be catastrophic for CNN, at least domestically.”

There’s the rub. CNN has already permanently lost Jebusland to Fox; yet, they’re still not lunatic enough to compete with the likes of BBC, Al-Jizz, etc., in foreign markets — the source of most of their ad revenue.

The cynic in me says Jordan’s remarks were part of a deliberate campaign to bolster CNN “street cred” and ratings among the Eurotrash.

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:01 pm 17. Terrye:

I remember when the journalists were killed in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad. The media acted as if the men in the tank targetted them. Like the soldiers who were being shot at had nothing better to do than attack journalists. The media turned their backs on Jack Straw at a news conference to show their contempt. After all it is one thing to kill cvilians who have no choice but to be there, but by God we all have to hail the press. I also remember hearing about AlQaida pretending to be the press and then of course there is the case of the AP stringers with the uncanny ability to know where to be before attacks even happen.

Maybe Eason Jordan is just assuming the military is targetting journalists because he is a self importanst prick or because he knows some of the journalists out there are not really journalists..or both.

Either way it gauls me to know we are stuck with depending on guys like this for the information we have access to. Way to much power in the hands of a man who thinks he can impune the integrity of men under fire without bothering to back up his allegations.

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:04 pm 18. Kyda Sylvester:

…much of mainstream media is terrified of the blogosphere. They have cause. Boy howdy.

Among my stops this morning was Powerline where they’ve got Bill Moyers on a skewer and NRO where Donald Luskin is doing his usual yeoman’s job eviscerating Paul Krugman (I do believe Luskin has it within his power to drive Krugman right around the bend–proceed judiciously, Donald).

And it’s not just MSM who tremble before the blogosphere. In Washington, bloggers are fueling the fire of election reform. In So Dakota bloggers (who should have disclosed their connection to the Thune campaign) were instrumental in unseating Tom Daschle. It’s a brave new world out there and I feel privileged to be a (however small) part of it.

I don’t think we consumers of news and opinion are asking so very much. Accuracy, honesty, no cherry picking the facts. The news reported without opinion and opinion supported by facts. Is that so very tough?

This is a good thing. Those still standing will be better for it. We all will be better for it. I for one feel better already.

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:06 pm 19. ex-democrat:

In mulling Stambrook’s comments, i’m inclined to believe that he and Jordan are testing the waters here — feeling around for an argument that will ‘work.’

for example, this one: “the distinction he [Jordan] was seeking to make is that being shot by a sniper, or fired at directly is very different from being, for example, accidentally killed by an explosion.”

but is it? isn’t the passive end of those events pretty much the same? an unfortunate death. it’s the active end of those events that’s being highlighted by Jordan, in which case this statement merely begs the question. what is the critical difference between killing someone accidentally because they were near a bomb you dropped on a weapons facility and killing someone accidentally because they looked just like the ‘insurgent’ standing next to them with the rocket launcher? The answer is that without knowing anything about “intent” it is still a distinction without a difference — at least as far as culpability on the part of the ‘killer’ goes.

So in the end, Jordan’s comment here cannot have been a meaningful “reaction to a statement that journalists killed in Iraq amounted to “collateral damage”.” The question then becomes: was his non-responsive and unsupported defamation of the US military an accident or was it targetted?

(The other part of Stambrook’s piece that jumped out to me was the sly construction by which he permits himself to advance several unsupported contentions without taking responsibility for doing so: “This culture … has led some in the media community (not necessarily Eason or myself) to believe the military are careless..”

Not “necessarily”?? How VERY legacy media)

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:31 pm 20. neo-neocon:

I’m with you, thibaud.

One of the many amazing things about this nitpicking linguistic “defense,” first marshalled by Jordan and now by Sambrook, is that it is absurd on the face of it (see http://neo-neocon.blogspot.com/2005/02/eason-jordan-wordsmith-extraordinaire.html ). It reminds me of some of Clinton’s more tortuous circumlocations (”depends what the meaing of ‘is’ is”), except it’s even more nonsensical.

Jordan and Sambrook remind me of Humpty-Dumpty in “Through the Looking Glass”: “‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ” And, until now, they’ve been getting away with it.

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:34 pm 21. Bostonian:

“The news reported without opinion and opinion supported by facts. ”

This means, among other things, using language that is as neutral as possible. It is often claimed that no language is really neutral, but for gosh sakes, it would be easy to come up with a style guide with rules like this:

Use “said” rather than

argued

rebutted

denied

disclosed

vowed

claimed

***

Yeah, it would be duller. You’d have to rely on the facts to liven it up.

Feb 7, 2005 - 12:58 pm 22. Bostonian:

I’ve been thinking about what a reporter said about the elections in Iraq. She said she was pleased they were going well, but she was concerned that “her story” would be used to further the administration’s goals.

“Her story.” Got that?

Feb 7, 2005 - 1:01 pm 23. Hovig:

Roger,

I don’t think the MSM is afraid of the blogosphere. I think they’re trying to manipulate and control it by ignoring blogs which challenge their worldview.

If you said the majority of blogs challenge their worldview, ergo they’re ignoring the majority of the blogosphere, you might be right for the most part, but I think there’s a bit more to the story than that.

Here’s my reason: Tim Blair nails it. He shows how an article at D*ily K*s gets retransmitted by no fewer than three Australian MSM outlets within days.

The MSM isn’t ignoring the blogosphere. They’re fighting to win it.

The blogosphere is basically the “Letters To The Editor” gone mad. In the past the MSM could control the letters they published and broadcast, reassuring their readers with great subtlety that all is well in their world. But the genie’s out of the bottle now, and everyone with an ISP connection can make their feeling loud and clear.

Feb 7, 2005 - 2:11 pm 24. PeterUK:

“This culture … has led some in the media community (not necessarily Eason or myself) to believe the military are careless..”

The military are doing what they are supposed to do, shoot people and blow things up,not a difficult concept to to understand.

What is difficult to understand is why journalists were too ignorant,incompetent or careless as to get in the line of fire.

This also begs the question as to why they were so close to the opposition as to get mistaken for them.

It is time there were strict rules of engagement for the media.

Feb 7, 2005 - 3:15 pm 25. Frederick:

LouMinatti:

I read your remarkable link. I am reminded again of the extent to which Europeans are unaware of their ignorance of America. The fill-in the-blanks essay displays, of course, bad English as well as the spectacular anti-American quality you note. If you know anyone at the University of Leiden, you might bring to their attention that, according to a Chinese ranking of the world’s universities, it ranks 63d in the world, just below Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and above Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. You also might suggest that, if they are interested in improving their English and learning more about the world, they might consider attending Case Western or Carnegie Mellon, even though those universities ranked in the same survey only 43d and 44th among American universities.

Feb 7, 2005 - 3:32 pm 26. charlotte:

It’s refreshing to see strong Dem partisans like Frank and Dodd publicly stand up for our troops and country against this smear. Shouldn’t the Congress look into the matter, though?

Same goes for Gergen. I had thought him too delicately diplomatic these days to weigh in. Good for all of them.

LouMinatti,

Isn’t that Dutch English test you link to excerpted from Stupid White Men, Chapter 5: “Do you feel like you live in a nation of idiots? I used to console myself about the state of stupidity in this country…” Michael Moore has truly done us proud, hasn’t he?

Feb 7, 2005 - 4:40 pm 27. Old Dad:

Where’s the outrage?

My sense is that Easongate, even in the blogosphere, lacks the traction of Rathergate because of lack of video.

CBS was stupid enough to launch its libel on national TV. Eason was stupid enough to spout off at a hot house liberal shindig behind closed doors. The political impact is muted.

With luck and persistance, his slimey butt will get nailed, but without the heat and light of Rathergate.

Which also calls into question the near and midterm consequences of Gunga Dan’s treason. Where are the promised resignations or terminations?

Maybe stonewalling works?

Where’s the outrage?

Feb 7, 2005 - 6:41 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: