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February 13, 2005

Jordan, Gannon, and the Blogosphere

There appear to be two basic lines of thought regarding the Eason Jordan situation (and to a lesser extent the Gannon issue): one side sees the takedowns as generally good things for the blogosphere, since the 'sphere was able to put pressure on people who had either dissembled or who refused to answer questions regarding their actions with the complicity of the media. The other side sees the blogosphere as a lynch mob that is quite good at advancing the politics of personal destruction (I often suspect that people who use that term aren't very familiar with what was said about political candidates in the 19th century), but isn't very good at shedding light on the issues.

As I said on Friday, I don't really see either incident as a particular triumph for the blogosphere. Jordan may have stepped down from CNN, but all that means is that we will almost certainly never know what actually happened at Davos. Maybe Jordan deserved to be removed from his position for his actions at Davos, but that's difficult for me to believe. You deserve to suffer a little public humiliation when you do something dumb. You don't generally deserve to be fired. Unless Jordan's words at Davos were even worse than what was reported, I suspect the world would have been much better off for the truth to come out about what he said, allowing people to judge for themselves rather than having to rely on always sketchy eyewitness testimony.

Conversely, I'm not sure that blaming the blogosphere is a realistic assessment of the issue. The blogosphere has very little power to affect events. It can keep issues from disappearing, but it is limited in its ability to frame the issues. Once it became clear the World Economic Forum would not release a tape or transcript of the session in question, I'm not sure how many options the blogosphere had. Each of the bloggers pursuing the story could have abandoned the story, but that would have left the question up in the air. Or they could do what they did: continue to keep the issue percolating in the hopes public pressure would force the issue to the surface and perhaps force the WEF to cave. As it turned out, the pressure was sufficient to get the issue into the public eye, but Jordan chose to quit (or was forced out by his superiors) before the pressure turned to the WEF. I'm not sure the blame for this lies solely at the feet of the blogosphere. As I noted a few days ago, I think Jordan's remarks deserved public scrutiny, as a news executive who is willing to throw around unsubstantiated allegation is news, as would be evidence that U.S. troops are intentionally targeting journalists. I don't think it would have been right for bloggers to simply ignore the issue because they might be perceived as a lynch mob.

Jordan and CNN could have fought back if they so chose. The fact that they didn't is interesting (and does not necessarily mean that Jordan is guilty of the worst claims against him), but that choice was not forced on them by the blogosphere. At worst, the blogosphere forced them to make a choice. How they chose to deal with the issue was their responsibility.

I don't want to simply grant blanket amnesty to the blogosphere in this matter, but the longer I look at the issue, the more I think that the 'bloggers as lynch mob' argument doesn't hold water. Bloggers raised the question of what Jordan said at Davos, interviewed people who were there, and attempted to get a copy of a transcript or video to determine precisely what was said. While I'm sure there were many indivdual bloggers who acted in less constructive ways, I'm not aware of any way to stop that. Blogging is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used wisely or poorly. More to the point, I'm not sure what else the blogosphere could have done to raise the issue in any way that didn't risk Jordan bailing.

Your thoughts are welcome and appreciated.