Kurtz: Media itself, not WH, damages press credibility

WP: Howard Kurtz, Media Notes
Bush Targeting the Media?
Thursday, Mar 03, 2005; 7:44 AM

It's been apparent since the day he took office -- or maybe from the day he called a New York Times reporter a major-league A--that George Bush has little love for the press.

Bush says he prefers "unfiltered" news from his staff. He holds few news conferences (though he's picked up the pace a bit after winning a second term). He doesn't like "preening" television correspondents. Cheney's plane bars New York Times reporters. Top officials all seem to be reading off the same set of talking points. Ari, and now Scott, toe the company line. Prepackaged videos are sent out as real news with fake reporters.

So: Are the Bushies at "war" with the Fourth Estate? Is there an insidious plot to weaken the media establishment, to carpet-bomb its credibility like the Saddam regime?

I wouldn't go that far. People forget that every administration tries to neutralize the press. There was much hand-wringing about Clinton circumventing the White House press corps when he started going on Larry King and other talk shows. And much talk of stonewalling over the way his White House handled its various scandals.

I would argue that nothing the White House has done has damaged the media's credibility more than what the profession has done to itself. Bush wasn't responsible for the fraud by Jayson Blair or Jack Kelley, or for Dan Rather's botched National Guard story (though I know some have theorized that the administration lured CBS into some kind of trap). Bush didn't force the media to go overboard on Kobe and Michael. He didn't force a CNN executive to make some ill-considered comments about the U.S. military targeting journalists. He didn't force various journalists to keep engaging in plagiarism. He didn't force Armstrong Williams to take $240,000 from the Education Department (though paying conservative pundits is one of the administration's innovations). He isn't responsible for declining newspaper circulation and network news ratings or the sinking poll numbers when it comes to trusting the media....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/columns/kurtzhoward/

Is he enabling Bush to be a liar?

so far up Bush's* ass?

"...or for Dan Rather's botched National Guard story (though I know some have theorized that the administration lured CBS into some kind of trap)."

(to himself)

"...Because, heavens, I couldn't possibly comprehend how such chicanery could work without a complicit media...oh, whoopsie. I didn't say that out LOUD, did I? Tee hee hee."

What an Ass Clown.

is kurtz..so pretending anything resembling the truth is going on here is just a waste of time.


The chimp house is controlling the media through intimidation and bribery,payola, and extortion..plus they're all power hungrywhores in the same bed.

It's like saying only the hit man is guilty, not the person who paid the hit man to do the murder.

And what the hell do Jaryson Blair and Jack Kelley have to do with this?

And of course, blaming the media while you are a part of the media and failing to see that YOU are to blame is the ULTIMATE in hypocracy.

It is breathtaking what tools they are.

Every time I read something he has written lately, I think he has finally hit the bottom and yet this shows me the bottom is deeper than I thought.

He has a point or at least one-tenth of one, the media has done most of the damage to themselves, Kurtz being a prime example of that.

What is fascinating in a putrid way are his examples of how the media has damaged themselves when all he had to do was put a mirror in front of his face to see the epitome of all he is talking about.

him. The legions of the left can go pound sand as far as he's concerned.

His recent attempt to paint Gannon as the "victim" of bloggers was a signal that he intends to be a leading propagandist for the Bushistas.

The fact is that he himself is a huge part of the problem!

The man fails to disclose major conflicts of interest in stories that he writes- the most notable (but not the only) one being when Kurtz was offering "analysis" on the quality of the Schwarzenegger message during the recall- all the while failing to disclose that his wife, Sheri Annis, was Schwarzenegger's press secretary!

The fact that the man wasn't fired long ago is simply testimony to how low the Washington Post has fallen- and why they have so little credibility in academia or abroad.

Shrubbie resents the reporters breaking his story and getting the scoops and ruining the surprise.

Shrubbie wants to surprise Americans with his announcements and doesn't want those mealy-mouthed reporters stealing his thunder.

Of course I am paraphrasing, but this was the answer he gave.

Unbelievable.

$240,000.

But the fact that it was offered in the first place is not a problem?