Reports the MRC, that on the April 11th edition of Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC
..citing a NPR interview Jordan did last October, Roll Call’s Morton Kondracke recalled that Jordan insisted “that CNN never made journalistic compromises to gain access, specifically about covering this war, but he made that general statement, which is a flat lie, to National Public radio at the time.” …Columnist Charles Krauthammer observed: “It’s a classic example of selling your soul for the story. He clearly gave up truth for access. Well he could have taken the translator out and told that story about Uday or other stories, but he would have lost the bureau in Baghdad and that’s why he did it.”
“Well, to me, this is an outrage. It doesn’t, I don’t understand how you can make a judgment about what seems, appears to me, on the surface it — going soft, not telling people about the depth of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, when, in fact, now, Eason Jordan says, you know, he thought the American people knew about it, no one was hiding it. But he wanted access for CNN, and I think that’s what he made the predominant issue in his mind. The consequence being that, to the way I look at it, he wasn’t being forthcoming with CNN’s viewers. That CNN’s viewers should have known exactly, exactly how tyrannical, how awful, how despotic Saddam Hussein was. And here’s the other point, Tony. CNN’s continued reporting lent some credibility, made it seem to the American people as if, ‘Well, this is an ordered society. CNN, other news networks can go in there, operate freely and with some sort of, you know, First Amendment protections and freedoms.’ That was never the case.”Bill Kristol observed: “Well, what it means is that any tyranny threatens to kill someone who works for any news network, and the news network doesn’t tell the truth about the tyranny. It’s totally unacceptable. If this man was in danger, they should have flown him out of Baghdad, they should have flown his family out of Baghdad. They should have gone to the U.S. government and tried to get the president of the United States to say, ‘If you start killing people who are cooperating with American media, that’s in effect an act of war against, virtually, against American citizens or American employees.’ This is just craven.”
Brit Hume pointed out: “It is clear that reporters who wanted to stay in Baghdad had to be very careful what they said. That doesn’t apply to people who have left Baghdad, which is what’s so striking to me about this.” NPR White House reporter Mara Liasson also expressed concern: “I think that raises some crucial questions about how media organizations behave in totalitarian governments.”