What's Howard Kurtz's Agenda at the Washington Post?

December 13, 2007

What's Howard Kurtz's agenda at the Washington Post?

By Eric Boehlert

Created Dec 12 2007 - 8:24am

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 [1], Kurtz finally addressed the media controversy that erupted when

Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald highlighted [2] an egregious error made by

Time magazine columnist Joe Klein. Klein had mocked [3] 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 [4] his

error, confused the issue [5] 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 [6] on a blogger who called to

ask about errors in the column. And when Time eventually published a timid,

misleading correction, [7] Democratic members of Congress took the unusual

step of publicly complaining [8] 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 [9] to be arch-conservative [10]

Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra.

The story, which raged online for more than two weeks and was commented upon

[11] by virtually [12] every major [13] liberal blogger [14], 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."

Independent journalism observers agreed the controversy was noteworthy. The

Center for Citizen Media -- jointly affiliated [15] with the University of

California-Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center

for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School -- condemned [16]

Klein's "flagrantly inaccurate and misguided Time magazine column," labeled

it "[o]ne of the most amazing episodes in modern American journalism," and

concluded that Klein's "work in this case may become Exhibit A for what's

wrong with the craft today."

Yet for two weeks, not a word from the Post, which covers these types of

media controversies more than any other newspaper in the country. There

wasn't even a mention of it during Kurtz's weekly online chat with readers

at washingtonpost.com. That, despite the fact that scores of Greenwald's

readers say they submitted questions about the Klein story for the December

4 chat, and specifically questions about why Kurtz had remained silent about

the story. Still, none of the submitted questions for the forum were

addressed.

The controversy first broke [17] on November 21. But it took Kurtz more than

two weeks to address it. And even then he didn't write about it in the Post

and he didn't address it on CNN's Reliable Sources. Instead, Kurtz simply

included it as a footnote at the very end of a lengthy, five-page column.

(Kurtz's coverage was so well hidden that Greenwald told me he originally

missed it, "even though I was actively looking for it.")

Kurtz admits he was late to the Klein story. "Beyond taking a few days off

at the time, I am spending most of my time covering the coverage of the

presidential campaign, which includes the time-consuming task of critiquing

the candidates' ads," he told me in an email. "Every four years at this time

I am stretched somewhat thin because of the campaign. I work many, many

hours and cannot cover everything."

But it wasn't just the tardiness that raised eyebrows. Kurtz's late coverage

did not include a single link to any of Greenwald's detailed dissections of

Klein's blatant miscue and Time's dishonest handling of the error. Second,

Kurtz contacted Klein but never pressed him on a single fact. Instead, Kurtz

simply relayed Klein's quote: "I made a mistake, I corrected it and it's

over." (Trust me, Klein did not "correct" his mistake.) Third, even though

Kurtz contacted Klein for a quote, he did not contact Greenwald. And fourth,

Kurtz claimed it was "the liberal blogosphere" that was still upset about

the Klein gaffe, when it fact it was members of Congress who, at that point,

were making the most noise [18] about Klein's column.

So Kurtz badly missed a big media story, what's the big deal, right? Truth

is the episode mirrors a long pattern, which is why more and more prominent

players on the left no longer consider Kurtz to be an honest broker --

because he remains chronically oblivious [19] to breaking stories that have

a strong progressive media angle. Yet simultaneously, Kurtz shows a chronic

over-eagerness to amplify any minor media story being advanced by

conservatives. Earlier this year I wrote that The Washington Post had a

"crush" [20] on right-wing bloggers; that love -- though perhaps

unrequited -- remains strong today.

"There's much concern about his ideological biases intruding into his work,"

Markos Moulitsas, the founder of DailyKos, told me in an email. Noting

Kurtz's tardiness to the Klein column, Moulitsas said "any 'media critic'

ignoring that story -- and it was a long-percolating one over the span of

several weeks, giving multiple avenues of entry for critics -- is certainly

a 'media critic' not doing his or her job."

Kurtz denies the charge: "I'm a down-the-middle reporter who doesn't

consider ideology in covering this beat. Unlike some of my critics, I don't

have an agenda."

But consider just two recent media controversies (both initiated by Media

Matters) that the usually prolific Kurtz also ignored at the Post.

The first was Fox News talker Bill O'Reilly telling his radio listeners [21]

that when visiting a famous soul food restaurant in Harlem that he "couldn't

get over the fact" that the black-owned establishment was just like

restaurants owned by whites. He also noted approvingly that "black Americans

are starting to think more and more for themselves."

The second was right-winger Rush Limbaugh characterizing members of the U.S.

military who oppose the war in Iraq as "phony soldiers." When the

controversy broke, Limbaugh then edited transcripts [22] of his program

before posting them online to try to obfuscate the context.

Combined, those two stories garnered nearly 900 mainstream media mentions,

according to Nexis. Yet not once did Kurtz, the most high-profile media

writer in the country, write about them in The Washington Post. Not once.

Kurtz could have also covered the stories through his daily online column,

where he links to prominent news and media news stories. But again,

according to a search of Nexis, Kurtz never linked to a single story about

the O'Reilly or Limbaugh controversies as they raged in real time.

For instance, from September 21 to October 1, Kurtz's column included 136

links. None were in reference to O'Reilly's controversial comments about the

Harlem restaurant. Then from September 28 to October 5, Kurtz's column

contained 85 links. None were about Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" slam.

For Kurtz and his work at The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com, those

stories simply did not exist.

FYI, Greenwald first drew attention to Klein's erroneous assertion in his

Time column in a November 21 post at Salon.com. Kurtz finally acknowledged

that the media controversy existed on December 6. In between, Kurtz posted

nearly 200 links in his online "Media Notes" column. None of the links was

about the Klein controversy.

This simply continues Kurtz's distressing habit of blatantly ignoring media

stories that emerge from the liberal blogosphere. For example, last winter

the liberal blog community at Firedoglake [23] offered up historic

live-blogging [24]

from the Scooter Libby trial. The overachieving bloggers racked up

much-deserved media mentions in the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News & World

Report, Court TV, NPR, C-SPAN, CNN, and the BBC, among others, while The New

York Times featured the team in a Page 1 piece [25]. At the Post however,

Kurtz didn't cover Firedoglake's accomplishments.

Then there was the March cancellation [26] of the Nevada debate featuring

Democratic candidates for president, which was set to be sponsored by Fox

News. Bloggers and activists, led in part by Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, and

Robert Greenwald, raised objections about Fox News' role, claiming it was

not a legitimate news channel and that Fox News didn't deserve to host the

Democratic event. Candidates quickly withdrew and the plug was pulled. Kurtz

never wrote about the story, despite its obvious media angle.

Then on April 1, Matt Drudge trumpeted an exclusive about how CNN Baghdad

reporter Michael Ware had "heckled" Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) during an Iraq

press conference. Right-wing bloggers quickly echoed the allegations,

claiming that the treasonous Ware was not fit to report and that CNN had to

fire him. Video from the press conference though, quickly proved that the

claims of heckling were completely false [27]. (Ware never even spoke during

the McCain briefing.) Kurtz though, remained mum about the wild attack on

the press.

Again, Kurtz told me that he doesn't play favorites: "Liberal advocates are

free to compile lists of stories I'm ignoring or playing down; I'm sure that

conservatives have their own lists."

To get a sense of Kurtz's tilted perspective for media news, just take a

look at CNN's Reliable Sources telecast from December 2 and note which

topics were covered, how they were covered, and which topics were ignored.

Did Reliable Sources devote a lot of time to covering the right-wing cries

of indignation [28] following CNN's YouTube debate when it was discovered

some Democrats, including one associated with the Hillary Clinton campaign,

were allowed to ask the GOP candidates questions? Yes. Did it invite a

partisan, opinionated conservative media critic to appear opposite two

mainstream journalists to debate the controversy? Yes. Did it post on-air a

quote from blogger and Hillary Clinton-hater Ann Althouse, who belittled the

senator's actions when a hostage crisis broke out at her Rochester, New

Hampshire, campaign office? Yes. Did it address the Politico's scoop [29]

that while having an affair as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani may have

tried to hide security expenses, but only do it in the context of whether

the accurate Politico story was a "hit job" on the Republican? Yes. Did it

elevate a pointless conservative media complaint about an MSNBC reporter who

jokingly referred to President Bush as a "monkey" when he appeared in a

photo between two other people (i.e. he was the monkey in the middle)? Yes.

(Kurtz himself agreed the quote was "stupid" and "not a serious attack on

the president." So why cover it?)

Meanwhile, did Reliable Sources ignore Greenwald's diligent take-down of

Klein's Time column? Yes.

What's unfair is that while Kurtz routinely ignores important media stories

and critiques raised by the left, he dashes off to cover similar episodes

initiated by the right. For instance, during the summer and fall, right-wing

press critics hounded The New Republic for publishing the then-anonymous

work of Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp [30]. Dubbed the Baghdad Diarist,

Beauchamp often painted unflattering portraits of his fellow soldiers,

claiming casual cruelty by some. Critics claimed his stories were fictional.

Kurtz immediately pounced on the story.

According to Nexis, first came this:

"Army Private Discloses He Is New Republic's Baghdad Diarist"

The Washington Post, July 27, 2007 Friday, STYLE; Pg. C07, 669 words,