Eason Jordan / Blogosphere Update
Updates on the Eason Jordan blog-story are at Michelle Malkin's site and at Press Think. According to Jay Rosen, "it now appears that the World Economic Forum has decided not to release a tape or transcript, on the grounds that the session was held under rules preventing participants from being quoted directly."
In the most recent Press Think article, Richard Sambrook of the BBC talks about what Eason Jordan said in Davos:
"This culture of "closing ranks" coupled with hostile comments about the media from senior politicians and others, has led some in the media community (not necessarily Eason or myself) to believe the military are careless as to whether journalists are killed or not and to no longer respect the traditional right to report.
As yet, for example, there has been no adequate explanation for the attack on the media hotel in Baghdad, the Palestine, which killed one Ukrainian Reuters cameraman and one cameraman for Spanish TV in 2003. The US tank commander suggested he had come under sniper fire from the building. That is now clearly not the case; it was well known, including in the Pentagon, that the Palestine was used by the media and yet it was attacked directly and purposely. Why? An absence of explanation unhelpfully feeds suspicion in some quarters.
More than sixty journalists and media workers have been killed in Iraq since march 2003.
I am leading an international committee of inquiry into the reasons for the major increase in journalist fatalities around the world. It will make recommendations for improving safety and reducing risk and possibly suggest some changes to international law which ensure that when journalists are killed we can get a proper and open investigation and sense of accountability.
Finally, some people say, if it's so dangerous don't go. I'm afraid I believe that bearing witness, first hand reporting from wars, is a fundamental duty of news organisations. We need to do all we can to ensure we can continue to bear witness, but to do so without carelessly losing lives."
