As many are aware Eason Jordan stepped in the rightwing media hornet nest when word leaked out of at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Mr. Jordan may have suggested that some reporters had been intentionally targeted by the military. The wingers are gunning for Mr. Jordan, trying rather transparently to set him up as the next Dan Rather and going so far as to dub this 'Easongate'. They have set up at least one webpage, with a blogroll and petition: see Easongate
http://www.billroggio.com/easongate
Jay Rosen has been covering the story at
Pressthink http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/02/06/jdn_pol.html
With respect to the journalists killed covering the war,according to Repoters Without Borders:
link http://www.rsf.org/special_iraq_en.php3
...47 journalists and media assistants [have been]killed since the start of fighting in Iraq in March 2003, four still missing.
The most famous incident being the April 2003 attack on the Palestine Hotel in which the army cleared itself of wrongdoing. http://www.cpj.org/news/2004/Iraq05nov04na.html
While one definitely sympathizes with the besieged Mr. Jordan, I'm also reminded of an earlier Easongate involving Psyops at CNN http://www.counterpunch.org/cnnpsyops.html According to Alexander Cockburn
...the French newsletter, Intelligence On-line, February 17, which described a military symposium in Arlington, Virginia, held at the beginning of February of this year, discussing use of the press in military operations. Colonel Christopher St John, commander of the US Army's 4th Psyops Group, was quoted by Intelligence On-Line's correspondent, present at the symposium, as having, in the correspondent's words, "called for greater cooperation between the armed forces and media giants. He pointed out that some army PSYOPS personnel had worked for CNN for several weeks and helped in the production of some news stories for the network."
So, however insignificant Eason Jordan and other executives at CNN may now describe the Army psyops tours at CNN as having been, the commanding officer of the Psy-ops group thought them as sufficient significance to mention at a high level Pentagon seminar about propaganda and psychological warfare. It could be that CNN was the target of a psyops penetration and is still too naïve to figure out what was going on.
FAIR [http://www.fair.org/activism/cnn-psyops.html]
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting also covered this story.
With regards to Mr. Jordan's current predicament it's important to note that CNN is really two networks CNN for domestic consumption and CNN International. While CNN domestic competes with Fox for the winger market, CNN international competes with the more 'reality based' global media community. Speaking out of two sides of ones mouth is a neat trick and can get even the sharpest of tacks into trouble.