Howard Kurtz - FishbowlLA

Morning Media Newsfeed: The Onion Hacked | Kurtz Pay Hit | Scripps Revenue Down

James Crugnale — Tue, 07 May 2013 05:52:41 +0000

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The Onion‘s Twitter Feed Hijacked by Pro-Syria Hackers (The Wrap / Media Alley)
The Onion, America’s finest fake news organization, was the latest victim of cyber hacking on Monday when the Syrian Electronic Army took over its Twitter account to tweet a slew of anti-Israel messages. NYT / Bits A member of the Syrian Electronic Army who goes by the hacker handle “Th3 Pr0″ told The New York Times that the group aimed at The Onion because of a recent Onion parody post, purportedly written by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, titled: “Hi, In The Past 2 Years, You Have Allowed Me To Kill 70,000 People.” “The Onion is a satire news organization and quite often is more trusted to reflect the news than the corporate media is known to,” Th3 Pr0 wrote in an email. The Onion Following Monday’s incident in which the Syrian Electronic Army hacked into the Onion‘s Twitter account, sources at America’s Finest News Source confirmed that its Twitter password has been changed to OnionMan77 in order to prevent any future cyber-attacks. “We have taken the necessary measures to ensure this kind of thing never happens again,” said Onion IT specialist Nick Abersold.

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Howard Kurtz Apologizes | Keys Gets Revenge | WaPo Earnings Plunge

James Crugnale — Mon, 06 May 2013 05:39:08 +0000

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Howard Kurtz Apologizes on CNN For Errors (Politico)
Howard Kurtz took to his Reliable Sources show on CNN on Sunday to apologize for his “inexcusable” erroneous report last week about NBA player Jason Collins and for a string of past mistakes that the media critic admitted he was sometimes too slow to correct. During Kurtz’s extraordinary 15-minute long confession of journalistic sins, he repeatedly said he’s learned a lesson and promised to double and triple-check all his facts in the future to win back the trust of readers and viewers. TVNewser NPR’s David Folkenflik and Politico‘s Dylan Byers grilled Kurtz about Collins as well as other mistakes from the past that Kurtz admitted he had sometimes waited too long to correct. It was riveting, powerful, and frequently uncomfortable to watch. The live interrogation on CNN was not Kurtz’ idea. HuffPost / The Backstory Kurtz claimed Sunday that Daily Download, a site founded by USA Today veteran Lauren Ashburn, has “always been a limited venture for me.” The Knight Foundation provided a $115,000 grant for the Daily Download project in December 2011, via Maryland Public Television, and provided a second $115,000 grant in November 2012. A Knight Foundation spokesman told HuffPost that Kurtz’s “involvement was a factor in our support for the Daily Download.” Daily Download / Lauren Ashburn In a regular Daily Download feature where Kurtz and I comment on the day’s media news, he made a mistake. And so did I. As founder and editor-in-chief, I am responsible for what goes on Daily Download. I am committed to being more vigilant to ensure our facts are correct and that we are more transparent if issues arise.

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Howard Kurtz Fired | NY Mag Victorious | Norquist Edited Out

James Crugnale — Fri, 03 May 2013 05:44:35 +0000

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Daily Beast Drops Howard Kurtz (Politico / Dylan Byers on Media)
The Daily Beast is dropping Howard Kurtz, the veteran media critic who made headlines this week for his erroneous report about NBA star Jason Collins. “The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company,” Tina Brown, the site’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement sent to Politico. The decision comes after Kurtz published a blog post that falsely asserted that Collins, who announced he was gay in an article for Sports Illustrated, had neglected to mention his previous engagement to a woman. In fact, Collins mentioned that engagement in the article and in a subsequent interview with ABC News. The Daily Beast retracted that post on Thursday morning. The Washington Post / Erik Wemple Following Brown’s announcement, Kurtz tweeted: “I’ve enjoyed my time at the Daily Beast but as we began to move in different directions, both sides agreed it was best to part company.” He added: “This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website.” TVNewser Kurtz joined the Daily Beast in October 2010, after leaving The Washington Post. His tenure at the Daily Beast includes some big interviews with the likes of Roger Ailes and Matt Lauer, but was also filled with controversy. We wrote about a ridiculous item he filed about TV coverage of the primaries, and he emailed a Daily Beast colleague to discourage her from writing about Anderson Cooper’s sexuality. He also was reluctant to give credit when others broke stories, and was loathe to correct errors, a number of which were in his big interview with Lauer. The Wrap / WaxWord Howard Kurtz and his weekly Reliable Sources media talk show are under review after his firing from the Daily Beast over erroneous reporting, a CNN spokeswoman told The Wrap on Thursday. “We are reviewing it,” the spokeswoman told The Wrap. Jeff Zucker, the new chieftain at CNN is “supportive” of Kurtz’s show, but the network is unhappy with the error and is reviewing it, the spokeswoman said. Another senior executive at Turner said that there was no planned change with the show, but that it would ultimately be Zucker’s decision. HuffPost / The Backstory Despite his claim that he is merely a contributor, there are rumors that Kurtz has a larger role in the Daily Download. According to one media executive who spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity, Kurtz characterized himself as a partner in the Daily Download during a conversation last year. Separately, a journalist who was approached by Kurtz to work at Daily Download told HuffPost that he presented the site as a start-up he was developing along with editor-in-chief Lauren Ashburn.

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Morning Media Newsfeed: Kurtz Error Slammed | Time Inc. Slumps | Daytime Emmy Noms

James Crugnale — Thu, 02 May 2013 06:11:15 +0000

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Howard Kurtz Under Fire For Erroneous Report About NBA Player Jason Collins Coming Out (Mediaite)
Arguably the biggest news this week has been basketball player Jason Collins coming out as the first openly gay player in major U.S. sports, but media critic Howard Kurtz thinks Collins has been quiet about one part of his past: his engagement to a woman after dating her for eight years. Kurtz stated quite clearly in a Daily Beast post Wednesday that Collins “left out” this detail about his life, but it turns out that was not exactly the case. Gawker On Wednesday Kurtz found — for two different outlets — a dark shadow in the sunny coverage of NBA player Jason Collins’ decision to come out as gay: Collins was at one point engaged to a woman. “He didn’t tell the whole story,” Kurtz burbles in a Daily Download video. Kurtz continues: “If you leave out the fact that you dated this woman for eight years and that you were engaged to be married, then you have not told the whole story and I think this really muddies the whole plotline.” Kurtz wrote the same argument for the Daily Beast, that Collins “left one little part out.” Except Collins didn’t leave the detail out. It’s right at the beginning of the eighth paragraph of his long Sports Illustrated piece. NY Mag / Daily Intelligencer Alerted to this glaring oversight, Kurtz quickly tweaked the text of his column to make it factually accurate. “He left one little part” was changed to “he downplayed one detail.” “Turns out it was an edited story” became “He mentioned the engagement to Sports Illustrated, but didn’t dwell on it.” A correction was belatedly affixed to the story long after the changes had been made. BuzzFeed Kurtz: “I regret the mistake I made in writing about Jason Collins’ essay, and I hope I wasn’t insensitive in discussing it. He did a courageous thing by taking this step, but once he put it out for public discussion, it seems fair to raise questions about the account of his former fiancee, who granted several interviews. Obviously Collins or any other gay person can come out in any way they choose, or not come out at all. I don’t think my analysis was out of bounds, but that’s for others to judge.” HuffPost / The Backstory Kurtz has been regularly contributing to, and heavily promoting, a lesser-known media website with no financial ties to his full-time employer. The site, Daily Download, is a regular fixture in Kurtz’s Twitter feed and a place where he increasingly posts his takes on the state of media affairs. But no one is sure why, exactly, he’s so involved with this particular piece of Internet real estate.

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San Francisco Media Blogger Rich Lieberman Moves Up to a Prime Time Radio Slot

Richard Horgan — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:45:41 +0000

This is about as rapid a rise through the radio ranks as we have encountered in quite some time. Made all the more remarkable because it took place during the usually quiet Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season.

Just six weekends into his Saturday-Sunday KSCO AM 1080/KOMY AM 1340 weekend talk show Lieberman Live, San Francisco media blogger Rich Lieberman is shifting to weekday afternoons (1 p.m.-4 p.m. PT). There will be no programs this coming weekend as he prepares to launch the new, expanded KOMY version of The Rich Lieberman Show January 7.

“We really hit a home run with the program,” Lieberman tells FishbowlLA via telephone. “People reacted so strongly to the content and guests like Patrick Warburton and ex-San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, that the owner of KOMY, Michael Zwerling, decided to go ahead and make me a part of the station’s weekday schedule.”

“No one is being replaced,” he continues. “They’re just moving some stuff around to accommodate me and will continue to feature syndicated people like Rush Limbaugh, Phil Hendrie and Alan Colms.”

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Mel Gibson Exclusives a Watershed Moment for TheWrap

Richard Horgan — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:15:27 +0000

It’s been an absolutely insane seven days at TheWrap as a result of the site’s exclusive coverage of Mel Gibson’s December 2011 Costa Rica meltdown. First came the nine-page letter written by Joe Eszterhas, followed yesterday by some frightening audio corroboration, recorded by the screenwriter’s son Nick.

“It’s a phenomenal shift moment for the site,” confirms Sharon Waxman via telephone to FishbowlLA. “We’ve never seen traffic coming in the way it has in the past week.”

TheWrap has registered hundreds of thousands of page views for each Gibson story, while social media shares have been in the tens of thousands. The Gibson coverage has also buffeted TheWrap’s international profile, with lots of UK and German linkage. When we spoke to Waxman, there was a Russian TV station crew setting up at her offices for an interview.

TheWrap’s numbers would be even larger if the audio of a sober (and perhaps severely bi-polar) Gibson had remained exclusive to the site. But because the file was shared, The Drudge Report is linking today for example to a TMZ story (with full credit to TheWrap) about the audio.

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LA Journos Pay Tribute to Mike Wallace

Richard Horgan — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 08:30:31 +0000

On this Easter Sunday, journalists the world over have begun honoring the memory of a professional god, Mike Wallace, who passed away last night at age 93.

The 60 Minutes correspondent’s unmistakable M.O. was a clarion call to the profession for countless reporters. Here are some of this morning’s first wave of tender Twitter messages posted by SoCal journalists:

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So, NPR is Just Like the Nazis?

Tina Dupuy — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:37:44 +0000

Here’s one of those statements that really deserves a follow-up question: Howard Kurtz at the Daily Beast interviewed Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. Ailes offered about National Public Radio,”They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.”

Kurtz should have asked what Ailes thinks of CSPAN or the BBC – they have to be like tyrannical WWII mass murderers too, right? Totally the same thing?

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The Daily Beast Snags Howard Kurtz Away from the Washington Post

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 15:35:30 +0000

After more than three decades with the Washington Post, media reporter and host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Howard Kurtz has decided to flee to the greener pastures of the Interwebz. He’s heading to The Daily Beast to lead the site’s political and campaign reporting as well as to continue his work on the media. Kurtz will continue to host “Reliable Sources.”

“After a lifetime in newspapers, I’m ready for the challenge of fast-paced online journalism,” Kurtz said in a statement on The DB.

The move is kind of surprising and seems to have caught most of the analog media world off guard. As the New York Times points out, Kurtz just recently wrote skeptically about the nature of online journalism. “Our mission — and we have no choice but to accept it — is to grab some of that traffic that could otherwise end up at hundreds of other places, even blogs riffing off the reporting that your own publication has done. Naturally, those who grew up as analog reporters wonder: Is journalism becoming a popularity contest?”

Guess he decided he needed to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table.

Previously on FBLA: The Daily Beast Hires New Technology Columnist

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Matt Stroud Follows Up with Former IRE Exec Editing the Scientologists Investigation of Their Investigators

Tina Dupuy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:22:31 +0000

Matt Stroud at True/Slant posted his emails with friend and colleague Steve Weinberg, the former IRE executive who edited a report funded by the Scientologists about the St. Petersburg Times’ investigations into the Scientologists. Weinberg gets to respond and add “nuance” to Howard Kurtz‘s WaPo article about his involvement in the investigative project.

The whole post is here. It’s interesting and journo cocktail party conversation worthy.

Then Stroud ends with:

If you’ve made it to this point, congrats: You’ve fallen about as far into the rabbit hole of journalism ethics as I’d recommend. But you’ve made it. So what do you think? Is it ok for veteran investigative reporters to write for the Scientologists? Or is working for an organization “so hostile to outside journalists” just not right?

We’ll really get to the bottom of this when we find out if the CoS publishes the investigation or not.

That’s what we’re interested in.

Previously on FBLA:

Scientologists Hire Journos to Investigate Newspaper Investigating Scientology

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Scientologists Hire Journos to Investigate Newspaper Investigating Scientology

Tina Dupuy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:57:29 +0000

During peace times career soldiers become mercenaries and during the cratering of the newspaper industry skilled journalists also become guns for hire.

The St. Petersburg Times has spent decades investigating Scientology and now Scientology is returning the favor. Notably, Steve Weinberg, the former IRE executive was hired by the group to edit a study about the newspaper.

Wapo’s Howard Kurtz reports:

The reporters hired for the study are Russell Carollo, who won a 1998 Pulitzer for Dayton, Ohio’s Daily News for a series on medical malpractice in the U.S. military, and Christopher Szechenyi, an Emmy-winning former television producer who has worked for the Boston Globe’s Web site.

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“Mouthpiece Theater” Has Been Killed

Tina Dupuy — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:22:25 +0000

WaPo announced it’s canceling “Mouthpiece Theater.” Really? Did someone get the note the name sounds like a spoofy porn title? Or a nickname to the Tomkat Theater in WeHo? Get it – it’s sounds like a oral sex on a dude and how that can’t be AT ALL funny is the greatest mystery of this whole ordeal.

Howard Kurtz writes:

Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the satirical video series Wednesday after harsh criticism of a joke about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, which had prompted him to pull the latest episode from the paper’s Web site Friday night. The Post staffers who appeared in the videos, Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza, agreed with the decision and apologized in separate interviews.

Plus we like to think the the death (ahem) blow was made by Andy Cobb‘s brilliant parody we posted yesterday. The other version is the web series imploded under the weight of its own lameness. Either way.

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Fake News Shows Exchange Barbs

Tina Dupuy — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:07:05 +0000

Howard Kurtz‘s WaPo column sums it up:

Jon Stewart ripped the cable news networks Monday as a “brutish, slow-witted beast” and castigated Fox News in particular as “an appendage of the Republican Party.”
This Story

Wearing a gray T-shirt, khaki pants and a healthy stubble, the “Daily Show” host told reporters at a University of Denver breakfast that Fox’s “fair and balanced” slogan is an insult “to people with brains” and that only “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace “saves that network from slapping on a bumper sticker…Barack Obama could cure cancer and they’d figure out a way to frame it as an economic disaster.”

Then Fox News shot back…ahem anonymously:

A Fox News spokesman, who was authorized to give the network’s response to Stewart’s comments but declined to be named, replied that “Jon’s clearly out of touch,” citing a Pew Research Center study showing the network has the most balanced audience in cable news, 39 percent Republicans and 33 percent Democrats. “But being out of touch with mainstream America is nothing new to Jon, as evidenced by the crash-and-burn ratings of this year’s Oscars telecast.”

Straight from the network that brought us the ‘terrorist fist jab’ – an assessment of American reality.

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