From Howard Kurtz’s CNN bio:
Howard Kurtz is the host of the weekly CNN program Reliable Sources, which turns a critical lens on the media. Kurtz leads the scrutinizing of the media’s fairness and objectivity by questioning journalists of top news organizations, including those at CNN.
Kurtz is the media reporter for The Washington Post and writes a regular column called Media Notes.
Howard Kurtz in action:
From the September 12 edition of CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck:
KURTZ: Look, I’m not — look. Keith
Olbermann is somebody who interviews people and spouts off on cable and has had
some success doing it. And I think he’s very talented. But I think those
comments — Al Qaeda, Ku Klux Klan — are so over the top, it’s just
beneath him. It’s beneath the kind of erudition I would expect from him.BECK: Do you — do you even
understand what he was talking about?KURTZ: I think the argument that I’ve heard Olbermann make in the past
about Fox News — it’s not an argument that I embrace — is that, because
it poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation —BECK: But that’s what he’s doing!
KURTZ: — and is — is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that
it’s misinforming our society. But you know what?BECK: Howard —
KURTZ: They’re entitled to do that.
For your edification, here is what Olbermann said about al-Qaeda and the KKK.
“Al Qaeda really hurt us, but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has hurt us, particularly in the case of Fox News. Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda — worse for our society. It’s as dangerous as the Ku Klux Klan ever was.”
It might seem a tab bit over the top since Brit Hume never flew an airplane into a building and the only lynching Bill O’Reilly has carried out was of the virtual variety. But Fox News does get people killed indirectly…because they help keep a good portion of America in the dark about the reality on the ground in Iraq…and thereby help sustain a war that should never have been launched. But that’s not really the point of my posting about Kurtz.
In what world is Fox News entitled to:
1. ‘Pose as a news organization’, a la Jeff Gannon.
2. ‘Put out dangerous misinformation.’
3. ‘Cheerlead for the Bush administration.’
4. ‘Misinform our society.’
It’s currently legal if that is what Kurtz means.
The right to lie. It’s in one of those amendments to the Constitution, I’m sure of it.
I’ve always refrained from lobbing false accusations at politicians and public figures, but now that Kurtz claims FOX is entitled to do so, I have to assume that this entitlement extends to everyone. So let’s get things off to a good start.
Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Washington Post, is a RAPIST. He’s never been convicted, or eve charged, but Howard Kurtz is an unrepentant rapist, and one of the worst kind: he rapes children. He raped his own children and got away with it because he followed the rape by beating them into catatonia.
And if anyone has a problem with me saying that, i am just practicing the same kind of journalism they practice at FOX, which kurtz applauds.
Howard Kurtz: rapist.
Brendan, Brendan, Brendan.Shame! To limit your charge to just rape! How easy it is to forget admission of his involement in the Towers!! Everyone remembers vividly HIS joyfull preening after building 7 was destroyed and the fact that the Asbestos was gonna spread, Just as you planned it.YoU must learn to not hold back. Remember what you mentioned regarding your shrinks’ warning regarding your need to get things out!
Brendan brendan !
Please try harder.
To be fair to Kurtz, I think what he’s doing is simply stating bluntly the prevailing view among the ruling elite. The function of the news media in the US is not to inform the public, but to influence and, if possible, control public opinion.
As Dr. Heywood Floyd put it in 2001:
This is one of the few things that Kubrick and Clarke got right about what was then the future. The news media is engaged in “preparation and conditioning” all the time. What makes Fox News stand out is that it is all propaganda all the time, and that it is in effect the organ of one political party. But all major news outlets function more as propaganda machines than information sources on issues where “vital” or corporate interests are at stake.
And how laughable is it that the odious Glen Beck is lamenting about ‘dangerous misinformation’ by someone else? His continued harping on the evil Iran and their nuclear capability and how close we are to Armageddon because of Iran makes him into a lunatic to say nothing of all the other ‘dangerous misinformation’ he spews.
And Kurtz is about as fair and balanced as Fox Noise and always has been. CNN is basically just a kinder/gentler Fox News outlet. CNN-The most trusted name in news…..NOT. But it’s a good slogan just like fair and balanced is and lulls viewers who are brainwashed into believing the slogans which are repeated over/over and over again.
Regarding Rupert.
Rupert Murdoch Loves Hillary Clinton
Conservative Media Mogul To Host Fundraiser For Liberal N.Y. Senator
NEW YORK, May 9, 2006
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/politics/main1600694.shtml
“(CBS) To call them a political odd couple would be a rash understatement.
Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will host a fundraiser for liberal New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Financial Times reports.
The mating ritual of the unlikely allies has been under way for months. Clinton set political tongues to wagging last month by attending a Washington party celebrating the 10th anniversary of Fox News, the cable news channel owned by Murdoch. “
Dangerous indeed.