Eason: Morning Newspaper Highlights

> Washington Post: “Several CNN staffers say Jordan was eased out by top executives who had lost patience with both the controversy and the continuing published gossip about Jordan’s personal life after a marital breakup. Jordan’s authority already had been greatly reduced after a management shakeup.”

> Chicago Tribune: “It seems like a dumb thing to have said,” said a highly placed CNN source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Mostly he had the role of being the embodiment of CNN’s journalism domestically and internationally, and having said the things he apparently said, it would have been difficult to go forward. But in a sense, he’d already been paved over. He was a chief of state, as opposed to an operating officer.”

> New York Times: “In accepting Mr. Jordan’s resignation, CNN appeared intent on putting the episode behind it as quickly as possible, perhaps in an effort to avoid repeating the drawn-out tensions last fall between CBS News and the Bush administration, as well as its conservative supporters.”