Howard Kurtz should be fired - Democratic Underground

EarlG ADMIN

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Thu Feb-10-05 02:49 PM
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Howard Kurtz should be fired

"Media critic?" What a joke. Kurtz is no less a White House stooge than "Jeff Gannon" himself.

Here's the recent exchange between Howard Kurtz and Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/ (scroll down)

BLITZER: Is there any evidence that there's a connection, that the White House put him up to this to throw these kind of questions whether to Scott McClellan or to the president? Any evidence of wrongdoing, first of all, on the part of the White House?

KURTZ: No evidence whatsoever. I talked to Scott McClellan about this today, the White House spokesman. He said, first of all, President Bush didn't know who Jeff Gannon was when he called on him at that news conference.

Kurtz knows that there was no complicity between McClellan and Gannon - how? Because McClellan told him. He goes on:

KURTZ: But McClellan knows who he is. He calls on him at White House briefings from time to time. He says that there are a lot of people in the White House press room who have strong opinions and sometimes put them into their questions and it's not his job as the press secretary to be deciding who can get into the White House and who can't based on their political views. Gannon, by the way, says, sure, he's very conservative. He makes no bones about that. But he thinks that a lot of the reporters in the White House press room are liberal, and he provides some balance. . . . The issue I think is, should some of his liberal critics, these liberal bloggers, have started investigating his personal life in an effort to discredit him? It's fine to disagree with his politics, but did they go too far, I think a lot of people are asking, in dragging in some of this personal stuff?

BLITZER: I used to be a White House correspondent for many years, sat through numerous briefings. There are plenty of journalists that wear their politics on their sleeve, liberals, conservatives. What's wrong with journalists having these kind of views, being advocacy journalists, if you will?

KURTZ: I personally don't think there's anything wrong with it, as long as they make clear what their views are, as Jeff Gannon clearly did. A lot of people are questioning, well, why does this guy have White House press credentials? Because he doesn't write for a newspaper or magazine. Everything he writes is simply online. But in the age of blogging, that's hardly unusual. And he doesn't have a permanent -- what's called a hard pass. He just gets cleared into the White House on a day-to-day basis, which is a privilege that is pretty much open to any journalist.

It's a complete farce. Howard Kurtz is supposed to be a media critic, but he apparently feels too threatened by the blogosphere to do his job. In the exchange above he defends a "journalist" who did little more than write for a website. What's the difference between Talon News and a blog? There IS no difference, except Gannon put (Talon News) at the start of his articles and put a Talon News logo at the top.

Kurtz says "A lot of people are questioning, well, why does this guy have White House press credentials? Because he doesn't write for a newspaper or magazine. Everything he writes is simply online. But in the age of blogging, that's hardly unusual ... He just gets cleared into the White House on a day-to-day basis, which is a privilege that is pretty much open to any journalist."

Is it? Okay, so if I show up at the White House, tell them I'm from Democratic Underground News, and demand a day pass, will they let me in? Will I get to ask Scott McClellan a question? How about lots of questions? Oh, and do you think if Scottie does pick me to ask him something, I could get him to call me EarlG instead of Dave Allsopp?

Apparently Kurtz think it's acceptable for Gannon to do this.

I expect Howard Kurtz's beef is that while bloggers are the great unwashed who need to be kept at arms length, "Jeff Gannon" at least looks like a real reporter - he wears a suit, carries a notebook, and shows up at the White House. And Talon News looks like a real news organization - with a snazzy logo and everything.

Yet Kurtz himself admits that "Everything (Gannon) writes is simply online."

You want to know the difference between TalonNews.com and DemocraticUnderground.com? According to Alexa, TalonNews.com has a 3-month traffic rank average of 640,377. DemocraticUnderground.com has a 3-month traffic rank average of 4,671. DailyKos is ranked 4,378. Yes, a shitload more people get their news and information from places like DU and Kos than from Gannon's pisspot TalonBlog. But don't mention that to Howie Kurtz. He thinks we should all sit down and shut up, and that poor old "Jeff Gannon" should be back in the White House briefing room where he belongs.