Howard Kurtz’s Huge Conflict of Interest
August 30, 2010 at 11:06 AM Leave a comment
Howard Kurtz, the host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, claims to be a media watchdog and critic, keeping an eye on all things unethical and sleazy in medialand. Only problem is, he’s a leader of the pack when it comes to bad behavior; all he has to do is look in the mirror to find a big juicy story about unethical “journalists:”
The Washington Post‘s media critic Howard Kurtz today uses his Post column to send a gushing love letter to Time Magazine and its executives. Entitled “Thinner Time magazine still manages to stand out,” it reads like a Time Warner Press Release heaping praise on its magazine for great success. The first sentence crowns Time Editor-in-Chief Rick Stengel as “the last man standing,” trumpets Time‘s success in comparison to the struggles of Newsweek and U.S. News, and claims — most hilariously of all — that “Time has done it mainly with serious journalism.”
What makes this so amazing is that Kurtz himself does not merely sound like an employee of Time Warner; he is one. Time Warner pays him a substantial salary — and gives him a prominent television platform — for hosting CNN’s Sunday morning show, Reliable Sources. In return, Kurtz then uses his Post column to glorify Time Warner’s magazine and its executives.
Really disgusting, really disturbing and frankly, downright low.
Entry filed under: CNN / TimeWarner, Corporatocracy, Media - General, Musings. Tags: .
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed