Not even the resignation of Eason Jordan will deter Howard Kurtz from minimizing the importance of his Davos remarks and ignoring Jordan's earlier slanders altogether. Kurtz reacts to Jordan's exit with yet another "misunderstanding" over the Davos forum effort, this time enlisting David Gergen to carry his water (via Michelle Malkin and La Shawn Barber):

Gergen said last night that Jordan's resignation was "really sad" since he had quickly backed off his original comments. "This is too high a price to pay for someone who has given so much of himself over 20 years. And he's brought down over a single mistake because people beat up on him in the blogosphere? They went after him because he is a symbol of a network seen as too liberal by some. They saw blood in the water."

Note to Kurtz and Gergen -- please review these remarks, made by Eason Jordan last November in the News Xchange forum in Portugal:

Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities."

"Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by US forces," Mr Jordan told an audience of news executives at the News Xchange conference in Portugal.

They could also check out this quote about the Israeli military, from an Eason Jordan interview at the News Xchange forum in October 2002 (NG is Nik Gowing):

NG: Eason, why do you think you've been targeted specifically, I mean there are Israeli bumper stickers that say 'CNN lies', the Israeli communications minister talked about CNN as being 'evil, biased and unbalanced' you'll be familiar with all these quotes?

EJ: Absolutely, well the Israeli government is making a mistake if it considers CNN the enemy, CNN is just trying to tell the story of Israel, the story of Palestinian areas in a straightforward way. We're not trying to favour one side over the other we're not going to pull any punches in our reporting but the truth hurts sometimes and it hurts both sides but it's a mistake to target the news media. We've had enormous frustrations in having access to occupied areas of the West Bank and Israeli forces on a number of occasions have shot at CNN personnel and in fact did shoot one CNN correspondent, he was badly wounded. The Israelis say they're actually trying to restrict our access to these areas and they say it's too dangerous for you to be there and my response to that is that it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous if you didn't shoot at us when we're clearly labelled as CNN crews and journalists. And so this must stop, this targeting of the news media both literally and figuratively must come to an end immediately.

For Gergen and Kurtz to continue their deathgrip on the fallacy that Davos represents a single slip of the tongue on Jordan's part only demonstrates either their complete inability to research the topic, or their complete disinclination to do so. Jordan has made several thinly-veiled references to US and Israeli assassination policies towards journalists, apparently buying completely into Nik Gowing's unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Jordan's mistake this time was to get too blunt about his hostility towards the American military and his failure to substantiate his charges.

Kurtz does a better job of reporting the lack of media coverage of the issue, making Jordan's resignation a bit difficult to explain to media consumers:

Blogs operated by National Review Online, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt and commentator Michelle Malkin were among those that began slamming Jordan last week after a Davos attendee posted an online account, but the establishment press was slow to pick up on the controversy. The Washington Post and Boston Globe published stories Tuesday and the Miami Herald ran one Thursday. Also on Thursday, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, who was at Davos, published an account accusing Jordan of "defamatory innuendo," and the Associated Press moved a story. As of yesterday, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and USA Today had not carried a staff-written story, and the CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news programs had not reported the matter. It was discussed on several talk shows on Fox News, MSNBC and CNBC.

One supposes that the editors of all the silent outlets have some tapdancing to do with their viewers and/or readers to explain how the chief operations executive of CNN had to resign over remarks about which they know nothing, thanks to their favorite news shows and papers. At least Kurtz reported on the subject ... once.

UPDATE: Matt Margolis has the internal CNN memo announcing Jordan's departure.

UPDATE II: The Anchoress also takes Gergen to task, as always, in excellent form.

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