His piece is up here…

…Well, that was underwhelming. Not much new in the story (except the cozy access to Jordan) that you didn’t already read around the blogosphere. Hugh Hewitt gives it a “C-.”

Kurtz appears to buy into his CNN boss’s spin that he “never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. military tried to kill a journalist. Never meant to suggest that. Obviously I wasn’t as clear as I should have been on that panel.”

But let’s review:

*Audience member Rony Abovitz reported that “During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.”

*Audience member Rebecca MacKinnon wrote: “I was in the room and Rony’s account is consistent with what I heard.”

*Audience member Justin Vaisse writes that Jordan “didn’t mince words in declaring that the intentions of journalist in Iraq were never perceived as neutral and were made deliberate targets by “both sides”.

*Sen. Dodd was was unquivocally “outraged by the comments” Jordan made.

*David Gergen confirmed that Jordan did in fact initially assert that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by military “on both sides” and that Jordan went on to speculate about a few incidents involving journalists killed in the Middle East–a discussion which Gergen decided to close down because “the military and the government weren’t there to defend themselves.”

*Rep. Barney Frank confirmed as well that Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military and that Jordan “left open the question” of whether there were individual cases in which American troops targeted journalists.

As I reported earlier today, Rep. Frank also mentioned that he asked Jordan for more specifics about those cases. But from the Kurtz article we learn that Jordan now says Rep. Frank has a “misunderstanding” with Jordan about expecting any further response.

Jordan and CNN are apparently under the impression that lots of observers suffer from “misunderstanding,” but Jordan–however much he may be backtracking now–seems to have communicated his initial thoughts on American troops targeting journalists quite clearly.

Meanwhile, Kurtz mentions Ed Morrissey’s blog, Captain’s Quarters, but fails to mention key damning statements made by Jordan that Ed has repeatedly reminded us of–click here, Howard, for the context you should have given your readers before ending your piece quoting Gergen about the need to give your CNN boss the “benefit of the doubt.”

Ed notes:

It took Kurtz over a week to finally get around to publishing this article on Eason’s Fables. In that time, it appears that Kurtz did as little investigation as possible on Jordan. My readers and I found all of Jordan’s earlier commentary within 24 hours, and we only have very limited access to Nexis and full-time jobs doing other things than media analysis. Worse than that, all of this information has been repeatedly presented on my blog — in fact, it was all presented on my blog today, and we know Howard Kurtz read my blog sometime this afternoon.

Why didn’t Kurtz ask about his remarks in Portugal from three months ago, or about his identical accusations against Israel two years ago? Why didn’t Kurtz press Jordan on the entire story? Only Kurtz can answer that, and I doubt he will have much more to say to anyone about Eason’s Fables from this point onward.

There’s always another Media Backtalk chat session…

Update: Reader Thomas Blumer adds his two cents.

The opening paragraph refers to a controversy from “last month.” This is classic MSM fakeout-speak for “this is really old stuff, and I hope you don’t pay attention to it, so would you, dear reader, please move on to another story? NOW?” Yeah, it was last month, but it also happens to be only 11 freaking days ago, and it’s only that old because the Kurtzmeister and his MSM brethren sat on it. Replace “last month” with “recently” and you’d be accurate…

…And what’s this garbage?

“No transcript exists of the Jan. 27 session, which was supposed to be off the record, and a videotape of the event has not been made public.”

First, he doesn’t KNOW that no transcript exists, someone had to tell him, and he should know who claims this to be true. Second, there is a BIG dispute as to whether the session was off the record (so was Trent Lott at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party, as if THAT mattered). Third, there are early signs that any video that was made might be withheld, but we don’t hear about that either. Zheesh.

It gets worse. Right after he IDs [Rony] Abovitz, the apparently sensible liberal who first outed and at least implicitly criticized the Jordan session by reporting the reactions, he says “conservatives” are the only bloggers criticizing Jordan. This is MSM-speak for “it’s only a bunch of nutcases. Move along. Nothing here.”

And for crying out loud, where and with whom was this “interview last night”? What channel was it on?

I’m so tired of this. Kurtz’s “benefit of the doubt” ending is a MSM-speak for “this Jordan is a bigtime news guy, so leave it alone. It’s not that important anyway.”

Now the MSM will quack in unison “Kurtz covered it, It’s done. Old news. Besides, we have the draconian budget cuts that will throw women, children and seniors onto the streets to cover.”

Without the video, they may get away with it.

Update II: Check out these two paragraphs in Kurtz’s piece:

At the World Economic Forum, participants say, the only specific case cited by Jordan was the April 2003 incident in which U.S. forces fired a tank round at Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, killing a cameraman employed by Reuters and another for the Spanish network Telecinco. Military spokesmen said the troops were responding to sniper fire from the hotel, which was known to house about 100 foreign journalists, and defended the shelling as “a proportionate and justifiably measured response.”

But Jordan supplied a list of the other incidents, such as a tank firing on and killing Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana as he was filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in 2003. U.S. officials said the troops mistook Dana’s camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

As Chester at Easongate suggests, Jordan seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On one hand, he is denying that he ever claimed that the U.S. military deliberately targeted journalists. On the other hand, he has given Kurtz a list of incidents which apparently is intended to bolster the view that the U.S. military has deliberately targeted journalists. Ever hear the phrase “arguing in the alternative“?

Update III: Kaus rips Kurtz and calls for the videotape to be released.

Captain Ed rips Kurtz, too, and covers the much better New York Sun piece.

Roger Simon says, witheringly, “All in all, this is not an article, more of a place holder, with very little real digging done, despite another writer, Lisa de Moraes, being credited as a contributor at the end.”

Jim Geraghty is a bit more sanguine.

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