What the Davos tape still won't tell us about Eason Jordan's ouster

Further to my previous musings about the proximate cause(s) of Eason Jordan's departure from CNN:

I agree with, for example, Patterico (as one among many) that we know very little about the real reasons that CNN ousted Eason Jordan.  And I also agree with him (and many others) that it would be very interesting and useful were the videotape to be made available.

But I'm not at all sure that the videotape would provide a definitive answer. In fact, if the question being asked is "Why did CNN axe Jordan?" rather than "What did Jordan actually say at Davos?" it's quite likely that the videotape, by itself, would not answer that question.

The tape hasn't been released to the public. Was it seen, though, by anyone in CNN's management structure? If the answer to that question is yes, then the tape — and the actual words spoken in and tone of Jordan's remarks (and "walking back" from them, as claimed by David Gergen) — may indeed have been a key decisionmaking factor in Jordan's ouster. If the answer is instead that CNN's execs acted without having seen the tape either, then they were just speculating along with the rest of us about what it might show, and what inferences might reasonably be drawn from Jordan's failure to call for its release.

As I wrote earlier, I believe it's altogether likely, even probable, that the blog swarm around Jordan's Davos comments was one proximate cause of his ouster. But there may have been many others — and perhaps others that were far more significant than either the blog swarm or the videotape's contents in the minds of the CNN execs who actually swung the axe.

For example, Howard Kurtz' WaPo article suggests that there was concern among CNN's management about lingering gossip regarding Jordan's personal romantic life. If so, and if that was indeed another proximate cause, then that perhaps ought to be more troubling to Jordan's defenders and sympathists than the "blogospheric scalp-taking frenzy." (I say "perhaps" because I don't know, and am not interested in, the details of Jordan's romantic life; I can imagine a set of circumstances in which what would otherwise have been a purely personal matter could have become a legitimate, nonprurient concern of CNN's management.) Howard Kurtz is no fool, but he's treading a tightrope — blessed with extraordinary inside access, cursed with the fact that it comes through being on CNN's payroll himself. Was Kurtz hinting through the mysteriously edited references to the "gossip about Jordan's personal life" that this was indeed a big, big factor — perhaps a bigger factor than either the Davos remarks or their aftermath?

Likewise, the blogosphere has documented Jordan's past pattern of making remarks similar to, and as outrageous as, those reported from Davos. We don't know whether those past episodes weakened the camel's back, so to speak, nor if so, how much. The preexisting state of the camel's spine would be useful information if one truly wants to know whether the blog swarm was an anvil, the proverbial "last straw," or simply one of the last among many other sufficient straws.

Look, too, at the timing of Jordan's resignation — early on a Friday evening. Was that deliberate, trying to drop the decision into one of the rhythmic lulls of the weekly news cycle? Could be. But it's equally consistent with a week-long internal argument inside CNN management over how to deal with the problem. Perhaps it was an argument that escalated into a late-afternoon shouting match, or an ultimatum unmet. "By God, you'll either apologize on-camera or you're outta here, buddy!" "Well by God I won't, and f--k you and the horse you rode in on, you fascist!" "Oh yeah? Well you have fifteen minutes to compose your 'resignation letter,' Mister Ex-Executive!"

You giggle? Hey, such things happen in boardrooms as well as in marriages. And if there was indeed a knock-down, drag-out personality-and-principles clash — one that escalated a "we'll tough it out (but he's got to clean up his act)" situation into simply "he's outta here" — you'd nevertheless expect the sort of bland press release that CNN and Jordan in fact issued.

The "blogospheric scalp-taking" explanation for Jordan's ouster is the obvious and convenient one — easily understood through a few clicks on hyperlinks — and perhaps it therefore makes a nice kernel around which to foment a devoutly desired backlash. Even if, in the view of the CNN execs who made the decision, there were other, more significant causes, the cynic in me wonders whether those same execs are perfectly happy for the right hemisphere of the blogosphere — us Bible-thumping knuckle-draggers — to take the rap. Thus the goat (in the unblinking internal assessment of the CNN execs) is turned for public purposes into a martyred sacrificial lamb (in the eyes of his sympathizers and defenders). Was that intentional? If so, was it a primary goal or a mere bit of lagniappe?

But in my wildest, most hopeful fantasies, I imagine a group of enlightened CNN executives saying to one another, "You know, whether these bloggers are right or not, we need to be ahead of them on the curve. Making statements like Jordan's at Davos, even under the most charitable interpretation of them, suggests a lack of management judgment, and the way he responded to this tempest demonstrates a lack of journalistic ethics. This guy's snap instinct and his considered reaction were both to go in the wrong direction. He's just not the guy to be leading our network forward when we're facing sagging ratings and lost credibility anyway. This is no time to act like we're CBS News and no time for half-measures and more warnings. Let's get proactive here; we need a visionary and a paragon of ethics and transparency in this slot, and Eason Jordan's clearly not that guy."

Discretionary employment decisions being what they are, and corporate execs having the multiple motivations for concealment that they do, I doubt we'll ever have answers to any of these questions — videotape or no. That prospect leaves me and many others unsatisfied, of course. But in the big picture, the long-term picture, I'm less troubled than I might otherwise be. Whether the blog swarm was the only proximate cause of Jordan's ouster, or the most significant of several, or a minor one, the net result will be that folks in positions like Jordan's are going to feel more accountable and less bulletproof in the future. Even if I have gnawing questions, I still chalk that result — not Jordan's ousting as such — up in the "win" column for the blogosphere.