Err Jordan

Blogger triumphalism ran amok this morning on Howie Kurtz's little TV show, with Jeff Jarvis warning in menacing tones of the army of citizen-journalists at his back.

While I will allow that I am stunned at how effectively Hewitt et. al. managed to turn Jordan's immediately retracted (or half-retracted) comment into a hypenated gate, let's remember a few things:

1. Eason Jordan was effectively fired 18 months ago. He had no budget authority. Nobody reported to him. He will not be replaced.
2. He fucked up once before, with the NYT op-ed.
3. Though it wasn't a big deal to most folks, his dalliance with Marianne Pearl was seen as unseemly inside CNN.
4. He was an Atlanta-based figurehead at a time when every important job at CNN is migrating northward

That's why he's gone, not because of what the Internets think. I don't know yet exactly how it went down, but I imagine that he submitted his resignation to Walton because that's the right thing to do when you fuck up royally. If the foregoing points weren't the case, I doubt Walton would have accepted it. But given all of the complicating circumstances--that had nothing to do with Jarvis and his mob--it was easiest to cut him loose.

But he got a consolation prize--Sharon Stone. You heard it here first.