Howard Kurtz

Howard Alan Kurtz (/kɜːrts/; born August 1, 1953) is an American journalist and author and host of Media Buzz on Fox News.

Howard Kurtz
Kurtz in 2012
Born
Howard Alan Kurtz

(1953-08-01) August 1, 1953
New York City, U.S.
Alma materUniversity at Buffalo (BA)
Columbia University (MA)
Occupation(s)Journalist, author
Spouse(s)Mary Tallmer (1979–?; 2 children)
Sheri Annis (2003–2018; 1 child)[1]

He is the former media writer for The Washington Post and the former Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He has written five books about the media. Kurtz left CNN and joined Fox News in 2013.

Early life and education

Kurtz was born to a Jewish family[2] in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the son of Marcia, a homemaker, and Leonard Kurtz, a clothing executive.[3] He is a 1970 graduate of Sheepshead Bay High School[4] and the University at Buffalo (State University of New York). In college he worked on a student newspaper, the Spectrum, becoming the editor his senior year.[3] Kurtz earned a B. A. (psychology and English) in 1974. He then attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

After college, Kurtz went to work for the Record in New Jersey.[3] He moved to Washington D.C. to work as a reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.[3] Kurtz left Anderson to join The Washington Star, an afternoon paper. When the newspaper closed in 1981, Kurtz was hired at The Washington Post by Bob Woodward, then the Metro editor. Kurtz has also written for The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, and New York magazine.

The Washington Post

Kurtz joined the staff of The Washington Post in 1981 and left in 2010 (29 years). He served there as a national affairs correspondent, New York bureau chief and deputy national editor.[5] Kurtz covered the news media between 1990 and 2010 for The Washington Post.[6][7]

Reliable Sources on CNN

From 1998 until 2013, Kurtz served as host of the weekly CNN program Reliable Sources, a cable television program that explores the standards, performance and biases of the media.[8] Kurtz led the scrutinizing of the media's fairness and objectivity by questioning journalists of top news organizations, including those at CNN.[9] The show premiered in 1992 when it originated as a one-hour special to discuss the media's coverage of the Persian Gulf War.[10]

The Daily Beast

In October 2010, Kurtz announced he was moving to the online publication The Daily Beast.[11] He served as the Washington bureau chief for the website, writing on media and politics until 2013.[12][13] His salary at The Daily Beast was reported to be $600,000 a year.[14] On May 2, 2013, the site's editor-in-chief Tina Brown announced that Kurtz and The Daily Beast had "parted company".[15] It occurred in the aftermath of a controversy in which Kurtz incorrectly accused NBA player Jason Collins of failing to acknowledge a former heterosexual engagement when he came out as a homosexual, but Kurtz stated the parting was mutual and "in the works for some time".[16][17][18] Sources inside the Daily Beast newsroom have stated that Kurtz's departure became inevitable once he began writing for and promoting a lesser-known media website called Daily Download.[19][20] Kurtz was previously the subject of controversy when Nancy Pelosi denied making a statement Kurtz attributed to her,[21] and a quote Kurtz attributed to Darrell Issa was reported to have actually been made by his spokesperson.[22] Brown later said on Twitter she fired Kurtz for "serial inaccuracy".[23]

Fox News

On June 20, 2013, Kurtz left CNN to join Fox News Channel to host a weekend media program and write a column for FoxNews.com.[24] Kurtz's Media Buzz replaced the Fox News Watch program hosted by Jon Scott.

Books
External video
video icon Booknotes interview with Kurtz on Media Circus, June 20, 1993, C-SPAN
video icon Washington Journal interview with Kurtz on Spin Cycle, March 16, 1998, C-SPAN
video icon Presentation by Kurtz on The Fortune Tellers, September 6, 2000, C-SPAN
video icon After Words interview with Kurtz on Reality Show, December 22, 2007, C-SPAN
video icon Washington Journal interview with Kurtz on Media Madness, February 20, 2018, C-SPAN

Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers (1993, ISBN 0-8129-2022-8) identifies problems afflicting U.S. newspapers and offers suggestions. Among the issues identified are timid leadership, a spreading tabloid approach to news with a growing focus on celebrities and personal scandal, poor coverage of racial issues and the Persian Gulf war, increasing bureaucracy and a pasteurization of the news.[25][26]

Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time (1997, ISBN 0-8129-2624-2) describes failings of the talk-show and political talk-show format even as it had been rapidly proliferating on television and radio. Some problems he identifies include superficiality, lies, hysteria, lack of preparation, sensationalism and conflicts of interest.[27]

Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine (1998, ISBN 0-684-85231-4) describes various techniques used by the Clinton White House to put spin on the controversies and scandals surrounding the Clintons and to refocus the attention of the media on topics other than non-issues focused on by the media.[28][29]

The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation (2000, ISBN 0-684-86879-2) addresses the growing public fascination with stock market trading as fueled by cable television shows and internet sites providing platforms to pundits, stock touts and brokerage firm stock analysts. The potential for manipulation of the media and the public by stock market insiders is discussed.[30][31]

Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War (2007, ISBN 0-7432-9982-5) chronicles the struggles at TV networks ABC, NBC and CBS to enhance the stature, credibility and audience draw of their anchors of the evening network news programs. The book's focus is on ABC's Charles Gibson, CBS's Katie Couric and NBC's Brian Williams.[32][33]

Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press, And The War Over The Truth, which was released in January 2018, discussed Donald Trump's fights with the news media during the first year of his presidency.[34][35][36] The book argues that the media unfairly treated President Trump. According to a review by Jonathan Chait in New York magazine, "To Kurtz ... the 'massive imbalance' between Trump's coverage and coverage of other presidents can only be explained by media bias. He treats this premise as definitionally true—not defending it outright, but simply building his case as though no other explanation could even theoretically exist. And so the strange mission of his book is to analyze the hostile relationship between Trump and the mainstream news media without in any way acknowledging any background as to why."[37]

Criticism

Kurtz has publicly declined to state his political affiliation.[38] As a high-profile media critic and analyst, Kurtz's political leanings and multiple employers and possible biases have been discussed by fellow media critics and pundits. Both liberal and conservative viewpoints have been observed in his writing.[3] Journalist Mickey Kaus, reporting on and partially quoting from a letter by journalist Charles Kaiser in The New Republic, wrote that Kurtz "has large, non-technical conflicts of interest, since he free-lances and takes money 'from the people he writes about, from Time Warner to Condé Nast.'... One seemingly conflicting interest is Kurtz co-hosting CNN's Reliable Sources, in which he obtains monetary supplements as well as national renown."[39]

Kurtz has received criticism for his apparent support of syndicated radio host Don Imus. Former Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly has called out Kurtz for criticizing Fox News. The network covered a story about the United States Justice Department regarding its prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party for accusations of voter intimidation during the 2008 United States Presidential Election. O'Reilly criticized network news media outlets, particularly Bob Schieffer of the CBS News talk show Face the Nation, for not asking Attorney General Eric Holder about the story. When Kurtz discussed the topic on Reliable Sources, he mentioned that Fox News was "pushing" the story. O'Reilly criticized Kurtz's description that Fox pushed the story and said that Kurtz's newspaper, The Washington Post, had its own ombudsman Andrew Alexander say that it regretted not pursuing the story earlier due to newsworthiness.[40]

KURTZ: I think the argument that I've heard Olbermann make in the past about Fox News – it's not an argument that I embrace – is that, because it poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it's misinforming our society. But you know what? They're entitled to do that.[41]

Kurtz's 2008 Reliable Sources interview of Kimberly Dozier, a CBS reporter wounded in Iraq, was criticized by several members of the media because Kurtz's wife had been paid as a publicist for Dozier's memoir. During the interview, Kurtz praised Dozier and read passages of her book.[42]

Personal life

Kurtz married Sheri Annis in May 2003. Annis, a media consultant and political commentator, served as campaign spokesperson for Republican California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and has worked on various conservative political initiatives, including California's Proposition 227 and Proposition 209.[43]

References
  1. "UBT: Alumni Profiles". buffalo.edu. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  2. Kurtz, Howard (April 16, 2007). "A Sorry Story, With Apology Yet to Come". The Washington Post. ...any more than I believe he was anti-Semitic because he once made tasteless cracks about my being Jewish.
  3. "See Howie Kurtz Run by Garrett M. Graff, July 1, 2005, Washingtonian.com
  4. Sheepshead Bay High School yearbook, 1970
  5. The Fortune Tellers by Howard Kurtz author biography (Google Books)
  6. "CNN TV - Anchors/Reporters:Howard Kurtz". Archived from the original on July 19, 2006.
  7. "HowardKurtz on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  8. "Journalist, Cover Thyself" by Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times, November 21, 2005
  9. CNN bio Archived 2006-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
  10. CNN website Reliable Sources webpage
  11. Brown, Tina (5 October 2010). "Howard Kurtz Joins The Daily Beast". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
  12. Peters, Jeremy (5 October 2010). "Longtime Washington Post Writer Heads to The Daily Beast". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2010.
  13. "Media writer Howard Kurtz leaves The Washington Post". The Spy Report. Media Spy. 6 October 2010. Archived from the original on 13 October 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
  14. Blodget, Henry (2011-01-19) THE GOLDEN AGE OF NEWS: Mainstream Media Staffers Agog At Huge Salaries Huffpo And Daily Beast Are Paying Big-Name Stars, Business Insider
  15. "Tina Brown on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  16. Dylan Byers (2 May 2013). "Daily Beast drops Howard Kurtz". POLITICO. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  17. Shapiro, Rebecca (2 May 2013). "Howard Kurtz, Daily Beast Part Ways". Huffington Post.
  18. "Erik Wemple". The Washington Post.
  19. Calderone, Michael (1 May 2013). "Howard Kurtz's Connection To Little-Known Website Raises Questions". Huffington Post.
  20. Dylan Byers and Katie Glueck. "The Howard Kurtz saga". POLITICO. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  21. "The Case Of The Disappearing Pelosi Quote". The Atlantic.
  22. "How the Howard Kurtz/Darrell Issa Error Happened". Slate.
  23. Kludt, Tom (5 August 2013). "Talking Points Memo".
  24. Weinger, Mackenzie (20 June 2013). "Howard Kurtz leaves CNN for Fox". Politico. Retrieved 20 June 2013.
  25. Amazon.com listing and excerpted reviews
  26. Media Circus review by Frye Gaillard, September, 1993, The Progressive
  27. Amazon.com listing - summary and excerpts from reviews
  28. Amazon.com listing with excerpted reviews
  29. Fischer, Raymond L. (September 1998). "Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine [Book review]". USA Today.
  30. Amazon.com listing - summary and excerpts of reviews
  31. New York Times book review by Richard Bernstein, September 11, 2000
  32. Kurtz, Howard (2007-10-09). Reality Show: Howard Kurtz: 9780743299824: Amazon.com: Books. ISBN 978-0743299824.
  33. "Weighing Anchors" review by Marvin Kalb, Washington Post, October 21, 2007
  34. Parker, Ashley. "'Defiance Disorder': Another new book describes chaos in Trump's White House". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  35. Blake, Aaron. "This new Trump book could do even more damage than Michael Wolff's. Here's why". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  36. Cullen, Terence (October 20, 2017). "Trump admitted sending Spicer to argue crowd size was wrong: book". Daily News. New York. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  37. Chait, Jonathan. "Reporters Should Leave Trump Alone, Argues America's Worst Media Critic". Daily Intelligencer. Retrieved 2018-02-12.
  38. "Critiquing the Press" on washingtonpost.com
  39. "kaus files dot com". kausfiles.com. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
  40. "The Media, the Black Panthers and President Obama". Fox News. 20 July 2010. Archived from the original on July 23, 2010.
  41. "Critiquing the Press" by Howard Kurtz, September 17, 2007. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  42. Steinberg, Jacques (29 May 2008). "CNN Reporter's Interview Raises Ethical Questions". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 August 2011.
  43. "Sheri Annis Biography". Fourth Estate Strategies. Archived from the original on 10 May 2013. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
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