CNN chief executive resigns after remarks on killed journalists

CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan, resigned last night in an effort to quell a bubbling controversy over his remarks about &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/03/29626.html ' target=_blank>U.S. soldiers killing journalists in Iraq.

No definitive account of what Jordan said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 27 has been made public.

Two congressional &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/395/14078_Democrats.html' target=_blank>Democrats who were there, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, criticized Jordan's remarks. Others in attendance, including U.S. News & World Report editor-at-large David Gergen, said Jordan had corrected his initial remarks.

Frank has said that it sounded as if Jordan "was saying it was official military policy to take out journalists." But Jordan later "modified" his remarks to say some U.S. soldiers did this "maybe knowing they were killing journalists, out of anger," Frank said, writes the Seattle Times.

According to the Xinhua News, in a letter to colleagues posted on the website, Jordan said "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."

Jordan strongly denied the charge, saying "While my CNN colleagues and my friends in the US military know me well enough to know I have never stated, believed, or suspected that US military forces intended to kill people they knew to be journalists, my comments on this subject in a World Economic Forumpanel discussion were not as clear as they should have been."