Just to follow through on this story, Kurtz did address the issue on *Reliable Sources* this morning - see: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/howard-kurtz-apologizes-jason-collins-452195for an early account).
I give CNN some credit for the way they handled this - they let Kurtz do a mea culpa up front, in which he acknowledged most of his errors in the current series of events, took full responsibility for them and promised to do better. Then they had two independent media critics, Politico's Dylan Byers (one of the authors of the original piece on this I posted the other day) and NPR's David Folkenflik basically take over the show and question Kurtz for a longish segment. These guys did a pretty good job in an awkward situation, pushing him on some of the points that he had finessed in his opening apology, though not getting too much more information or response from him. They both put these recent mistakes into the context of a series of high profile mistakes he has made in recent years (I detailed most of these from Byers Politico piece earlier), and then asked him why viewers should continue to trust him when this was not the first time he had made these kinds of mistakes. Kurtz' response was that he has been so productive on various platforms in recent years that as a percentage of his output he doesn't think he has made that many mistakes, but that of course he regrets any that he does make, and has rededicated himself to making fewer. CNN seems to have given Kurtz a few weeks to see if he can right the ship, and officially is now saying that there has been no change in his status, though accounts are that CNN has told him they reserve the right to terminate him if there are more problems (or, one suspects, if he is unable to turn the story around). Word also is that when his current contract expires they are unlikely to renew. The easiest thing in the world is to criticize interviewers for questions they did not ask. As I say, I think these guys did a pretty good job given the circumstances, but there were a few questions I wish they had pursued, including: 1. What was the point of bringing up Collin's engagement in the first place? Even if Kurtz had not been dead wrong in reporting that Collins had not acknowledged the engagement in his SI article, why did Kurtz think bringing that up was news? Certainly Howie and every other American in the 21st century knows that many closeted gay men get engaged, get married, and father children. What facet of the story did Kurtz think he was reporting on when he made his (false) claims about Collins? This is important because it left the impression with many (including me) that Kurtz was in some way questioning the validity of Collin's identification as a gay man. Does Kurtz have some other evidence to support that? Is Kurtz just skeptical that a pro athlete could be gay? Does he think America has become so gay-friendly that athletes would be tempted to falsely claim to be gay in order to get some kind of benefit? 2. They asked him about his relationship to the Daily Download, and in particular discrepancies between his own report that he was an unpaid member of the advisory board with no equity participation, and a free lance contributor, and other reports that he had told people he was a co-founder, with a level of commitment and participation that greatly exceeded every other known contributor. But Kurtz just repeated his rather bland statement about his role, without getting into specifics, and they did not follow up. If he is just a free lance contributor like everyone else, then it seems he misrepresented himself on a few occasions (he implied whatever he did was no different than the schmoozing the Washington Post used to ask him to do with advertisers). Was he getting paid the same as everyone else for his contributions (if he was paid a lot more, that might explain why he spent so much time on it)? Does he have some kind of personal or romantic relationship with Lauren Ashburn, the founder of DD (who has also been on Reliable Sources frequently)? All of this is relevant because sources at both the Daily Beast and Reliable Sources have suggested the quality of Kurtz' reporting has suffered because he has been spread too thin, and made the Daily Download a real focus of his attention, to the exclusion of other things. I felt like this was the real elephant in the room that the two critics did not focus on relentlessly enough. 3. Short Form "journalism - Kurtz made the interesting though perhaps obvious point that most of the mistakes he has made in recent years have been in short form pieces or comments that he has made online, when all he has to do is click a button to go public. He said he has recommitted himself to being more careful in the future. I would have liked to have seen the two critics follow up on this in more depth. It would be great to see high profile journalists take some kind of public oath not to engage in any reporting or journalism via twitter or facebook, or any electronic format that bypasses traditional editorial control procedures. Kurtz stopped well short of making such a vow - if I were asking the questions I would very much have wanted to pin him down on what specifically he was going to do to ensure that he did not repeat the kind of impulsive errors he has made in the past. While I am far from letting Kurtz off the hook, I do give CNN credit for the way they handled it this morning, and I think the response of putting him on a very short leash is at least defendable. On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 9:39 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 3:01 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Well, I gave in and just used the headline from the actual piece linked >> here, since it is both so obvious and apt: >> http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/howard-kurtz-daily-beast-90881.html >> >> Howard Kurtz's relationship with the Daily Beast ended Thursday (not >> quite a firing, but one senses it was a bit more than the mutually agreed >> upon decision to split up in Kurtz' version), and CNN announced that his >> "Reliable Sources" is under review. The instant offense appears to be his >> report that Jason Collins had not revealed that he had been engaged when he >> came out as the first active athlete in a male professional team sport this >> week (even though Collins did reveal this, both in this original Sports >> Illustrated piece and in his ABC interview), and the associated and (to me >> at least) odd and inexplicable obsession that Kurtz seemed to have with >> what seemed to be his suspicion that Collins was not *really* gay. It >> seemed almost as if Kurtz was implying that Collins was falsely identifying >> himself as gay because he thought it would improve his chances of getting >> signed by a new NBA team next season. >> >> But several sources have reported that it was more than just this one >> incident - Kurtz has over the years increasingly been seen both as >> something of a joke (well, I guess that is my summary, perhaps more >> objectively it could be stated that he is no longer widely assumed to be an >> authoritative media reporter and critic). And probably more to the point, >> he has been spread very thin, as more of his energy has been devoted to a >> third project - “The Daily Download”, which has interfered with the >> attention he gives both The Beast and "Unreliable Sources". As many >> commentators have noted, it is unclear why Kurtz is even doing that, as it >> seems redundant with his other two gigs, rather than complimentary. >> >> My real interest in this story is that it illustrates a case of the media >> world basically getting something right (which is rare enough) - especially >> when contrasted with a similar case this week, that of ESPN's Chris >> Broussard. Broussard had made much more negative and (IMO) hateful and >> offensive comments this week, which led to many to call for his >> termination. While ESPN did issue a clarification of its own support for >> Collins, it did not fire or suspend Broussard - nor should it have. He is >> entitled to his opinion, however wrong headed and mean spirited it might >> be. He did not inject it into his ordinary coverage of the NBA for ESPN, >> but instead honestly responded to a question put to him during what was >> clearly an opinion section of Outside the Lines. He did not use any violent >> or inappropriate terms for gay men, nor did he say that Collins should not >> be allowed to play in the NBA. He just repeated typical fundamentalist >> homophobia. Kurtz on the other hand, made comments that were much more >> ambiguous and less directly negative or offensive, but he A) injected it >> into his coverage of the story and B) allowed it to bias his work, leading >> in one or two cases to clearly inaccurate reporting. This is just the kind >> of thing journalists should be fired for - and again, in Kurtz's case it is >> not this once incident, he has been in a long and prolonged slide to lazy >> and shoddy journalism for some time now (as documented in the linked >> article). As Josh Barro of Bloomberg put it (cited in the Politico piece: >> “Between Dick Morris and Howard Kurtz, we’re seeing a dangerous trend where >> commentators lose their jobs for being bad at them.” >> > > Update: > http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/howard-kurtz-status-unchanged-at-cnn_b177926 > > "CNN “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz may not have a job at The Daily > Beast anymore, but he still has his CNN hosting gig… for now. A CNN > spokesperson tells THR: > > “There has been no status change with Howard Kurtz, he remains the host of > Reliable Sources,” said a network spokesperson on Friday. “He will address > this issue on the program this weekend.” > > We heard from a CNN source yesterday that Kurtz’s future at the network is > up in the air. Since then, we have heard from others, who say that Kurtz is > on a week-to-week contract with the channel.TVNewser has also confirmed > that CNN has reached out to other media critics about potentially doing > something for the channel over the last year or so, although so far nothing > fruitful has come from those discussions." > > > > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to tvornottv@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to tvornottv-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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