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."

A Firsthand Report on the Wounds of War (Post, Feb. 27)

The transcript follows.

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McLean, Va.: Mr. Kurtz -- not a question, just a big thank you for getting the word out on Katty Kay and the BBC World News. That program has been nightly must-see TV in my house for about five years now. It's a necessity to supplement the woefully inadequate American network news programs.

washingtonpost.com: Katty Kay, Calibrating Britney for the Beeb (Post, Feb. 26)

Howard Kurtz: It probably was thoughtless of me to run that piece the morning after the Oscars, thus guaranteeing that her picture would be shrunk to the size of a postage stamp, but I'm glad you liked it.

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Los Angeles: Howard, in your Saturday article about Walter Reed, you quote Dana Priest as saying: "You find wrongdoing and you don't report it to the public first? You report it to them first? That's not our role."

My question is, if you find 'wrongdoing," where injured American troops -- or any injured people -- are in harm's way and/or receiving substandard care, shouldn't your responsibility be to them, and immediately -- not the general public more than four months later? Waiting one-third of a year so you can fully report a story, so it's really in good shape and might win an award, doesn't seem like you are interested in correcting a wrong but instead looking to make headlines and to make a name for yourself. If I were in Walter Reed, I would be thankful for Priest's investigation, but also wish she wouldn't have waited more than four months to let everyone know. That would've possibly been four fewer months I would have to be in those substandard conditions. Thank you, and I'd enjoy hearing your response to my comments.

washingtonpost.com: The Army's Preemptive News Briefing (Post, Feb. 24)

Howard Kurtz: I'm afraid you're not fully understanding how newspaper investigations work. A four-month investigation can't be published on Day One. It took a lot of time to confirm the findings that made that series so explosive because Dana Priest and Anne Hull did it the old-fashioned shoe-leather way, spending time at the facility, talking to patients and their families, etc. This was not some leaked report or interview with anonymous sources -- if they could have run it sooner, I'm sure they would have. But you've got to nail down the facts, make sure you're right, provide the proper context and give the government an adequate chance to respond before you can publish a story of this nature.

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Washington: Hi Howard. First off, I was struck by the astonishing amount of anger and vitriol in The Washington Post comments regarding your piece on Bob Woodruff. Mr. Woodruff seems to feel a great solidarity with our wounded veterans, and that feeling is appropriate and well-placed. I wonder what his feelings are for the hundreds of thousands of seriously wounded Iraqis who have virtually no health care or treatment infrastructure left as a consequence of this war. This is a destroyed generation. Did Mr. Woodruff indicate any larger consideration of the toll of this war on human life, friend and foe?

Howard Kurtz: I have not looked at the comments, but Bob Woodruff, as a journalist, did not set out to opine on the wisdom of invading Iraq or lack thereof. Keep in mind, the reason he was injured was that he went to Iraq and hooked up with an Iraqi unit precisely so he could report on the U.S. effort to turn more of the security functions over to the Iraqi military. What he is trying to do now is tell the story of his injury and recovery, but also throw the spotlight on the tens of thousands of other veterans with traumatic brain injuries and the extent to which the administration is minimizing the number of soldiers who have suffered such wounds.

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Columbus, Ohio: Hey Howie -- just thought you'd like to know that in the bars and diners and gyms across America, nobody is talking about the so-called feud between Clinton and Obama. It's just you media pinheads that think it's a big deal. This is why people get irritated when the media elites dictate the agenda.

Howard Kurtz: This pinhead says this is not a very good example of the media "dictating" the agenda. David Geffen made his charges about the Clintons (to Maureen Dowd, yes, but any journalist who didn't report such charges would be guilty of malpractice); Hillary's campaign took a hard shot at Obama for the words of his Hollywood supporter, and the Obama camp fired back. It absolutely was a legitimate story. Having said that, the story ran its course days ago and we should give it a rest.

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Honolulu: Aloha Mr. Kurtz. Why hasn't the most recent article by Seymour Hersh gotten more traction? Dana Perino says Mr. Hersh has a problematic relationship to the truth, but that's not been his history. Why aren't more MSM representatives exploring the Bush Administration's threatening moves towards Iran? Mahalo.

Howard Kurtz: I don't think the administration's approach to Iran has exactly been an under-covered subject. Sy Hersh was on CNN on Sunday talking about the article. The piece deserves attention but it's difficult to confirm because, like many Hersh efforts, it relies heavily on unnamed sources.

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Clifton, Va.: Sorry, Dana Priest doesn't deserve any type of award for her stories on Walter Reed. Imus came out with the it first a year and half ago. Dana Priest should have acknowledged this. Just another case of Priest's and the WP's anti-military bias. And come on, this info isn't new, military health care has been awful for years. My girlfriend is an E7 in the Army and they botched her shoulder surgery almost two years ago in Korea. This nothing new. Priest needs to get over herself!

Howard Kurtz: The details of The Post series apparently were new enough that the secretary of Defense has ordered an investigation and thanked the paper for its reporting. To cite this as an example of The Post's supposed anti-military bias is ludicrous. Doesn't it help the brave men and women who were wounded in war if reporters spend months to document the poor conditions they live in and the less than ideal care they are receiving in the Army's premier medical facility? That's why these stories have drawn praise from both the left and the right. Regardless of what you think about the war, everyone can agree that our veterans deserve better.

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Prescott, Ariz.: Good article on Woodruff! I'm glad he survived a bombing and is using his situation to try and help people. On the topic of bombings, last night on Larry King, Laura Bush said that there currently is only one bombing a day in Iraq. I looked at some statistics compiled by the Brookings Institute and they seem to think it is closer to 185. I would think Bush is privy to more inside information than Brookings. Is she correct?

Howard Kurtz: I saw an article this morning that says the average number of daily bombings in Iraq for the past week has been five. One a day does not appear to be correct. Perhaps the First Lady meant "one major bombing with mass casualties" that draws heavy media coverage.

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New York, NY: Hi, Howard. Not sure if you can take this question, since it references a competitor to The Post, but here goes: In Sunday's NYTimes, their ombudsman Byron Calame took reporter Michael Gordon to task for reporting from anonymous Government sources (re: Iran) and not publishing the reason for the anonymous sourcing. What is The Post's view on such matters?

Howard Kurtz: The Post's policy, not always perfectly carried out, is that reporters should use anonymous sources only if there's no other way to get the information, should check out what the sources say, and should explain to readers why the sources are remaining anonymous and, if possible, provide some idea of their motivation.

For the record, Calame's criticism of that piece was heavily qualified. Here's what he wrote:

"While the Saturday scoop relied heavily on anonymous sources from unnamed agencies, the article described an admirable search for those likely to have differing views. It cited interviews with 'civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies,' and pointed out that group included 'some whose agencies have previously been skeptical about the significance of Iran's role in Iraq.'

"One intelligence 'assessment' in the Saturday article, however, needed some qualification. 'As part of its strategy in Iraq,' the story said, 'Iran is implementing a deliberate, calibrated policy -- approved by Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force. ...' To the extent that the assessment was based on inferences, readers deserved to be reminded of that. And they deserved a clearer sense of the extent to which the 'broad agreement' cited high up in the article applied to this specific assessment."

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Baltimore: Do you think the media is making more of the Geffen/Clinton/Obama kerfuffle than there really is? A week after the Dowd article, I still see it being pushed as this major uproar whereas I think the campaigns (at least Obama's) have moved on.

Howard Kurtz: I think it's time to put a cork in it and get on to the really important news, like Britney.

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Anonymous: Michelle Malkin has been loud, rude and wrong on just about any topic she has ever opined upon. Any chance you will ever profile any of the bloggers who have been serious, thoughtful and correct? Also, as the right-wing already dominates AM talk radio, cable news and other media, right-wing bloggers are seemingly marginalized. In contrast, real liberal points of view (Krugman and Dionne excepted) mostly are confined to the Internet. It seems as if these "new" voices are a far more interesting phenomena.

washingtonpost.com: Michelle Malkin's Conservative Fight Has Others Coming Out Swinging (Post, Feb. 16)

Howard Kurtz: Well, let's see, I've already done profiles of Jeff Jarvis and Andrew Sullivan and written extensively about bloggers on both the left and the right.

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Hibbing, Minn.: Good morning, sir. I agree with you about Bob Woodruff. I have to admit, initially, that I did not like him before he became injured, but it seems his injury has given him a new perspective and I find that commendable. There is an old saying: One can debate an opinion, but personal experience is undebatable. Perhaps, that's why all the arm-chair hawks are belittling Woodruff ... thank you.

Howard Kurtz: Not sure why you didn't like Woodruff before -- he hadn't been an anchor very long before he was injured -- but clearly his ordeal has transformed him. I found him more open and emotional when I saw him yesterday than he had been before, but obviously he's been through a life-changing experience. You know, it would have been easy for him to just do a program and write a book about what he went through and leave it at that, but Woodruff seems determined to draw public attention to the many veterans who have suffered the kind of serious brain injury that he did and to question whether they could be getting better care.

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Washington: You've written about the declining numbers of people subscribing to The Post and other papers. I'd like to give more of my money to The Post but they won't take it -- I don't have time during the week to go through the paper version of the paper but would love to have some kind of weekend subscription, not just Sunday only. Most other newspapers have some kind of weekend subscription, why not The Post?

Howard Kurtz: Beats me. Seems to me we should let people subscribe for however many days they want.

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Washington: Howard -- could you please explain your role on Washington Post radio? I'm curious if it represents an expansion from your role as a media reporter; it seems that much of your commentary is beyond what might accurately be described as media-related, except insofar as you summarize some of the big stories of the day and offer your opinion on the impact of said stories. I listen to you every morning and it appears that you are moving into the general pundit category and away from the media reporter category.

Howard Kurtz: It's more like my blog -- I talk about whatever is in the news. Sometimes that's strictly media, sometimes it's media-related, and sometimes not. I generally try to bring in a dimension dealing with the coverage, regardless of the subject. Today I talked about Bob Woodruff, yesterday I talked about the Pentagon's preemptive PR strike against The Post's Walter Reed series, and last week I talked about the Anna Nicole coverage, among other things.

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Bethesda, Md.: Hi Howard. Other than his not returning to Iraq, do you know what Woodruff's future is at ABC? Doubtful he will go back as an anchor, but will he be a correspondent?

Howard Kurtz: Well, he is a correspondent and already is working on other stories about veterans. ABC management says he can work as much or as little as he is physically able. He said yesterday that he might want to return to anchoring one day but that reporting, right now, is plenty for him. Six months ago I would not have believed that he could appear on television, let alone conduct interviews for a documentary and hold a news conference.

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Boston: Romney's campaign became the second GOP team to see its detailed strategies leaked to the press. Shouldn't they be more careful about even putting these ideas on paper in the first place? How could someone prepare a 77-page presentation -- including concerns about the candidate's hair and a plan to tie Hillary Clinton to France -- and not immediately worry about its potential leak?

Howard Kurtz: You got me. Given that the exact same thing happened to Giuliani, I'm perpetually amazed that advisers write these long reports that candidly detail their candidate's flaws, not to mention attack his rivals. Everything leaks these days, especially anything that can be put in a Word file and e-mailed. I'm sure Romney's people must be bouncing off the walls today.

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Albany, N.Y.: To respond to the prior question on the Walter Reed story, why would you report the story to the government first? They already know what's happening. It's their building

Howard Kurtz: I think a better way to put it is that government officials should have known what was happening. But you know how bureaucracies are -- a few people might know, but higherups with the power to do something about it never get the word. I do find it amazing, though, that things were allowed to deteriorate to this extent.

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Clifton, Va. makes a good point:"My girlfriend is an E7 in the Army and they botched her shoulder surgery almost two years ago in Korea. This nothing new." If this has been going on for years, why is it acceptable? Are we collectively saying it took The Post and it's proximity to Washington and an "embarrassment" factor of "supporting the troops" to actually get something done to better serve our wounded soldiers and their families? I would give full credit to Imus or anyone else for breaking this earlier but Imus in the morning doesn't resonate across the county. When is the last time a story from Imus in the morning found it's way onto the national headlines?

Howard Kurtz: The day he told John Kerry, just before the election, to just stop trying to explain his botched joke about Iraq. Kerry canceled his other media and campaign appearances and everyone reported on that.

Look, there are a lot of systemic problems in society -- problems in hospitals, schools and the like -- that have been reported on over the years, and that people generally are aware of. Where journalism can be powerful is in taking you inside a particular institution, introducing you to the real people affected by the problems and making you care. It's the human dimension, the specifics, that command attention and spark demands for reform. And that is what happened with the Walter Reed series.

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Chicago, IL: Did you see the Frontline special "News War"? Any thoughts? I'd like to see more in-depth reporting like this from the Media beat at The Post.

Howard Kurtz: I saw the first two, and Frontline did a fine job. I also have written about every issue raised in those programs, from the failure of prewar reporting to the Libby trial to criticism of the New York Times over the domestic surveillance story and other journalists who report on national security matters.

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Anonymous: Sure, Iraq and Iran, etc. are important, I guess. But which story really impacts our day to day lives more: Anna Nicole Smith or Britney Spears? Do people really care enough about these stories for networks, especially cable news networks such as MSNBC and Fox News, to devote hours each day, even if nothing new happens? Interesting how stories allowing journalists to go to exotic locations get a lot of play (remember the missing blonde on Aruba?).

Howard Kurtz: MSNBC and Fox don't need a vast swath of the country to be obsessed by the Anna Nicole hearings to justify their wall-to-wall coverage of those proceedings (and the wild and wacky judge) last week. All that cable channels need is to draw an additional 500,000 or 1 million viewers and they have greatly boosted their ratings. I believe that most people have a mild interest in Anna and Britney but also are interested in the war, politics, and so on, but the way that cable networks do the math is very different. You'll notice that neither subject has drawn more than modest coverage in the newspapers (with the obvious exception of the New York tabloids).

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Rockville, Md.:" I'm afraid you're not fully understanding how newspaper investigations work." Good newspaper work. Also not their job -- it is the job of the Army to inspect these facilities and make sure they are up to standards. My time in the Army was spent getting ready for inspections. I don't understand this at all -- who was in charge? I know it was "off-base" and they will close, but now is now. One could check at other bases and see what is not getting done. Are they afraid to ask for the money they need to keep things in order?

Howard Kurtz: I'm interested in seeing what Pentagon investigators conclude about why the problems at Walter Reed were allowed to fester when they hardly were hidden.

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New Hampshire: Hi Mr. Kurtz and thanks for taking my question. I was more than a little surprised to read Victoria Toensing's lengthy and highly partisan op-ed in The Post (not to mention its suspect "timing") and then horrified to read that she actually had filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of news organizations with regard to the leak case! I found Ms. Howell's explanation rather lame (to say the least):

"While Toensing is a partisan, she also filed a friend-of-the-court brief during the leak investigation with media lawyer Bruce W. Sanford on behalf of 36 news organizations, including The Post. She and Sanford, who also worked on the 1982 law, argued that journalists shouldn't have to testify because no crime was committed if Plame wasn't a covert operative. Editors should have mentioned the court filing in the Outlook piece." Your thoughts?

washingtonpost.com: Covert Question, Open Controversy (Post, Feb. 25)

Howard Kurtz: I agree that the piece should have mentioned her filing. Beyond that, though, Outlook is an opinion section and Toensing was making an argument about the Libby case as someone with very strong opinions, which readers obviously are free to dismiss.

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Franklin, Tenn.: Bill O'Reilly of Fox News mentioned the arrest of the former head of the Virginia ACLU on exploitation charges. The Post buried and most other media outlets did not cover the story at all. He compares this story to Ted Haggart -- I hate to say this, but Mr. O'Reilly has hit the nail on the head in terms liberal bias and the way stories are covered in this country. It all depends on whose ox is being gored. That, Mr. Kurtz, is a shame.

Howard Kurtz: I disagree. The guy who was arrested on child pornography charges is described as a former head of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU and the alleged behavior, while despicable, doesn't appear connected to his former job. I'm not buying the argument that The Post would have treated this as big news had it involved the former head of a conservative organization.

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Yonkers, N.Y.: Dear Mr Kurtz: Your report on the Pentagon's dastardly pre-emptive attempt to sugarcoat the indictments made by Dana Priest and Anne Hull was excellent -- bravo. It was also terribly disturbing. What are the feelings of reporters at The Washington Post? Has this had an impact on morale? Do you see this as changing the amount of lead time reporters will give when asking for pre-reporting responses?Will this lead to reporters not giving a warning at all? Thanks!

Howard Kurtz: I've had reporters at other news organizations tell me this certainly will change how much time they give the Army PR office to respond on a future exclusive story. It does seem to me to encourage journalists to call 10 minutes before deadline if there is concern that a briefing will be called with other news organizations to respond to a story that you haven't published yet.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

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