What's Howard Kurtz's agenda at the Wash. Post?

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200712110008

Attentive readers of Howard Kurtz's washingtonpost.com weekday media column may have noticed that on the fifth and final page of his 3,000-word December 6 post, Kurtz finally addressed the media controversy that erupted when Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald highlighted an egregious error made by Time magazine columnist Joe Klein. Klein had mocked a supposed Democratic legislative maneuver in Congress for being "well beyond stupid" and stressed how Democrats remain soft on the war on terror.

Greenwald's original fact-checking quickly set off an embarrassing chain of events in which Klein at first refused to forthrightly acknowledge his error, confused the issue further with additional updates online, and then threw up his hands and declared, "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right." Meanwhile, as the story unfolded online, a Time magazine editor rudely hung up on a blogger who called to ask about errors in the column. And when Time eventually published a timid, misleading correction, Democratic members of Congress took the unusual step of publicly complaining about the column and demanding a chance to rebut Klein's false and malicious claim that Democrats weren't serous about fighting terrorism; that they wanted to give suspected terrorists the same legal protections as everyday Americans.

We now know that the error was fed to Klein by an anonymous Republican operative, who later revealed himself to be arch-conservative Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra.

The story, which raged online for more than two weeks and was commented upon by virtually every major liberal blogger, unfolded at the intersection between politics and media -- the same intersection that Kurtz writes about for a living as perhaps the most-read media writer in the country. Yet for weeks Kurtz remained silent about the Klein story; nothing in the Post, nothing in his online daily column, and nothing on CNN's Reliable Sources, the weekly media program that he hosts.

The deafening silence was baffling. As Greenwald noted in an email to me, "The story involved the most-read political journal in the country and one of the best-known pundits. It entailed numerous key media issues which Kurtz is assigned to cover, including the corrupt use of anonymous sources, uncritical reliance by reporters on partisan spin, and a media outlet's refusal to correct its errors honestly and clearly."

[Berry Cool]

1. Being an ass?

Lots of asses in this story. But jeez. Where did these people get their journalism training from? Monkey Ward's?

[luckyleftyme2]

2. no way

monkey wards progaram is way ahead of their school!

[maine_raptor]

3. His agenda is simple.

Like Hoekstra, he's also an "anonymous Republican operative" at times (alright, all the time if you insist.)

[FreeStateDemocrat]

4. Bending over to take as much corp money as possible by using the old sheep's clothing hustle.

[Captain Hilts]

5. I've complained to "Little Debbie" at the Wash Post about Kurtz, whose wife worked with the RNC.

He, at least, has to admit his wife worked for the RNC and with the Bush 2000 transition team.