Eric Boehlert at Media Matters: Attentive readers of Howard Kurtz's washingtonpost.com weekday media column may have noticed that on the fifth and fi
December 12, 2007

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters:

Attentive readers of Howard Kurtz's washingtonpost.com weekday media column may have noticed that on the fifth and final page of his 3,000-word December 6 post, Kurtz finally addressed the media controversy that erupted when Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald highlighted an egregious error made by Time magazine columnist Joe Klein. Klein had mocked a supposed Democratic legislative maneuver in Congress for being "well beyond stupid" and stressed how Democrats remain soft on the war on terror.[..]

The story, which raged online for more than two weeks and was commented upon by virtually every major liberal blogger, unfolded at the intersection between politics and media -- the same intersection that Kurtz writes about for a living as perhaps the most-read media writer in the country. Yet for weeks Kurtz remained silent about the Klein story; nothing in the Post, nothing in his online daily column, and nothing on CNN's Reliable Sources, the weekly media program that he hosts.

The deafening silence was baffling. As Greenwald noted in an email to me, "The story involved the most-read political journal in the country and one of the best-known pundits. It entailed numerous key media issues which Kurtz is assigned to cover, including the corrupt use of anonymous sources, uncritical reliance by reporters on partisan spin, and a media outlet's refusal to correct its errors honestly and clearly."

Unsurprisingly, nearly 3 pages of Kurtz's 5 page post was about either Bill or Hillary Clinton, neither getting particularly flattering coverage.

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