Critiquing the Press

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, July 24, at 12 noon ET to discuss the press and his latest columns.

Read today's Media Notes: The War of Images (Post, July 24)

 The transcript follows.

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Washington, D.C.: One thing that drives me crazy about the media's coverage of conflicts (and The Post is doing the same right now in its home page) is the "Casualties Continue to Mount" headline.

That's like saying "Crimes Continue to Occur." Yes they do, but at least in the case of domestic crime the media is savvy enough to focus on the rate not the fact that they keep happening. Obviously they continue to mount. The total is never going to go down.

This is especially acute on Iraq, where the stock headline pops up frequently in the media. Focus on the rate please!

Howard Kurtz: Well, but "Casualties Continue to Mount" doesn't mean there were one or two more, bringing the grand total up slightly from the day before. It means there was a significant increase in the death toll that shows that the war is continuing at a certain level of intensity. Remember, headlines have to be short.

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Lake Ridge, Va.: Hi Howard -- I heard a rumor that the U.S. is still fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Can that be true? The media is only talking about Israel and Lebanon. The fact is that more people have died in the past week in Iraq than in Lebanon. Bring the media focus back to what really matters to Americans.

Howard Kurtz: I happen to believe that Iraq has gotten short shrift over the last two weeks. For television, in particular, most of the reporters who were in Iraq are now in Israel and Lebanon. I understand the impulse -- the Mideast war is new and novel, while the carnage in Iraq is a three-year-old story that has a certain repetitive quality -- but it's still a place where 130,000 American troops are fighting, and where the outcome is anything but certain.

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Columbia, Md.: I don't want to get into an argument over whether the coverage of the Middle East is fair or not, but one question or line I keep hearing over and over again that just irritates me from pundits and journalists is whether Israel's response is "disproportionate." More than the question itself, most of the time the question is phrased in a way that is basically accusing Israel of being "disproportionate such as "Isn't Israel being disproportionate?" or "Some people claim Israel's response is disproportionate, how do you respond?" and on and on. I've yet to hear the question phrase without the accusatory tone towards Israel.

In addition, I have yet to hear any of these same journalists tell anyone what they believe a "proportionate" response would be that would even prompt the question that Israel is being "disproportionate." Even yesterday I heard you, on your show, ask that question of the Israeli guest. I thought his retort to you was great when he asked you what a disproportionate response would be - kidnapping two Hezbollah terrorists?

Why do anchors, reporters and pundits continue to ask this question?

Howard Kurtz: Because, with Israel having killed about 300 people in Lebanon, it's a question being asked around the world. It may well be that Israel is completely justified in its massive retaliation, both because Hezbollah attacked first and continues to fire rockets at Haifa and other Israeli cities and to have no interest in a cease-fire with a country it would like to wipe out. But journalists ask questions for a living, and that is a legitimate question.

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New Hampshire: Thanks for taking my question, Howard.

Regarding the media coverage of Lebanon and Israel, I find it unnerving to have our ex- military talking heads on teevee talking about Israeli military goals while drawing on maps and telling us what surgical operations they are engaged in. We don't hear much about Hizbollah's military plans.

For me, anyway, it sure appears like we are in cahoots with Israel.

Howard Kurtz: Hezbollah doesn't seem to have any military plans other than continuing to indiscriminately fire rockets at northern Israeli cities.

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Washington, D.C.: Today's Post ran a large front page photo of weeping Lebanese women following an Israeli airstrike that injured relatives. Where is the accompanying photo of weeping Israelis whose relatives are suffering at the hands of indiscriminate Hezbollah rocketeers? I am sure I heard on the radio or TV that some Israelis have been injured or killed every single day since Hezbollah began its rocket attacks on Israeli population centers.

Howard Kurtz: The Post has run many photos of grieving Israelis or those seeking shelter from Hezbollah rockets. In fact, on the front of today's World News section is a picture of Israeli soldiers grieving at the funeral of one of their fallen comrades. To try to claim bias based on a single image on one day's front page, without considering all the other front pages, seems to me to be misguided.

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Oklahoma City, Okla.: I was astonished at all the lefty posters last week whose reaction to your previous comments on the anger and rage so evident on the left was "Anger?? What anger???" Perhaps they missed Air America host Randi Rhodes suggesting that the president be taken out in a boat, like Fredo in the second Godfather film, and shot in the back of the head. Or maybe they missed the recent post on one lefty blog re Bush-Cheney-Rumsefeld that said, "Hang the treasonous B------s!" When will the extremists on both ends of the political spectrum learn that raw hate is neither a policy nor very appealing to people with sense?

Howard Kurtz: By the same token, it's not fair to tar a whole movement by citing the words of a couple of hotheads.

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Washington, D.C.: Is Iraq no longer of front page interest to The Post or does The Post just not want to highlight the dimension of the disaster the Bush policy has created in Iraq? Today The Post ran on Page A15! an article saying at least 66 people were killed by bombs in Iraq, continuing the killings last week which The Post called one of the deadliest weeks of the year. Instead of putting the Iraq story on the front page above the fold there was a story about Pakistan's developing nuclear weapons program. What is The Post's trying to do- get our minds off of our troops in Iraq and what is happening there and start thinking about Pakistan which Bush is not accountable for?

Howard Kurtz: It's interesting to me that you attribute motive to these decisions, as if The Post is "trying" to accomplish this or that end through story placement. I, too, have winced as The Post and other papers have put inside the paper stories about 50 or 60 people being killed in Iraq on a single day (and television has been even worse). But there are maybe six pieces on A1 on any given day, and if two are about the Mideast war, that reduces the chances of an Iraq story making it out front. At the same time, The Post did make room yesterday and today for front-page excerpts of Pentagon reporter Tom Ricks's new book, which argued that U.S. mistakes allowed the Iraqi insurgency to grow out of control. That sort of contradicts your thesis about the paper not wanting to "highlight the dimension of the disaster the Bush policy has created," wouldn't you say?

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Winthrop, Mass.: Why so little coverage in the National Media of the recent proof that America's Electrical Grid is collapsing at a rapid rate. For 80,000 people in NYC to be out of power for nearly a week for anything other than a truly major event like a cat 4 hurricane is nearly unbelievable. Every remotely independent expert on the subject says these problems in NYC and St Louis are just the tip of the Iceberg and yet the coverage is minimal.

The decaying intrastructure in the USA is far, far greater threat to Americans than terrorism, or the war in Lebanon, yet the coverage is nearly non-existent. Where is the outrage, where is the investigative reporting. Hire some Electrical Power Engineering professors and write a story that matters about a problem that has clear solutions.

Howard Kurtz: I don't know if I'd say it's a far greater threat than terrorism (although I might feel differently if I was living in Queens!) But the general media attitude toward the issue seems to be it's a huge story when the power goes off and not much of one the rest of the time.

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Herndon, Va.: Hi Howard: It always amazes me in these chats when someone takes one image or one phrase published in the paper and blows it way out of proportion.

Folks - when you read the paper or listen to the news, you are expected to use your critical thinking skills. Don't be so literal when you see a couple words put together. Look at the entire context of a photo or phrase before you make a judgment. Just because the paper is written at a ninth grade level, doesn't mean you have to interpret it as a ninth grader would!

Thanks!

Howard Kurtz: Duly noted.

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New York, N.Y.: The Israel/Lebanon conflict has taken priority with the media over a war that the United States is actually involved with. Isn't it the American media's job to focus on a conflict that actually involves American lives rather than a conflict between foreign countries? Clearly the media is not doing its job or it is just doing the job that the Bush Administration wants it to do. Anything but Iraq seems to be the mantra of the administration and the media it controls.

Howard Kurtz: Major newspapers are continuing to report from Baghdad, but those stories are running inside the paper. Cable news has given a little coverage to Iraq in the last two weeks, and network news hardly at all. But in fairness, the Iraq story will make a comeback once the violence in the Middle East subsides.

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Washington, D.C.: Howard-

There is another justification for killing of Lebanese civilians that is troubling to me. That is, it's what has to happen because Hezbollah has integrated with the general population and uses them as human shields. However, the killing of innocent people (knowingly) is being justified. This disturbs me as much as the logic of "we'll fight them over there so that we don't fight them here." Doesn't this continue to devalue the life on non-American, non-Israeli citizens?

Howard Kurtz: I'll leave that up to the readers. But as the U.S. has found in Iraq, it is difficult to attack an enemy that deliberately blends in with the population without some civilian casualties, as sad as each case is.

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Media (Non) Bias: You might point the readers who are complaining about media bias and the lack of attention to Shankar Vedantam's very good article in today's paper on how partisanship affects interpretations of the news.

It's not about the news, folks, it's about the readers/viewers/listeners.

washingtonpost.com: Two Views of the Same News Find Opposite Biases (Post, July, 24)

Howard Kurtz: That piece did capture in rather dramatic fashion a scientific study concluding that strong partisans can look at the exact same news reports (in this case, about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon) and reach opposite conclusions about whether the report is unfair to their side.

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Atlanta, Ga.: When was the last time a major network/cable anchor or correspondent has gone to Iraq since the Bob Woodruff tragedy? Based on this, what is the rationale for sending essentially CNN entire staff to the Middle East and reporting as if it were World War III. Do you think the saturation coverage is having a positive or negative effect on the overall view of the American people?

Howard Kurtz: On your second point, since correspondents for CNN and the other networks are reporting from both Israel and Lebanon, I'm not sure that the deployment in and of itself is changing perceptions of the war (though it is very much a war of images, as I write in this morning's column). As for Iraq, no broadcast network anchor has gone there since the Bob Woodruff injury, but plenty of brave correspondents have, including CBS's Kimberly Dozier, who, as you may recall, was badly wounded there on Memorial Day.

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Anonymous: You just wrote: "But in fairness, the Iraq story will make a comeback once the violence in the Middle East subsides."

Which kind of leaves out the fact that Iraq is in the Middle East. I know you know that, but I think it points up a wider problem with American media coverage. To this point, I have seen or heard precious little analysis of how our presence in Iraq effects our ability to be an actor in the Israeli/Lebanese hostilities.

Howard Kurtz: I'm using Middle East as a shorthand for the Israel/Hezbollah/Palestinian conflict.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Howard-

Has the press always been criticized so vehemently from both sides? It seems no matter what you report people on both sides are up in arms. They seem to want the papers/media to be champions for their causes rather than news sources. That is not to say the media is above criticism. But it seems they cannot win at all.

Is this phenomenon recent and what has led to it's arrival?

Thanks

Howard Kurtz: There has always been an element of that, but the trend has certainly intensified in recent years, perhaps along with the general polarization of American politics.

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: Your column today about the different ways the conflict is being reported was very interesting.

However, if you ever wondered by Fox's "fair and balanced" attitude, there was a perfect example last week. When someone mentioned the civilian casualties in Lebanon, Brit Hume corrected her by calling them "supposed civilians."

Can you imagine the uproar there would have been from Hannity, O'Reilly, Fred Barnes and Mr. Hume had, say, someone on another channel referred to the Israeli civilians in the same manner?

Fair and balance, indeed!

Howard Kurtz: I didn't see the segment, and clearly many innocent civilians are being killed in Lebanon. But it's not an entirely unfair point to raise about whether some of those being targeted by Israel are either Hezbollah or working with Hezbollah, since members of the group don't exactly wear uniforms with a big "H" but rather try to hide in residential neighborhoods. Those 10,000 rockets are being hidden somewhere, right?

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New York, N.Y.: Howard,

Do you think that major news outlets CONTINUALLY re-evaluate their news "budget" (i.e., what stories to cover and where to place them) during these days of important news events throughout the world. Or is it more like "Let's cover the Israel-Lebanon story as much as we can until something really big happens?"

Howard Kurtz: When there is a war, whether it's in Iraq or Israel/Lebanon, budgets are often thrown out the window as pour resources into covering something that couldn't have been anticipated. Same would go for an event such as Hurricane Katrina. Then, at the end of the year, when everyone realizes they've busted their budget, we get all these urgent appeals not to take anyone to lunch and that sort of thing.

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Arnold, Md.: Am I wrong or is the MSM even mentioning a war in Iraq? Come on folks the White House must be thrilled with this non-attention to the war in Iraq. You stated that after the Israel problem is settled we will hear more. Forgive me but last week how many people died in Iraq? Did the elected officials speak spiteful words about Israel? Who is held accountable for the mess in Iraq? Evidently, the MSM including the television and cable networks is giving a pass to the White House. I am sure the families who have men and women in Iraq are thrilled that no one seems to even care to watch and report about the Iraq war. Talk about falling down on the job.

Howard Kurtz: I said at the outset that Iraq has been overshadowed by this other war. The newspapers are doing the best job of continuing to cover it, even if the stories aren't running on the front page. But keep in mind that even newspapers have limited resources, and if they have moved some of their Baghdad reporters to Israel and Lebanon, that leaves a smaller contingent behind in what is already a fairly limited press corps.

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Takoma Park, Md.: Howard,

Did you think it was at all strange that Nic Robertson of CNN (during several episodes of Wolf Blitzers show) was running around Beirut with Hezbollah's "Press officer" treating him as if he was THE authority on this current conflict? I found it kind of disturbing to be honest.

Howard Kurtz: I asked him about the Hezbollah tour on my show yesterday and he said that viewers should know that all such episodes come with a "health warning" that the correspondents can't independently verify what Hezbollah is saying because they aren't given much time or the ability to go into buildings and interview anyone they want. But Robertson is hardly the only journalist in that position. I saw reporters for each of the major networks getting the Hezbollah tour last week, which I touch on in today's column.

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Bethesda, Md.: Do reporters at The Washington Post or other major papers make more money or get bonuses based upon column readership, web hits, participation in chats, or any other reader/consumer oriented incentives? Would that be good or bad for reporting?

Howard Kurtz: No. And that would probably be a bad idea.

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Uniforms?: So just because the bad guys don't wear uniforms, it's OK to kill everyone knowing you'd get the bad guys, too? Civilians on both sides - innocent civilians - are being killed, but the western media clearly cares more about the Israelis and simply excuses the Lebanese civilian casualties with the rationale you just did - bad guys are hiding with the civilians, so it's OK to wipe 'em all out. I guess that's what we call compassionate conservatism.

Howard Kurtz: I don't see anyone saying "it's OK to wipe 'em all out," just reporting the facts that warfare is difficult against an enemy that blends in with the population. It was the same thing in Vietnam.

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Lansing, Mich: "But it's not an entirely unfair point to raise about whether some of those being targeted by Israel are either Hezbollah or working with Hezbollah, since members of the group don't exactly wear uniforms with a big "H" but rather try to hide in residential neighborhoods."

Howard, I would like to correct you. It seems your views from Iraq and Afghanistan are carrying over to your coverage of this situation. I refer you to this report in your paper today.

"One soldier said the guerrillas wore olive green army uniforms "to confuse us" because Israelis wear the same."

Not all wars are the same. I think the media is falling into a mindset that Hezbollah is not a well-trained army and it is skewing the coverage. This is a true military engagement and should be covered as such. Simply demonizing Hezbollah will not win the war, but it will call into question Israeli competence as things move proceed. I think it is important to maintain perspective.

What are your thoughts?

Howard Kurtz: I stand by my observation that Hezbollah, like al Qaeda, doesn't wear uniforms. If some are wearing garb that resembles Israeli uniforms to confuse the Israelis, that's a military tactic, but doesn't undermine my basic point.

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New York, N.Y.: What affect do you think youtube.com will have on media coverage? It seems to be another tool that will eventually put a coffin in the mainstream media.

Howard Kurtz: You might want to check out the column I wrote on YouTube two weeks ago. One reason it's stealing the media's thunder is that the networks are being slow and not terribly smart in not making more of their video available for free on their Web sites. On the other hand, YouTube does provide plenty of free advertising for network shows and newscasts, since so many excerpts are posted on the site by ordinary folks.

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19th & L NW, Washington, D.C.: Hezbollah are guerrillas. Of course they "hide out" among civilians. That's how guerrilla warfare has operated since the dawn of military action. That's what the French Resistance did. That's what the Yugoslav Partisans did. And, of course, that's what the Viet Cong did most effectively. You don't engage a technically superior force such as the Israelis in open warfare, for heaven's sake.

Howard Kurtz: Duly noted.

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Bethesda, Md.: Is it just me or is everyone sick of reporters doing TV shots from war zones? Perhaps its the serious injuries of Woodruff and associates, or just my general disgust of war as an answer to political problems, but it sure seems like U.S. health care, social security, poverty, etc, etc. could use some media attention and reporters too. Is the only way for a reporter to get a raise in TV news to go to a war zone? Is that the incentive? Let's try something else. (I'm not saying don't give me the news, I just don't need it with a constant array of faces in front of it.)

Howard Kurtz: I don't see the two as mutually exclusive. But how exactly do you expect television to cover the war without anchors and correspondents going there and doing live shots? That is the architecture of how television news works, but it also gives the anchors and correspondents first-hand exposure to what is going on in a war zone, as opposed to sitting in a climate-controlled studio in New York.

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Avon Park, Fla.: I don't mean to minimize the importance of the Middle East situation, but do you think that it warrants the weeknight cable shows spending pretty much all of their time on it? I know that the fighting over there could eventually affect the United States which does warrant news coverage. But I don't think that shows like Chris Matthews or Hannity and Colmes have to give wall-to-wall coverage. It's not like nothing of national significance is happening here.

Howard Kurtz: I do think that Bush's stem-cell veto and NAACP speech got relatively short shrift because of the war. But cable talk shows in particular go with what's hot, and right now the Middle East war is deemed the hottest story around.

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Washington D.C.: There would be more room for important news on the front page of The Wash Post if it didn't waste space on a golf tournament. I don't care if Tiger Woods walked on the water trap; put it in the sports section!! Why does such fluff get put on the front page?

Howard Kurtz: Sorry to disagree, but that was a great story (and I'm not a big golf fan). The world's most famous golfer breaks into uncontrollable crying when he wins a major tournament a few months after losing his father? Nothing but readers. A front page has to provide a bit of a smorgasbord, but I don't think that one was a particularly close call.

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Bob Woodruff: Since his name came up, I thought I'd ask how he's doing? I haven't heard hide nor hair of him in months....

Howard Kurtz: His recovery is going well and he has recently paid several visits to the ABC newsroom.

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Anonymous: Local news in the DC area spends its early evening hour broadcasts telling us about what they are going to tell us about later. In other words, they use the news time as a commercial for later broadcasts. What are your thoughts about this practice and the general commercialization of broadcast news?

Howard Kurtz: They've got a lot of time to fill.

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Ellicott City, Va.: I hate to put evil intents on the administration, but it is odd that they did nothing publicly for so long on the Lebanon issue. Maybe they wanted to keep it hot and heavy and have Iraq/Afghanistan fall off the radar a while? Otherwise I can not fathom why they didn't get more proactive in the whole affair.

Howard Kurtz: I think it's pretty clear, based on the reporting that's been done, that the administration wanted to give Israel more time to damage Hezbollah's military capability.

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Roseland, N.J.: Just a brief thank you for the Reliable Sources segment featuring Israeli and Lebanese journalists' views of the conflict. It really helped underscore the problems and lack of easy solutions.

Howard Kurtz: Thanks. Sometimes there's no substitute for putting on people with different viewpoints and seeing how they each regard the world.

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Anonymous: "I don't see anyone saying "it's OK to wipe 'em all out,"

What about Ann - see E&P

Ann Coulter, in her latest syndicated column, laments that all of South Lebanon hasn't been obliterated.

"Some have argued that Israel's response is disproportionate, which is actually correct: It wasn't nearly strong enough. I know this because there are parts of South Lebanon still standing

Howard Kurtz: Ann has always been known, of course, for her understated rhetoric.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

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