Eason Jordan

Eason Jordan
His actual blog is; http://www.iraqslogger.com/

After 23 years at CNN, I have decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq.

I have devoted my professional life to helping make CNN the most trusted and respected news outlet in the world, and I would never do anything to compromise my work or that of the thousands of talented people it is my honor to work alongside.

While my CNN colleagues and my friends in the U.S. military know me well enough to know I have never stated, believed, or suspected that U.S. military forces intended to kill people they knew to be journalists, my comments on this subject in a World Economic Forum panel discussion were not as clear as they should have been.

I never meant to imply U.S. forces acted with ill intent when U.S. forces accidentally killed journalists, and I apologize to anyone who thought I said or believed otherwise. I have great admiration and respect for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, with whom I have worked closely and been embedded in Baghdad, Tikrit, and Mosul, in addition to my time with American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen in Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Arabian Gulf.

As for my colleagues at CNN, I am enormously proud to have worked with you, risking my life in the trenches with you, and making CNN great with you. For that experience, and for your friendship and support these many years, I thank you.

I told Howard Kurtz I was surprised and didn’t know of any firing offense. Of course I haven’t seen the tape.

11pm: Kurt’z story is out: “Eason Jordan resigned last night as CNN’s chief news executive in an effort to quell a bubbling controversy over his remarks about U.S. soldiers killing journalists in Iraq.”

Jay Rosen [said] he didn’t think Jordan “had engaged in a firing offense.” Bloggers “made a lot of noise” about the Jordan flap, Rosen said. “But there was basic reporting going on — finding the people who were there, getting them to make statements, comparing one account to another — along with accusations and conspiracy thinking and the politics of paranoia and attacks on the MSM, or mainstream media.”

A right royal scandal

Yesterday 2 men were accused of trying to blackmail the royal family after they tried to sell a story to the news of the world. the story was that the 2 men had recordings of a sex scandal involving an unnamed 'extended' member of the royal family. Now we're pretty special here in Britain because we have a royal family and the tourists who come over seem to think its cool so obviously we made international news.

At the last count I'd found 527 articles about the 'Royal sex scandal' and although many of the stories were from English newspapers, websites and blogs there were still quite a few international ones:
1) The Canadian Press
2) New York Daily News
3) Sify News (India)
4) Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
5) Scotsman.com

Although most of the pieces are headed as 'scandal' there is not actually much detail of what actually took place (god bless censorship) most of the articles in fact concentrate their coverage on the two men who made the initial accusations. The stories focus on how the two men tried to black mail the royal family before been caught by an under cover police man posing as a spokesperson for the royal family. The plot thickens...

Google news and google reader

Over the past week I have been playing with both Google news and Google reader, overall I feel that it's easier for me to find my own information by myself and that it's more enjoyable t do it that way. However, that been said, i did come across some articles that i wouldn't have read if the site hadn't suggested them to me.

I think that the sites are good for people who haven't got ti me to look for information and who just want to be updated quickly every day. Or maybe busy parents who want to stay in touch with the world but still have time to chase around the children!!

I did find a blog that hs been amusing me though, it's called four in a row about a woman with four children under 5. Nightmare!

Evaluation of our group blog :(

Right, well, our group blog was based on the realities of what been a student is REALLY like. we were fed up of people talking about the stereotypical drunken student who skips class and sleeps in until lunch time every day.

On the whole I think that our blog was fantastic, we all had fun doing it and have decided to carry it on over easter. It was quite easy to blog because it was real life so all we had to do was talk about ourselves and our everyday lives.

There were a few problems though, because there was six of us we had to kind of time our blogs and be careful that we didnt write about the same things. We also had a bit of a problem with the template so if we had more time we'd probably have chosen a better one and maybe changed the colours and the fonts a bit more so that it looked better.

Joe, 'The commisioner' was fab because he got in contact with us all to make sure we were doing what we were meant to be and doing it on time.

I'd love to do it again!!!

22nd Febuary 2008 Class work

Gawker.com, Gawker uses a mixture of sarcasm and wit to attract their readers. They seem to aim at A list celebrities and what happens in their everyday lives, from mishaps to funny stories. Gawker is a good read but you need to take it all a bit tongue in cheek because it is very exaggerated but very funny. There is a section specifically for Tom Cruise which follows the exploits of Tom and his antics.

DIYlife.com, This is the Internet nuts guide of how to. From how to turn a mattress into a sofa to how to how to design your own scrap paper using your own computer. Everything is handily categorised and there are some lovely things that you can make for friend and family in the Gifts section. DIY blogs is run by Weblogs Inc which is now owned by AOL and was originally created by Jason Calacanis.

Uncrate.com, 'A web magazine for guys who love stuff.' this is an online magazine of all the useless things that guys seem to like such as the bacon cookbook and the Evergreen wallet which is made of- what else- Wood. Bizarre! However there are also a few bits that guys and girls alike will love such as the Lego icecube tray and matching accessories.

Time again....

My comment piece was influenced from a story I read in the telegraph on the 15/02/08 about what could be the end of glastonbury festival and then another story on the BBC website about Reading and Leeds festivls. Link to the story telegraph HERE and to the BBC site HERE

It’s that time of year again, the sun is trying to peep around the clouds a bit more often and we don’t have to have to central heating permanently turned to MAX just to stop us freezing to death in our sleep. It’s also the time of year when me and my boyfriend start our annual discussion of what festivals we will be attending in the summer.

I’ve been attending festivals since I was about fifteen and try to get to at least one of the major ones every year. I live about 30 miles away from where Leeds festival is held in Bramham park and it was one of my first weekend festivals that I attended. However that was five years and when we got back home last year I said that I’d never go again.

There was a multitude of reasons for my decision but it all came down to one thing, commercialism. When I first started going tickets were around £100 for a weekend ticket and you could go in the knowledge that you were going to have a good time and see a few good bands. But not anymore, tickets for 2008’s Leeds and Reading festivals are over £160 plus an extra £5 ‘handling fee’ and £5 postage charge. Now I’m not really convinced that a £5 handling charge on every ticket is very realistic,

Leeds festival accommodates around 85,000 people every day so they’re average earnings for handling charges for one day of the three day festival is £425,000. Now times that by three for each day of the festival and you’ve got a staggering £1,275,000. FROM HANDLING CHARGES!!! (This amount does not take into consideration that Leeds and Reading festivals are twinned and that Reading is not included in these findings or that Reading can hold more people than Leeds.

Am I wrong to think that this is a ridiculous amount of money that mean fiddler and ticket master (the main ticket sellers for the festival) are pocketing because people want to enjoy the august bank holiday weekend??

However, when I got an email telling me about tickets coming on sale I was straight on the phone and pre-ordered two weekend tickets, because no matter what we say when we get home dirty, tired and VERY grumpy every year both me and Stewart know that we look forward to Leeds every year because its not all about the cost it’s about the atmosphere, the music and the fact that it’s the only time every year when we see all of our friends together as a group as we used
to be.



This video was shot by my friend who won a competition to shot the festival and have his video shown on television, see if you can spot me!

Why??

Do people inthe libary have to listen to their music so loudly that I can hear it across the room!!! Come on people have some consideration!!

You Tube Video's

I decided to use the video for Soulja Boy because it seems to have sparked a wave of copy cat clips on you tube by people who either like the lyrics to the song of the dance or maybe both. When I did the original search for the video I asked You tube to find ‘Soldier Boy’ which brought up 5260 related clips but then when I did a search for words and phrases related to the original video I found 24,700 ‘related’ clips and although not all of them were connected to the original music video I think that over 90% of the ones that I looked through were. The clips that are connected to the original video seem to be mainly made up of people copying the dance or adding their own dance to the original song. There are also a lot of videos where people have taken characters like Sponge Bob Square Pants and Alvin and the chipmunks and set them to the soundtrack. I will try to embed the original video and another video showing people how to do the dance, this will show how big the video had become because if people wantto learn the dance then it must be really popular!!

Who's online in 2008?

Over the past decade internet usage around the world has exploded, worldwide there are around 450 million people with internet access, however they are not all regular users.

Nearly 167 million Americans have internet access but only 105 million are regular users. over 34 million people in the UK have internet access (15 million households, this is a staggering 63.8% of population. In the past year year internet usage has risen by 16%.

To read some more interesting internet figures click on the highlighted link: More Information

Analysts say they expect the internet population to continue growing for the foreseeable future.

Madness I tell you!!!!!

Right so I know it's 3 days until Christmas and everything but I have quite literally just risked life and limb to go into town and get he last of out christmas food. Come on people, please calm down a bit!! If we all queue up nicely and wait our turn you will get there, you don't need to stress out and get all narky with me.

p.s The guy in the 4X4 in Morrisons, yes you nearly did run me over and it was not appreciated!!

Housing Crisis!

OK, I'm living at university with all my friends and it's great but there's just one problem. In a few months we're expected to find our own places to live, be it flats or houses or a cardboard box, after next June we are well and truly on our own. Scary!

Now because I'm a journalist I watch the news quite a lot and it seems that there’s been a lot of talk recently about a crash in house prices and how it will affect the economy.

So I know that this is going to sound really selfish but I just wish this price crash would hurry up so that I could afford a nice house instead of some of the 'budget' properties that I've been looking at. Take this morning, I got up extra early go and view a 'spacious three double bedroom mid-terrace' house with my friends, we were quite excited because it looked so lovely on the picture and seemed to have everything. How wrong were we?? There were several problems, including:

No parking. NONE!

Three 'double bedrooms' was two and a hamster cage

The smallest kitchen in the world!

LOW ceilings

As you might be able to tell I’m a bit frustrated because I thought we’d stuck gold this morning, never mind. We’ll just have to keep looking!

Last night

OK, so I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a party animal. Nine times out of ten I would rather be curled up in bed watching a good movie and generally relaxing.

However it's nearly the end of term, I've finished all my work (the swot that I am). So basically didn't' have anything to do last night. The boys have been saying for the past two weeks that they hardly see me so I thought it'd be a good excuse to go down to the union and have a night off from studying.

And I’m glad to say that I had a fantastic night last night, even if those bloody high heel have finished my feet of for the rest of my life (I really should learn my lesson that I can’t wear four inch heels all night!) and the fact that I woke up at lunchtime (with a banging headache). I think I’ll have to have an early night tonight- I’m still an old woman at heart!

Oh yeah and just randomly Waitrose was ram raided last night, what did they steal?? Expensive chicken or something?!

Nearly Christmas!!!

Right so it's not long until Christmas now :) and because I'm so fed up of leaving everything until last minute I'm not only prepared this year, I'm ridiculously over prepared. All my Christmas cards are written, all my presents wrapped and all that needs doing is putting up the Christmas tree and decking it out with tinsel etc.

If you're reading this and are astonished that I'm so organised there is a reason, I'm a student and having to buy all the presents in one go is way beyond my means so I have to shop throughout the year and buy things when I see something that I think someone will like. Actually I reckon that I've saved myself a lot of time, money and stress this year because I'm not having to buy everything so close to Christmas with the masses in town, if I have to go into town it's for necessities and even then I avoid going in until I REALLY have to go. Or alternatively shop online, god bless the Internet! Plus most sites deliver for free at this time of year saving you more money :)

I’m not the Grinch or anything I love Christmas but every year it seems that shops stock Christmas presents earlier and earlier and that presents get more and more expensive. It’s getting ridiculous!! Over commercialisation seems to have taken over every holiday there is nowadays, from Valentines Day to Easter Sunday. Does anyone remember the real meaning of these holidays?? I’m not religious or anything in fact I don’t really believe in religion but that isn’t the point, all of these days are meant to be religious holidays and I seem to be the only person in the world who realises this. It drives me mental!!!!

All this and now we’re been told by The Powers That Be (the government) that projected shopping sales are down and that the economy is suffering as a result. I find this so hard to believe, have these people actually been out of their homes and offices over the past few weeks?? Everyone and their dos are out shopping at the minute, the streets are packed. I swear that I saw an old lady get pushed off the pavement by the crowd the other day.

And do you know what the worst thing is?! Some fairy with no brain has decided to close Oxford Street to all traffic on a weekend so that it can be completely pedestrianised, now is it just me or is this the worst idea EVER dreamt up?! So now when you walk down Oxford street on a Saturday now it’s not tear away cyclists and taxi drivers that you have to avoid it’s mothers with pushchairs and their entire family (dad not always included) in tow. It seems beyond unbelievable that everyone and their best mate has left their Christmas shopping until this late in the year, but it has happened.

It is the beginning of the end!!

If you want to visit a few websites that I like for cool gifts have a look at the list below:
I want one of those

EBay (The old favourite)

Oxfam Gifts

Find me a Gift

What is wrong with the world??

John Darwin -->

Ok so unless you have been sat under a rock for the past week and a bit you will not have been able to miss the weirdest news story in the world.

John Darwin who disappeared and was presumed dead over five years ago from near his home in Hartlepool after he had gone out in his canoe, has walked into a central London police station saying that he had no recollection of the last five years and that he doesn’t know where he’s been.

A likely story.

There’s just one slight problem, a photo was released shortly after his miraculous ‘reappearance’ apparently showing Mr Darwin with his wife and an estate agent in the city of Panama in Central America.

You think that’s shocking well keep on reading!

Mr Darwin and his wife were with an estate agent who they had just bought a house from, but here comes the twist. The money they used to buy the house with was partly from Mr Darwin’s life insurance money and the money that his wife received from the sale of their family home in Hartlepool.

Shocking? Well keep on reading because it’s about to get worse.

My Darwin’s smashed canoe was found washed up on Hartlepool beach shortly after his disappearance. Mr and Mrs Darwin have two grown up sons together who for the past five years have believed that their father had drowned at sea in a mysterious canoeing accident. Not only was their father alive and well but also it emerged yesterday that their father was still in their family house. Mr Darwin has spoken of how he snuck into a bed-sit adjoining the family home whenever friends and family came to visit.

Are these the normal activities of a sane man??

Ok so maybe not, but it can’t be said that Mrs (Anne) Darwin has had any less involvement in the scandal than her husband. Not only has she kept her husband hidden from the world, she has helped him to commit fraud and had his declared ‘dead’ so that she could claim the life insurance money.

What a nice lady she must be.

On a plus side both Mr and Mrs Darwin are in court today to answer for their actions. Mr Darwin is charged with fraud (for the life insurance money), falsely representing his death and somehow obtaining a fake passport and flying to Panama from the UK.

This story is far from finished and if the plot so far is anything to go by I don’t think that the ending can be anything but dramatic!