At Business Week. Steven Baker doesn't fear The Blog:

...with all their clout and reach, bloggers alone can't bring down their enemies. In the end, it's up to society's traditional powers -- the corporate boards, politicians, CEOs -- to rule on these matters. Do they fire an executive for uttering one foolish sentence, ax a reporter for a wrongheaded story, exile a university president for offensive remarks? If the bloggers appear to be censorious, it's only because the rest of society plays along.

In truth, blogging represents an explosion of free speech. While blogs certainly empower lynch mobs, they can also lead to long and open conversations, virtual town meetings. These are the greatest antidote to censorship and secrecy. The Jordan case gave birth to loads of such discussions.

Like many, he does get one thing wrong, though:

He resigned on Feb. 13 after conservative bloggers feasted on a controversial statement he made in late January at the annual World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, about the U.S. military. His allegation -- that coalition soldiers in Iraq mistook journalists for enemies and killed them -- brought down a storm of criticism on him and his network.

No, that wasn't his allegation, at least not initially, if numerous accounts are correct. His allegation was that journalists were targeted by coalition soldiers (and that word includes identification). He then attempted to walk it back to them being hit by mistake.

But the columnist raises an interesting thesis: that the days of privacy are ending. To whatever degree that's true, if it means that the powerful will no longer be able to get away with slander and bias, it's hard to see how that's a bad thing.

As he notes, Jordan losing his job wasn't a blow to free speech--it was a victory for it. The First Amendment never meant anything more than that the government can't censor you, or pass laws against the dissemination of ideas (though the current government doesn't seem to think that the First Amendment applies to election campaigns any more). It was never meant as a shield against potential consequences of speech.

Mr. Jordan found just what you said, the First Ammendment keeps his right to say stupid things. He wasn't arrested for what he said. He wasn't executed for what he said, he didn't lose his house, family, kids for what he said. That's how the First Ammendment works, it keeps us from OVERT government action after we speak our mind.

He did find out that the First Ammendment does not protect our jobs when we use our work affiliated position to SAY STUPID STUFF.

Did it occur to this clown that if we were actually targeting journalists, that there would not be even one Al Jazeera employee left in Iraq?

I read the article by Steven Baker. It seemed to me to be a 'chicken little' type of thing. Will we have a million 'bloggers' publishing every conversation in every bar and peeking in bedroom windows and it's the end of privacy...... YEEEARRRGGGHHHH!!! He could have been a little less alarmist. He seemed to be condemning blogs as being nothing more than an unmanageable bunch of busy bodies. I still don't trust the MSM.

Good point on difference on Jordan's comments. As I read it, Jordan accused the US military of not just an injustice, but moreover a specific war crime.

Most bloggers I read were much more careful in their accusations of what Jordan said, than Jordan was in his comments about the military. Bloggers also chose a better forum.

"(though the current government doesn't seem to think that the First Amendment applies to election campaigns any more). "

Evidence please.