Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 26, 2005
12:00 PM
Howard Kurtz has been The Washington Post's media reporter since 1990. He is also the host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and the author of "Media Circus," "Hot Air," "Spin Cycle" and "The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media and Manipulation." Kurtz talks about the press and the stories of the day in "Media Backtalk."
Howard Kurtz was online Monday, Sept. 26, at noon ET to discuss the press and his latest columns.
Read today's Media Notes: The Post-Koppel Era.
The transcript follows.
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Rockville, Md.: Dear Mr. Kurtz, I was at the anti-war demonstration this weekend and was impressed by the turn-out and the strong focus on Iraq (rather than other issues that get mixed in sometimes). It is my impression that the march did not get very wide coverage nationally and that the pro-war protesters, in spite of their comparably miniscule numbers, were given "equal time" by the press. What do you think? Thanks!
Howard Kurtz: I was traveling part of the weekend, but the demonstration certainly got plenty of newspaper coverage. On television, though, my impression was that it was all Rita all the time. Had there been no hurricane, my guess is that the networks would have devoted more attention to the protest. Instead, it got washed out.
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Winnipeg, Manitoba: As your next-door neighbour, I am always curious about what is going on down south. I have to say that this past weekend was particualrly interesting, with a potentially devastating storm, a potentially historic nationwide peace protest, IMF meetings, and a vice-president undergoing surgery to name just a few.
Our major television news outlet, the CBC, is on strike, so I had to rely on American news outlets to for news. Unfortunately, the only item to receive any coverage was the hurricane. It took up all of the CNN coverage I saw, and 98 to 99% of the coverage on the mainstream television news.
Don't American television news outlets think their viewers can digest more than one item at a time?
Howard Kurtz: No. There's a big-story mentality that has taken over the cable networks, especially at hurricane time. Other stories -- say, Iraq -- just vanish for the duration. Now obviously, Hurricane Rita and the aftermath of Katrina were huge stories, displacing hundreds of thousands of Americans, causing serious damage, etc. But the cable networks do have the luxury of 24 hours a day to cover the world.
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Silver Spring, Md.: I was a journalism major in college and have always had an interest in the media. Over the last five years or so I've seen television news (particularly the cable news networks) devolve into, for lack of a better work, hype. This weekend it was all hurricane all the time. It is clear that they cover one story and one story only. For what reasons, I don't know. During last year's election broadcast news was a he-said, she-said battle rather than a reporting of facts and analysis. My question, is there any movement within the industry to restore integrity to broadcast news or are the powers-that-be content with what is going on?
Howard Kurtz: What you're not accounting for is that a big breaking story like a hurricane immediately boosts the ratings of cable networks (which don't have huge audiences to begin with). Therefore, if one of them cuts away from the hurricane to cover other matters, its numbers go down while the others' stay high. Lost in the equation, I think, are all the viewers who depend on cable news for more than just the latest weather news. I do think the New Orleans flooding caused by Katrina put it in a special category, but Rita turned out to be a fairly typical hurricane.
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Washington, D.C.: I find it interesting that even though the right has traditionally complained about the anti-conservative bias of the media, the left has just as much distrust, claiming that corporate interests now control if and how stories are reported. To hear some people speak, many media outlets--including The Post--routinely look the other way when it comes to stories damaging to those in power. Have you ever come across any solid evidence to support these allegations that the press has been subverted in such a way?
Howard Kurtz: You can argue whether The Post and other news organizations are tough enough on those in power, but the notion that "corporate interests" are controlling the coverage is and has always been a canard. A more serious, if occasional problem, is pressure from advertisers, particularly from such mainstays as car dealers, supermarkets and department stores. But corporate executives telling reporters to go easy on an administration? No. Even when a controversial columnist gets fired, it tends to be the editor, not the publisher, who does the deed.
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Charleston, S.C. Howard,
Thanks for the article today. I had no idea Nightline was still on the air. Perhaps, the average 60 year old can't stay up that late. Isn't this a great example of why the business side of the networks conflict with the news divisions? It makes no sense at all to put this type of programming into that time slot. Why are news programs so reluctant to embrace the demographic realities of today's news consumers?
Howard Kurtz: I'm sorry word didn't reach you that Nightline is still around, but your premise is faulty. Nightline is one of the most successful news shows of all time and has drawn millions of viewers in its 11:30 time slot. For some years it was often ahead of Letterman while trailing Leno. Now its ratings have slipped in the last four years, and the uniqueness of a late-night broadcast is far less in this cable-saturated age than it was when ABC launched the program (originally as "America Held Hostage") in 1980. So there's a case to be made that it needs to be revitalized, but it's still a strong franchise.
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Springfield, Va.: I followed your links and was surprised that the NYT is refusing to follow its own guidelines for publishing corrections. Do columnists have control over corrections to their work? Even if Mr. Krugman or any other columnist disagrees, can't the editor go ahead and publish a correction?
Howard Kurtz: I believe the editorial page editor, Gail Collins, can order a correction, but the columnists are not under the control of the paper's top editor, Bill Keller. Which is a typical arrangement in newspapers, including The Post, but not everywhere.
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Excelsior Springs, Mo.: Hi Howard-
Yesterday CNN aired all through the afternoon that war supporters had 20,000 people show up for their rally. This was hours after the actual number of 400-500 people was reported by Associated Press and other news services including The Washington Post. At 3:40 p.m. eastern, Renae San Miguel said on CNN headline news- "About 20,000 showed up in Washington today to voice support the Iraq war". This was a bold faced lie that mislead anyone watching. My question is how long can the media continue to do the right wings bidding before the nation realizes you are a mouthpiece for the administration?
Howard Kurtz: I think you're underestimating the difficulty of doing crowd estimates. The Post and other news outlets had the same problem at the antiwar demonstration the day before, when estimates like 100,000 and higher were floating around but the D.C. police chief refused to provide an official estimate.
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Silver Spring, Md.: What happened to rumors that Jake Tapper would take over Nightline? He's young and hip and can bring them a more diverse audience. His new ABC blog, for instance, demonstrates his array of talents.
Howard Kurtz: Jake does some pieces for Nightline but primarily works for World News Tonight. And as a former Salon writer, he's a natural for blogging.
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Austin, Tex.: Is the Bill Frist "blind trust" story going to "have legs"?
Howard Kurtz: The Democrats would certainly like to ensure that it does. I suppose it depends on whether new information comes out and what happens with the Justice and SEC probes.
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Washington, D.C.: There seemed to be only Rita coverage this weekend. I couldn't help but to wonder what else was going on in the world. Not even those scrolling news items on the bottom gave a scrap of information unrelated to the storm.
Could you please tell me what else happened in the world since Friday? Except for Ashton and Demi getting married. For some reason, I know that.
Howard Kurtz: The Yankees kept winning and are in a tie with the Red Sox for first place.
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Reston, Va.: Hi Howard, I am writing about the liberal bias in covering the pro-war demonstrations. It seems like the stories in The Post focus on the "small crowds" and how they are essentially insignificant compared to the other demonstrations. My question is why report it then?
Howard Kurtz: Didn't we just get accused of conservative bias for the way we reported the antiwar demonstration? Get it straight, people! Seriously, the pro-war rally was far smaller but it still reflects the point of view of plenty of people in this country and deserves coverage. And I'm sure news executives wanted to demonstrate "balance" in covering both sides. Still, a huge antiwar protest and a much smaller pro-war demonstrate are not necessarily equally newsworthy. The Post put the antiwar crowd on the front page and yesterday's pro-war crowd on the Metro front.
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Washington, D.C.: What's the early response to the New York Times charging people to access some of its newspaper that appears online? Are sales meeting or exceeding expectations?
Howard Kurtz: Too early to say. But not too early to say that it's not going over well in the blogosphere, where the Times is seen as limiting the worldwide impact of its columnists.
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Freeport, N.Y.: Thank you for providing this forum. My question concerns the logistics for covering huge disasters such as Katrina. Where do reporters stay when covering areas inundated with water, power outages, etc? How are they transported to affected areas? Considering the huge numbers of reporters converging on disaster-stricken areas, do they pool resources or do they coordinate resources independently of each other?
Howard Kurtz: Since there isn't exactly a surplus of hotel rooms, my understanding is that some are sleeping in RVs and cars; others staying with families kind enough to let them in. One Post reporter was sleeping at the New Orleans airport. News organizations are pretty independent on this one, although I'm sure there have been some mutual favors on providing boat rides and things like that.
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Austin, Tex.: Howard,
Any idea on who might be the new ABC anchor and/or when a decision might be announced? I assume they won't want to leave things in limbo for too long....
Howard Kurtz: I would imagine it would be fairly soon. I think ABC wanted to wait at least until last week's memorial service for Peter Jennings.
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Los Angeles, Calif.: For an industry that is supposed to take the high ground when it comes to journalistic integrity, I was very disappointed to see that Paul Krugman didn't print a correction in a subsequent column to his piece on the 2000 election. I realize he's an opinion writer not subject to objectivity requirements of journalism, but shouldn't journalistic integrity still apply? I will find it hard to take on faith anything else he writes. Your thoughts?
Howard Kurtz: Without getting into the nitty-gritty, since I haven't researched it, columnists can serve up any brilliant or foolhardy opinions they want, but when they assert something as fact, they're held to the same standard as other journalists and are supposed to correct their errors.
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New York, N.Y.: Howard, I'm annoyed because the Sunday morning shows now, after the Lewinsky saga, always seem to have the same guests and cover the same stories. Do you agree and, if so, what can be done to make these shows less regimented?
Howard Kurtz: Believe me, the Sunday shows hate it more than you do. The fact is that the administration rigidly controls which of its officials are put out to which shows, and often offer up Condi or Rummy or whomever to several shows on the same day when it wants to get a message out. (These aren't the only guests, obviously, but in the Sunday world they're deemed the most newsworthy). And it drives the anchors and producers crazy.
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Providence, R.I.: I read my local paper, and online versions of the Times and Post every day. Judging by TV coverage, you'd think the Jet Blue landing in LA was the biggest story of the year, but I barely saw any coverage in newspapers. It's too bad the all-news networks get so distracted by these stories. They have the attention span of an ice cube.
Howard Kurtz: Well, in a rare defense of TV, when you have live pictures of a jetliner with a busted tire that may or may not crash upon landing, it's a pretty dramatic story. By the next morning, when everyone knows it landed safely at LAX, it's a modest story. But all the major newspapers that I looked at covered it.
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Washington, D.C.: Re: Covering Frist's blind trust sale. So this is only going to have legs if something in the formal official arena is disclosed? Wow, are reporters that lazy nowadays? Good way to cover a story, just wait for the officials to play it out in court. I distinctly remember a certain President's private life being played out in excruciating detail as reporters forced down any door to look for any detail, substantiated or not. They didn't seem to wait for the "official" investigation to go after it. There is a middle ground guys, it's called good investigative journalism. Maybe you should try it sometime.
Howard Kurtz: Why don't you start a blog and lead the way? I didn't say that reporters should wait for the official investigations. In fact, the AP has already scored a scoop on a document showing that the trust manager told Frist a couple of years ago that HCA stock was in his trust. And the explanation of why Frist decided to sell now, after a few years as majority leader, bears further scrutiny. Digging out details on a story like this is difficult, but rest assured that reporters are trying.
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Arlington, Va.: You said: "Without getting into the nitty-gritty, since I haven't researched it, columnists can serve up any brilliant or foolhardy opinions they want, but when they assert something as fact, they're held to the same standard as other journalists and are supposed to correct their errors."
This doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to the New York Times. In addition to the Paul Krugman falsehood, they have yet to issue a correction on the now completely false charge made by Alessandra Stanley about Geraldo Rivera. It appears to me that The New York Times has no standards whatsoever.
Howard Kurtz: That's going way too far for my taste, but I did note the Times's failure to correct on the Geraldo story in my column last week. The odd thing is, had Alessandra Stanley just accused Rivera of grandstanding for the cameras by helping a wheelchair-bound woman out of a New Orleans nursing home, nobody could have said a thing. Instead, she accused Geraldo of "nudging" an Air Force rescuer aside when the tape, which I've seen many times, simply doesn't show that.
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Washington, D.C.: As some evidence of the NYT now charging for access to its op-ed columnists...
Over the last 24 hours, only 4 of the top 25 most e-mailed articles are from op-ed columnists.
Over the last month (partly before the charge started), 17 of 25 are op-eds.
Howard Kurtz: The numbers don't lie. The columns can't be emailed if fewer readers have access to them.
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Bethesda, Md.: You seem quite comfortable with the notion that a major hurricane sells for the networks. But you don't seem to want to go near applying the same logic to the war (a well-documented bestseller for outfits like CNN). What would the networks do without Iraq to cover? Answer: not as well. Isn't it in their economic interests to play up the pro-war rally, to help prolong it and keep the cash cow coming in?
Howard Kurtz: With all due respect, that's the most offensive theory I've heard in a long time. You think the networks are consciously trying to prolong the way, and are willing to see hundreds or thousands more Americans die, just to keep the ratings up? That would be a pretty sick way of thinking. Besides, I think there's so much Iraq fatigue right now that I don't think the war, with its depressing daily dose of bombings and casualties, is helping the ratings much at all.
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Woodbridge, Va.: Wait, The Post put the anti-war rally on the front page, and shuffled the pro-war supporters to the Metro section? And you're honestly saying that The Post isn't biased against the war? Why not give equal exposure to those who support the war?
Howard Kurtz: Because the antiwar demonstration was a huge event and the pro-war rally was far smaller. I'd also note that The Post's editorial page has been a strong supporter of the war from the beginning, though that is entirely separate from the news coverage.
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Independent Hill, Va.: What's your feeling about newspapers claiming something rather hard to define, as in "this time, the anti-war protesters are angrier than they've been in years." How does a reporter measure emotions like that? Count broken windows?
Howard Kurtz: Umm...interviewing people?
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Washington, D.C.: Tim Russert does a great job of grilling elected officials on Meet the Press. However, in yesterday's show, I think that he went too far in his questioning of Jefferson Parish's President Aaron Broussard. Broussard had made several strong and emotional statements on previous shows, however Russert seemed a bully interrogating the local official who had been through so much and had dealt with so much devastation. What is your take on yesterday's Meet the Press? Also, when will Reliable Sources return to its Sunday 11:30 a.m. time slot?
Howard Kurtz: On Reliable Sources, I hope we'll back this week. We've been blown out several times by both hurricanes.
I didn't see Russert as bullying at all. It was an incredibly emotional moment when Broussard first came on and said his colleague's mother had waited day after day after day to be rescued from the nursing home where she finally drowned. Since then, several outlets have reported that the mother actually died earlier in the week and Broussard had his facts wrong. Broussard had to know he'd been asked about this when he came back on yesterday. His explanation was that he was just repeating information provided by his staff. Fine. Russert gave him a lot of time to go on and on with his emotional explanation without interrupting him, then asked one question about whether he had unfairly accused the feds of a slow response when the nursing home owners have now been indicted. That didn't look like bullying to me.
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Washington, D.C.: "You think the networks are consciously trying to prolong the way, and are willing to see hundreds or thousands more Americans die, just to keep the ratings up?"
No offence, Howard, but history (remember William Randolph Hearst?) would seem to suggest that U.S. media is quite capable of keeping a war going (or trying to start one) and that ratings play into it...
Howard Kurtz: I'm well aware of William Randolph Hearst's role in 1898, but I still think it's scurrilous to suggest that the cable networks WANT the war to continue and for more Americans to die. Besides, except for the Cindy Sheehan protest, which was more about the politics, the war hasn't been at the top of the cable agenda for months, as opposed to hurricanes, Martha Stewart, John Roberts, Natalee Holloway, etc.
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British Columbia, Canada: Good afternoon, I was wondering how the media's push to be allowed to see the flag draped coffins coming into Dover is going? As long as the practice of NOT allowing the public to see this continues, the longer the death toll remains an abstract number for too many Americans. How can your country honour their sacrifice if you aren't allowed to see them? How can the American people not see this as a political maneuver on the part of this civilian administration, none of whom have ever seen a day of BT? Whether one agrees with the war or not, those who have died deserve to have the honour and gratitude of your citizens, which is hard to do if the dead are an abstract number.
Howard Kurtz: In part because of a suit by University of Delaware professor (and former CNN correspondent) Ralph Begleiter, the Pentagon has now agreed to make those pictures available.
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Sewickley, Pa.: Re: Bethesda's comment on war and cable ratings. The idea that TV "news" is looking to prolong the Iraq warm may be far-fetched but I think there is no question that hairdo media helped merchandise the war in the first place. It certainly kept me glued to CNN at 3 a.m. when my husband was serving in Baghdad.
Howard Kurtz: Wars are exciting for journalists to cover, as are fires, plane crashes, earthquakes and other tragedies. That doesn't mean we want those things to happen.
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Northern Virginia: Why wasn't the heroic pilot of that Jet Blue plane ever named in any article I read?
Come on, people! What happened to the five Ws? And to a well-merited round of hero worship?
Howard Kurtz: Good question. You'd think the Jet Blue PR department would be all over that one.
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Karl Rove: HA! You all have forgotten about my scandal!
Howard Kurtz: Sorry, Karl. We'll be getting back to you eventually.
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Rolla, Mo.: Here's another offensive theory -- you can almost hear the disappointment in the reporters' voices when Rita (or any other hurricane for that matter) is downgraded from a category 5 to a 3 or 2. They get so jacked up about the impending doom that they are let down when it does not materialize.
Howard Kurtz: I'd have a hard time arguing with that. The media rolled in their battalions, so heavy coverage was guaranteed even if the storm fizzled.
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Reston, Va.: Howard - Don't you love it when people ask you what the news was over the week-end because TV coverage was all about Rita? Would they consider reading a newspaper? Maybe The Washington Post?
Howard Kurtz: Only 35 cents during the week, $1.50 on Sundays.
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Alum Bridge, W. Va.: I know that Hurricane Rita occupied much of the media the last few days, but why couldn't the hundreds of thousands of people who attended the Anti-War Rally in D.C. and other cities get more coverage? Why is the media virtually ignoring the majority of the country which believe the War in Iraq is a mistake?
Howard Kurtz: Your first point may be valid, given the enormity of the hurricane coverage. But given the steady flow of polls and political stories about waning support for the war -- including those who say spending on Iraq should be cut to help rebuild New Orleans -- it's hardly accurate to say the media are ignoring the larger shift in public opinion.
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Gaithersburg, Md.: Howard--
Fox News ran a full page ad in last Thursday's USA Today trumpeting its successes. Included in the ad was the following, " '. . . BEST REPORTING . . .' WASHINGTON POST." This quotation, clearly taking the middle of a sentence out of context, looks deceptive, at least. Do you know from what quote this was lifted? Does The Post care? Do you?
Howard Kurtz: I believe one Post columnist praised Fox's reporting on Hurricane Katrina. Hardly an endorsement by the newspaper of everything Fox does. I missed the ad, but it sounds like one of those carefully edited movie blurbs.
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Alexandria, Va.: On Sundays 'ViewPoint' James Zogby interviewed a group of visiting Arab students. According to the students, the Natalee Holloway disappearance in Aruba story was one of the biggest stories in the U.S. during their visit. They must of been watching CNN and Fox because The Washington Post didn't provide much coverage which I am grateful. 4 to 8 hours of that story on a daily basis is too much.
Howard Kurtz: The runaway cable coverage, especially on Fox, along with the morning shows, of one woman missing in Aruba was so over the top and out of proportion to its real news value as to be embarrassing. Newspapers have covered it hardly at all, except occasionally as a story about TV news.
Thanks for the chat, folks.
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