CNN and Daily Download‘s Howard Kurtz sure is lucky he has American Journalism Review smooching his behind. In their April/May issue, Rem Rieder gives him props for facing the firing squad on his “Reliable Sources” program last week.

He writes,

“Kurtz, who began the show with an apology for his misdeeds, looked absolutely miserable as he found himself on the other end of the questions. But he did what he absolutely had to do if he was going to dig himself out of his predicament and preserve any credibility as a media commentator.”

Reider is full of compliments. He also gives a nod to the two reporters who grilled Kurtz, writing, “It should be said that the questioners, media reporters David Folkenflik of NPR and Dylan Byers of Politico, did a good job of pressing Kurtz.”

He concludes by declaring Kurtz gave himself “breathing room” by agreeing to CNN’s decision to grill him on his own show. But really, did he have a choice?

In an unprecedented move, on Sunday CNN put “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz in a time out and made him answer for his mistakes. To his credit, Kurtz didn’t try to fight the internal decision, despite its horrible awkwardness.

The longtime media critic’s most recent blunder involved Jason Collins, an NBA player who announced that he’s gay. But Kurtz was also forced to answer for other mistakes he has made, including writing that he’d spoken to a congressman when he had spoken to his aide. Even when he learned the truth, he waited months to divulge his error. Another instance involved attributing a quote to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi that had her criticizing President Obama‘s messaging. Only problem was it wasn’t hers. As for Collins, Kurtz insisted in a story last week for The Daily Beast that the NBA player had not mentioned that he had once been engaged to a woman, even though he had told Sports Illustrated as much. Kurtz downplayed his error. Worse, he cracked jokes about Collins in a video with Daily Download Editor-in-Chief Lauren Ashburn. As bad luck would have it, the mistake happened on the day before Newsweek-Daily Beast‘s Tina Brown canned him as Washington Bureau Chief, which Kurtz explained was unfortunate timing. In his own defense, he said the “amicable divorce” had been in the works.

But more unfortunate for Kurtz was the fact that 15 minutes of his own Sunday show would be devoted to NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik (below right) and Politico media blogger Dylan Byers (below left) firebombing him with questions about his mistakes. It was the equivalent of parents siding with the teacher, who, in this case, were right to do so.

And still, it was tough to watch. As we witnessed Folkenflik and Byers gnaw away at Kurtz’s bony corpse, we wondered, how do they feel being cast in the roles of media police and how do they think Kurtz did? Up close, did he appear sincerely remorseful? Are they satisfied with his responses?

“He certainly appeared to me to be visibly contrite,” Folkenflik told FishbowlDC in a phone interview Monday. “I think his audience will have to reasonably think about what they saw and heard and figure out how to absorb what they’ve learned, to incorporate what seemed to be a contrite presentation and evaluate what they think about him going forward.

“It was a very human and humbled moment for him. It’s very difficult to have been in the room with him and asking him these very direct questions without getting the feeling that he was genuinely contrite about the circumstances that created that exchange.”

Byers, no less sharp-tongued than Folkenflik in his questioning of Kurtz, was far less forthcoming about his thoughts about the interview, but we may learn more from him at a later date. Still, we’re eternally grateful he came up with this bold and admirable quote. “CNN made a bold and admirable decision by inviting reporters from outside the network to interview Howie on his own show, and I’m grateful to Howie for allowing that to happen,” he told FBDC.

Meanwhile, NPR’s forthcoming and frank Folkenflik told us he noticed… Read more

Howard Kurtz‘s apology, delivered on live national television Sunday, has been received as any dramatic apology would be. Some people are buying it. Some aren’t.

On his CNN media news program “Reliable Sources,” Kurtz offered his side of the story on what led to the mea culpa in the first place: Deadline pressure and his own lack of due diligence were to blame for his erroneous report last week that NBA player Jason Collins, who had just come out as gay, didn’t disclose that Collins his prior engagement to a woman. Collins had, in fact, been open about the engagement, mentioning it in a column for Sports Illustrated.

On Friday we questioned whether Kurtz would cover his own ass by covering his own ass on the show. He did. And for the occasion, CNN brought in NPR’s David Folkenflik and Politico‘s Dylan Byers to probe him.

There was plenty of in-house love for Kurtz. In a separate segment on the show, attorney Lisa Bloom was on to discuss coverage of the Jodi Arias case. Before offering her legal analysis, she said she would take a second to “go off script.” She praised Kurtz for “raising the bar” for journalistic accountability (while rattling off her own media resume).

“Kudos to Howard Kurtz,” tweeted Kurtz’s CNN colleague Piers Morgan. “He took his Jason Collins-clanger on the chin today like a Mike Tyson right hook.”

The compliments also poured in from elsewhere. FNC anchor Greta Van Susteren wrote on her Gretawire blog that everyone should “stop slapping Howie Kurtz.”

“Not one of us is perfect.  We all make mistakes,” Van Susteren wrote. At the start of the year, Kurtz had to offer a separate apology for wrongly attributing a quote to Van Susteren about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

At TVNewser, our sister site, Gail Shister wrote after the apology that she hopes CNN head Jeff Zucker will continue to support Kurtz.

On the other side of the fence… Read more

This Sunday  a new voice will grace the airwaves of NPR’s Weekend Edition. It’s Audie Cornish‘s first day as host of the weekly morning program. Cornish, who has been a reporter with NPR since 2006, is the first new host of the show in more than 20 years, after Liane Hansen retired in May.

“I want Weekend Edition to feel like brunch with cocktails,” says Cornish of her new gig. “I want people to sit at my table and feel comfortable.”

Sunday stories will include the 2012 presidential campaign and the turmoil in Libya,  visiting a museum at Ground Zero. Also in the lineup is a new media feature with NPR correspondent David Folkenflik, she’ll catch up with Grammy-winning rocker Lenny Kravitz, and try her hand at a Weekend Edition Sunday favorite – the puzzle with Will Shortz.

Business Insider releases its top 50 people and pubs in media this year. The list published today includes everyone from Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange (#1) to Apple CEO Steve Jobs (#2) FNC’s Glenn Beck (#4) and Jon Stewart (#5). Those in Washington or with strong ties here include HuffPost Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington (#8), Drudge Report (#9) and Politico (#15).

The writeup on Politico is worth a look with a variety of shout-outs:

There have been many, many moments in the last two years where more than one person has wondered whether Politico is the tail wagging Presidential dog, so successful has the site been at “winning the morning” and driving the national political news cycle. No story is too small! Mike Allen, Ben Smith, Jonathan Martin, Patrick Gavin, John Harris… now go name five Washington Post reporters off the top of your head.

Others on the list: The Atlantic (#19), Jake Tapper (#21), Andrew Sullivan (#29), Howie Kurtz (#37) and NPR’s David Folkenflik (#48).

Three guesses.

Who didn’t make NPR’s beautiful new 271-page coffee table book, This is NPR,  packed with pictures and stories from the past four decades? The book is to honor NPR’s 40th anniversary with essays, behind-the-scenes photographs and transcripts of memorable interviews.

1. Cokie Roberts. Wrong. She made it.

2. NPR’s media reporter David Folkenflik. Wrong. He made it and writes an essay on the future of media.

3. Juan Williams. You’d be right. He didn’t make the cut.

When asked about Williams, who had been with NPR for a decade before being fired last week, not making the cut, NPR Spokeswoman Anna Christopher told FishbowlDC: “Of course there are hundreds of NPR people who aren’t in the book. This Is NPR is written by several dozen staffers – we are an organization of many hundreds. We put out an open request to all employees to tell the story of NPR as they experienced it. Many, from on-air hosts and personalities, to engineers and librarians, did just that – submitting their personal accounts of events in our history.”

It was a late night last night for NPR‘s David Folkenflik and NYT‘s Brian Stelter, complete with the tension of two outlets trying to simultaneously break a story on Twitter and their respective web sites.

Both were hot on the story of FNC Contributor Juan Williams getting canned from NPR. But who was going to officially get it first?

Tale of the tape…

At about 11 p.m. (Twitter disastrously doesn’t offer exact minute timing), Stelter released his first warning: “Stand by for news…” Approximately 40 minutes later Folkenflik tweeted the news of Williams’s termination, which was promptly  retweeted by Stelter. “RT @davidfolkenflik: #NPR terminates contract of longtime analyst Juan Williams for comments made on Fox News about Muslims. More to come.”

A brief delay. Then Stelter wrote, “NYT story on Juan Williams’ termination coming shortly. (Had to file it from a restaurant; thankfully I had a patient dinner companion.)”

While Twitter indicates the stories were broken simultaneously, the Stelter story came in approximately 15 minutes after Folkenflik announced the news without a full story. Stelter broke his with a link: “NYT: Juan Williams’ NPR contract is ended after comments on Fox New.” Read the story here.

Six Twitter messages later filled with details on Williams’s firing. It was about 3 a.m.  Folkenflik posted his story, tweeting. “My story on NPR’s decision to terminate the contract of Juan Williams, who had been w network for a decade.” Read the story here.

Who came in first

Technically NPR broke the news first on Twitter. But the larger NYT story came in before NPR’s. The precise timing between the outlets is a mystery. NPR offers no time stamp. Neither does NYT. Although one detail is for certain: NYT ran the online story on Oct. 20 (before midnight); NPR’s is dated Oct. 21.

Stelter declined comment. We’ve requested comment from Folkenflik.

> Update: We spoke with Folkenflik by telephone. He said he was up late last night writing the Williams piece both for online and the “Morning Edition” broadcast. He was also separately working on an obituary. “I want to be competitive on stories on this always and it’s an interesting story with a variety of facets  – it’s an interesting moment, but it’s not the Pentagon papers,”he said.

That said, Folkenflik felt the urgency to get the Williams story out on Twitter last night. But he wanted more details.  “My impulse was to use Twitter as a way to break the news and to prime people for information that was going to come,” he said. “I wanted to be there competitively, but I really needed to wait a bit to properly report the story. I didn’t need to wait to report the facts of what occurred.” Folkenflik said he spoke with Williams twice last night, who told him, “‘I’m talking to my wife, I need more time.’” Williams still has not provided comment to him. Folkenflik hopes this happens today.

NPR‘s media correspondent David Folkenflik reports on this morning’s “Morning Edition” about college students aspiring to be journalists.  The question he addresses in the 5 minute 8 second segment: What’s the point of Journalism School, anyway?

“I would be a journalism student if it had any future” one USC student says.  “Information will basically be free… As much as I would like to pursue my love and all of that, I like food, too. I don’t know. I just don’t want to sacrifice at all.”

But another counters, “I don’t believe it when people say journalism is dead.”

An excerpt:

But the question lingers. At USC, undergraduate tuition alone reaches $40,000, and, when taken with fees, books, room, board and other charges, a year’s cost can exceed $55,000. These days journalism schools around the country are often challenged to justify a mission that trains students at such a high cost for a collapsing industry that doesn’t even require a degree.

Read and listen here.

Good morning FishbowlDC! Got a blind item, interesting link, funny note, comment, birthday, anniversary or anything of the sort for Morning Reading List? Drop us a line.

Above, check out Robert Gibbs, pre-White House (via HuffPost). What we know and what we’re reading this Friday morning…

NEWSPAPERS | TV | ONLINE | NEWS NOTES | WEST WING REPORTAGE | JOBS

NEWSPAPERS

Two local groups have offered early bids to buy the Boston Globe.

TV

Lou Dobbs‘ ratings on CNN are not benefitting from all this attention on him lately, according to NYO.

RADIO

Five Quick Questions for NPR’s David Folkenflik from Mediaite, including, Q: Are you nervous or excited about the future of Journalism? Why? and A: Both. I’m nervous, even heartbroken, because of the toll that the dissolution of the old business models for the news business is taking both on dedicated practitioners of the trade and on trade itself…”

ONLINE

In a week when the biggest story out of the White House is arguably about beer, it seems fitting that ABC’s Jake Tapper took a break to interview Judd Apatow on the Political Punch Podcast. Apatow’s “Funny People” is in theaters now so listen to the podcast and go see it this weekend.

Politico‘s Anne Schroeder Mullins catches up with the genius behind YouTube sensation “Auto-Tune the News” here.

NEWS NOTES

How’s MSM doing on health care reform coverage? Ehh, says James Rainey at the LATimes.

David Bass has launched a new public relations and public affairs firm, Raptor, tagline: “New times demand new strategies.” Find out more on the firm’s new site here.

Totally unrelated to DC journos, but still something to look forward to… the cast of Seinfeld will reunite on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

WEST WING REPORTAGE

Everything the President touches turns to gold… Bloomberg takes a look at the “Obama Effect” on Washington restaurants.

On the other hand… a 78-year-old woman in Iowa is so sick of seeing President Obama in the media, she’s selling her two television sets.

HAT TIPS: mediabistro, TVNewser, Politico

JOBS after the jump…

Read more

TVNewser: NPR’s David Folkenflik reports (and has the comments section at NPR.org buzzing) how Fox News has been getting “crazy high” ratings for a news channel since President Barack Obama took office. “There were a couple of people who basically wrote about our demise come last November [and] December and were, I guess, rooting for us to go away,” says FNC SVP Bill Shine.

Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of the left-of-center magazine The Nation, isn’t surprised. “It’s a rallying point for people who feel that they’re not represented at the highest levels of power,” he says.

Says Folkenflik: “If some of Fox’s most famous figures feel as though they’re on the outside looking in, there are a lot of viewers keeping them company.”