Archive » Howard Kurtz

In case you were stuck in the remotest corner of the Himalayas over the weekend, CNN exec Eason Jordan resigned Friday night. Which can mean only one thing…time for a bitter MSM backlash against the blogosphere!
Here’s my column for the N.Y. Post today tackling the “lynch mob/bloodhounds/fill-in-the-ad-hominem-here” meme that started spreading over the [...]

Trey Jackson has the video of Howard Kurtz’s treatment of the Eason Jordan resignation, among other things. Blogger Jeff Jarvis did an excellent job. Bill Press was an annoyance. Captain’s Quarters liveblogged it.
As Jarvis said: “The story’s not over.”
Update: Transcript is here.

For those of us in the information business, this is truly an earth-shaking time. Who would have imagined that the downfall of one of the world’s most powerful news executives would be precipitated by an ordinary citizen blogging his eyewitness report at Davos in the wee hours of the morning on Jan. 27? It’s simply [...]

Ramesh Ponnuru says he’s hearing Jordan has stepped down. Checking it out…
Update: Ponnuru got the scoop, now AP is reporting it:
CNN News Executive Eason Jordan Quits
DAVID BAUDER
Associated Press
NEW YORK - CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. [...]

As I noted below, Howard Kurtz reports that Eason Jordan has created a list of “incidents” in Iraq. The purpose and contents of the list are not clear, but it may be surmised that it is a list of journalists killed by U.S. soliders. Apparently the list is designed to bolster the view that our [...]

His piece is up here…
…Well, that was underwhelming. Not much new in the story (except the cozy access to Jordan) that you didn’t already read around the blogosphere. Hugh Hewitt gives it a “C-.”
Kurtz appears to buy into his CNN boss’s spin that he “never once in my life thought anyone from the U.S. [...]

Mickey Kaus passes along word that Howard Kurtz will have a story on Easongate in tomorrow’s (well, tonight’s) paper. Kaus publishes Kurtz’s e-mail to him, and Kurtz seems a little…well, read it yourself:
I have a story in tomorrow’s paper. Had you been kind enough to check earlier, I would have told you that I flagged [...]

Just got off the phone with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who spoke with me about Easongate. Rep. Frank was on the panel at Davos.
Rep. Frank said Eason Jordan did assert that there was deliberate targeting of journalists by the U.S. military. After Jordan made the statement, Rep. Frank said he immediately “expressed deep skepticism.” [...]

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is calling on the Pentagon to discipline Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who earlier this week said it is “fun to shoot some people.”
“We do not need generals who treat the grim business of war as a sporting event,” said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad. “These disturbing remarks are indicative [...]

Washington Post media reporter / CNN host Howard Kurtz is scheduled to do an online Q&A tomorrow at noon eastern. As Mickey Kaus helpfully points out, the Post is already accepting questions for Kurtz here. So if there’s anything you’d like to ask Kurtz–for example, if there’s a certain story you think he should be [...]

You all know how I feel about the Bush administration’s media “pay-to-pander” scandal. (Go here and here and here for a refresher.) In two words: absolutely disgusted. When I first blogged about the Armstrong Williams payoff, I wrote this:
Any other pundits who accepted [...]

Tavis Smiley is a black radio/TV talk show host who takes himself waaaay too seriously. Check out Howard Kurtz’s column this morning, which spotlights Smiley’s fallout with NPR. Explaining why he didn’t choose to renew his radio contract with the left-leaning public radio station, Smiley said this:
What NPR is apparently upset about is not [...]

377 tons… 3 tons… What’s the difference?
CYA Update: WaPo’s Howard Kurtz writes,
The principal uncertainty about the story involves the timing of the ammunition’s disappearance. The White House says the explosives may have gone missing while Saddam Hussein still controlled Iraq.
“Sure there’s a possibility” that happened, [New York Times Executive Editor Bill] Keller said, “and I [...]