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."

RM + WSJ: Let's Do The Math (Post, May 14)

The transcript follows.

Media Backtalk transcripts archive

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Avon Park, Fla.: Is there any word on what MSNBC is going to do in their morning drive-time slot? I think they need stability in that slot more than anything. I don't think that having Joe Scarborough on both in the morning and at night is a good long-term solution.

Howard Kurtz: MSNBC has been having a grand bake-off for the Imus time slot, so any stability will have to wait. As I reported this morning, David Gregory is getting a tryout (he filled in right after Imus was dumped) from Wednesday to Friday, and he's the first who will be simulcast by Imus's former New York radio station. Of course, he'd have to give up the White House beat for NBC and his role as a frequent "Today" show fill-in. MSNBC also has tried out radio hosts Stephanie Miller, Michael Smerconish and Larry Elder.

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Washington: What do you think of Giuliani's big speech this weekend in Houston where he argued GOP votes need to be more tolerant on key social issues and focus on 9/11-related issues? While it seems his campaign probably wanted to make a connection to JFK's speech about his Catholicism, I was surprised it didn't generate more scrutiny on Giuliani's foreign policy bono fides -- this is a guy who recently appeared unclear on whether al-Qaeda was Sunni or Shia and hasn't exactly been clear on what we should do in Iraq. Isn't he inviting press scrutiny in an area of weakness with this argument?

Howard Kurtz: I don't know that Rudy has been all that unclear about Iraq. The big issue for him, not just with the mainstream media but with many conservative commentators, remains abortion. He just seemed to be straddling, rhetorically speaking, at that first debate, without changing his basic pro-choice position. The Houston speech represented a decision by his campaign that he ought to unambiguously embrace his pro-choice stance and challenge Republicans who disagree to support him based on other issues. That is a gamble in a GOP primary, but he may not have had much choice.

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Stephanie Miller Was Great!: She's smart, funny and pretty! Although some may complain about her wardrobe malfunction with her magical outfit during that first morning...

Howard Kurtz: On the other hand, she made disparaging remarks about having to move to Secaucus.

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Re: Murdoch Empire: Howard -- today you cite several newspapers slashing staff because of plunging circulation, while Murdoch's Fox Network and newspapers continue to thrive. All the papers you mentioned are left-leaning. Murdoch properties are right-leaning. Could the secret of Murdoch's success be that he is more in touch with how the majority of Americans think than the slumping newspapers?

Howard Kurtz: Murdoch's only U.S. newspaper at the moment is the New York Post, and while its circulation has been growing (fueled by a 25-cent price that the paper recently tried to boost back to 50 cents but abandoned when sales went down) Murdoch loses millions of dollars on the tabloid each year. So while it's a great example of Murdoch being willing to write checks for a media outlet that reflects his views, it's hardly a shining symbol of the marketplace at work. Most publishers, after all, are in business to make money.

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University Park, Md.: I have been reading, and in some cases re-reading, the Journal's Pulitzer-winning China coverage and I think it would be a real tragedy if Murdoch gets Dow Jones. My 20-year-old daughter just returned from a semester in China, and I am more convinced than ever that the U.S.-China relationship will define the 21st century. While The Washington Post and the New York Times do okay, along with the Financial Times and The Economist, the really insightful reporting is in the Journal.

Howard Kurtz: The Journal's reporting there has been great, which is why I highlighted that, in light of Murdoch being willing to make political compromises to preserve his business relationships in China.

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Arlington, Va.: "60 Minutes" hits a new low -- will CBS now explore the history of each candidates church, and ask all 17 or 18 if they had premarital sex? This is worse than Chris Mathews ignoring Social Security and the economy in the Republican debate, and instead focusing on such important issues as creationism.

Howard Kurtz: Well, Matthews's question on evolution did provide a revealing moment, as three of the ten GOP candidates said they did not believe in evolution. I don't think Mike Wallace should have asked Mitt Romney whether he'd engaged in premarital sex, and I don't think any other candidate should be asked that, either. Imagine the follow-ups: Third base? Heavy petting? Let's not go there. Of course, Romney wouldn't have been asked the question if he wasn't a Mormon. It came up when Romney was talking about pursuing his future wife (who is now a converted Mormon) while not believing in premarital sex.

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Saratoga, Calif.: Do you think there is a danger of MSNBC becoming as unfair and unbalanced on the left as Fox News is on the right? It seems that "Countdown" is just as biased in the way it presents the news as some of the "clowns" on Fox.

Howard Kurtz: Keith Olbermann has certainly become a fierce critic of the Bush administration, but MSNBC's Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough are committed conservatives, with Scarborough having been a Republican member of Congress.

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Re: Murdoch: Question on your article -- how much further right can the already-right-wing WSJ Opinion section be dragged by Murdoch? In other words: What's the worry ... seems they're already there? Do you anticipate that the actual WSJ reporting also will suffer a more rightward lean on the news pages?

Howard Kurtz: The Journal editorial board has a weekly show on Murdoch's Fox News, so they seem to be on the same wavelength. As for the news side, that of course is the question. If Murdoch or his lieutenants were to put any pressure on editors and reporters to report the news with a conservative slant, I believe many of them would quit. That, in turn, would hurt the paper's credibility, as I'm sure has occurred to Murdoch.

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New York: If David Gregory is still White House correspondent for NBC, is it a good idea for him to make regular appearances hosting shows like "Hardball," in which guests and the host frequently opine, often gaseously, about the sorts of things Gregory is supposed to more or less objectively report about?

Howard Kurtz: Gaseously? I'm shocked. Look, Brian Williams has appeared on "Hardball." The question is whether a journalistic guest goes beyond the sort of news analysis that he or she would provide on a straight news show. There's always that danger, of course.

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I'm Pretty Ideological, But...: The local newspapers' woes are more a defeat by Craigslist et al than a matter of being too left-leaning. That said, I did cancel my subscription to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after they endorsed a dead guy for senator instead of John Ashcroft.

Howard Kurtz: Seems like you just undercut your own point.

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Seattle: You let a questioner posit that newspapers are left-leaning without challenging that assertion. Can you please go back and set him or her straight?

Howard Kurtz: Depends on the newspaper, the story and the reporter. I don't dispute the notion that many journalists are left of center on social issues and sometimes that can be reflected in their copy or the way they frame stories. I absolutely dispute the idea that most journalists are partisan in a political sense. But hey, don't take my word for it. John McCain told me on his campaign bus a couple of weeks ago that he believes 99 percent of reporters try to do a fair and objective job.

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Re: Arlington, Va.: You might want to sit down for this one ... I am a liberal. I actually agree with Arlington that "60 Minutes" did indeed hit a new low. I disagree almost totally with Romney's politics (which, surprisingly in a "60 Minutes," were only touched upon briefly) but I could not care one whit if he ever had premarital sex and I do not care what religion he practices. What is up with the MSM's obsession with sex rather than more important matters like war and poverty?

Howard Kurtz: Well, sex sells, no question about that, and there are times when infidelity becomes a legitimate political issue. But premarital sex, which in this case would have been four decades ago? Come on. As for the religion issue -- and I think the coverage of Romney has been somewhat unfair in this respect -- it is driven by polls showing that at least a quarter of the population (and the figure seems to be higher among evangelical Christians) would not vote for a Mormon for president.

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St. Paul, Minn.: Here in Minnesota, our big local paper, the Star Tribune, seems to be in chaos. I read online today that 100 reporters were going to be shuffled around. Why would that happen? I've read the paper for years and it seems like they've mostly covered all the important topics. Why suddenly change the jobs of so many journalists? Wouldn't that mean that experts in certain subjects suddenly would be writing about unfamiliar subjects? It makes me suspicious of this private money firm that bought out the Strib...

washingtonpost.com: Guild Leader: 'Star Tribune' Newsroom Shuffle May Affect 100 Beats (Editor & Publisher, May 11)

Howard Kurtz: It would happen because the paper was sold to a venture capital firm which, in addition to the requisite cutting of the staff, seems to have some unorthodox ideas about newspaper management, such as stealing the publisher of the local rival, the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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MSNBC mornings: Somebody tell Joe Scarborough to keep his night job. Clearly the morning drive-time slot turns people into blabbering idiots. I really enjoy the first 15 minutes of Scarborough Country, with Joe's politics panel, but in the a.m. he and John Ridley (otherwise intelligent people) and that dark-haired woman in the very short black dress (I don't know if she is intelligent at other times of the day) just embarrass themselves.

Howard Kurtz: Can he really be that different in the morning? Maybe he needs more caffeine.

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Barrington, R.I.: Congrats to The Post for one of the most amusing columns on Sunday! Who wrote the J. Paul Bremer opinion piece justifying the horrid failure of the CPA and its hacklings in Iraq? No one could imagine a major news media outlet printing such pathetic rubbish with a straight face, so one can only assume it was meant as a parody. Any plans for a Cheney, Bush or Barney piece?

washingtonpost.com: Upcoming Discussion: L. Paul Bremer (washingtonpost.com, 3 p.m. today)

Howard Kurtz: So newspapers should not publish op-ed pieces by people you disagree with? I thought the purpose of an opinion page was to showcase different points of view. If Bremer has a weak argument in defending your tenure, wouldn't other people be smart enough to see that as well?

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McCain's Observation: He's just sucking up to the press corps, trying to get back on the front page. He misses being a media darling.

Howard Kurtz: The second part may be true, but his answer to my question wasn't exactly going to land him on the front page. Nobody even mentioned it but me.

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Kalamazoo, Mich.: Howard, I think you fail to grasp the intricacies of how Murdoch influences the debate. Yeah, his account sheet loses cool $1 million a year on the Weekly Standard, but what he gains in influence is huge when you have Bill Kristol go on Fox News a couple times a week and Fred Barnes on Beltway Boys where they can then broadcast their views and control the airwaves. I'm not a conspiracy theorist by nature, but Murdoch has one of the most well-constructed and deeply disturbing machines for manipulation of the public mindset. Just look at how many Fox News viewers think Saddam and al-Qaeda were connected, or that we found WMD. It's shocking ... your thoughts please?

Howard Kurtz: A "deeply disturbing machine for manipulation of the public mindset"? Listen, I'm as critical as anyone of some of Murdoch's methods and political alliances, which is why I laid them out in this morning's column. But I wanted to pose the question: Is he a savvy enough businessman to realize that being heavy-handed with the Journal would ruin the very asset for which he wants to pay $5 billion? And yes, I understand full well the political and ideological benefits of subsidizing the money-losing Weekly Standard and the New York Post. But you can't then point to the Post as an example of Murdoch being successful in the marketplace, as an earlier questioner did.

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Alexandria, Va.: Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the weeknight talking heads way over on basic cable ... how relevant are they really? Sure, they are out there yakking every night, but how many people actually are watching? I know they don't beat the networks. They don't even beat SpongeBob. Do they beat HBO? I see lots of West Coast Chopper shirts, hats, stickers, etc., but I never see anyone in a Countdown T-shirt. If no one is watching, how can they be relevant to the masses who ignore them (nightly)?

Howard Kurtz: Cable audiences are quite modest compared to the broadcast networks. O'Reilly has the top-rated cable news show, which draws more than 2 million viewers -- which isn't bad but is hardly in "American Idol" territory. But I believe these programs are influential because they're watched by many in the political and journalistic elite and they spark debates that spill over into the rest of the press.

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Re: MSNBC lineup: Is written somewhere in the broadcast journalism rule book that show hosts should be male and the newsreaders should be pert pretty females? I realize there are exceptions, but it appears to me this formula still is adhered to. Any hope for a little more variation?

Howard Kurtz: Well, MSNBC did have Rita Cosby and, earlier, Deborah Norville, but let both of them go. Elsewhere, there's Fox's Greta Van Susteren and CNN's Paula Zahn.

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New York: Does The Post's own "right-leaning" op-ed section affect the reporting in its news pages? If not, how is that kept separate? Is Fred Hiatt involved at all in determining news coverage (or placement of news stories) or does he focus solely on commentary?

Howard Kurtz: I guess I should just have a program key for these chats in which I explain that Fred Hiatt has absolutely, positively nothing to say about anything that appears in the news pages. And by the way, I don't think I'd characterize the op-ed page as right leaning in light of the regular presence of Richard Cohen, E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson and others.

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It came up when Romney was talking about pursuing his future wife (who is now a converted Mormon) while not believing in premarital sex: Well, he brought the subject up, so he should be prepared to answer questions on the issue. He never should have brought up the subject (too much information!) but was trying to brag about his moral superiority. That's what he gets. If one brags about one's moral superiority, one must be prepared to answer questions about it.

Howard Kurtz: I still think it was out of bounds. Easier to understand why Romney felt he had to denounce the practice of polygamy, while acknowledging that his great-great grandfather (I may be off by one "great" there) took multiple wives.

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Reporter Partisanship: One thing that always has bugged me about the left- vs. right-leaning debate on the media is the focus on reporters. They just write the stories. It's the editors that select which stories get Page 1 and which get buried.

Howard Kurtz: I guess we're just cogs in the news factory.

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Princeton, N.J.: Why doesn't The Post have a column called Campaign Fact Check, where the outrageous lies of the various candidates could be exposed? I am thinking of McCain's statement on "Meet the Press" that the tax cuts increased tax revenue, a statement that is denied by every economist, both liberal and conservative.

Howard Kurtz: We fact-check what pols say all the time (although not on every single talk show, obviously). We just don't lump it in a column with a specific logo.

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Washington: Hi Mr. Kurtz, thanks for taking my question. So, are we going to see a feeding frenzy of process stories on Giuliani's gaffe, where his campaign asked an Iowa farm family to host a fundraiser and then backed out because their farm wasn't valuable enough to be subject to the estate tax? If it doesn't get as much press as the Edwards haircut story, isn't that pretty clear evidence of conservative bias in those outlets that neglect the Giuliani story? It always seemed to me that story selection is the real test of whether or not a news outlet is objective.

Howard Kurtz: No, I don't think it's evidence of pretty clear bias because I don't think the two are comparable. While the haircut story has been overblown, Edwards presumably knew about it, since it was his hair being cut, and he had the good sense to say he was embarrassed about it. There's no evidence that Giuliani personally knew about his staff's effort to line up a farming family hit by the estate tax. And I do believe that political staffs looking for real-life examples of this or that policy do this kind of prospecting all the time.

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Brooklyn, N.Y.:"Is he a savvy enough businessman to realize that being heavy-handed with the Journal would ruin the very asset for which he wants to pay $5 billion?" What exactly do you mean by "ruin" and why do you assume that's the only possible outcome of being heavy-handed? By ruin do you mean running it out of business, or influencing its straight news coverage? You've omitted the possibility that Murdoch will "ruin" the paper to financial success. In my opinion Fox has ruined cable news, but it's doing very well for itself and owners.

Howard Kurtz: By ruin, I mean undercut its reputation for journalistic fairness to the point that the brand is tarnished. As the column makes clear, I keep an open mind about this, but certainly have to raise the question in light of Murdoch's track record.

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Rochester, N.Y.: You write "I don't think I'd characterize the op-ed page as right leaning in light of the regular presence of Richard Cohen, E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson and others." Cohen supported the war. As far as I know everyone on your op-ed page supported the war or remained silent about it at the time (I don't recall Dionne or Will opposing it in columns, though they say they were against it all along). Isn't that "right-leaning"?

Howard Kurtz: A number of liberals supported the war, including New Republic editor Peter Beinart, who has since recanted, not to mention Democratic politicians such as John Edwards, who has apologized for his vote. I have a broader definition of "right-leaning" than you apparently do.

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Valparaiso, Ind.: Thanks for the chat. On your show yesterday, posing a question to Bill Press, you said "the liberal media love to focus on Republican divisions on abortion. The New York Times had a page one story yesterday about Giuliani's explanations..." Is this an assertion that the New York Times' news coverage is liberal, or am I reading too much into your words?

Howard Kurtz: You're reading too much into my words. I think the media delight in intra-party divisions on both sides, and for the Republicans, that often involves abortion. But you left out the last part of the question: Aren't conservative commentators now driving the story? Which I asked in part because another guest, Laura Ingraham, had grilled Rudy on the subject on her radio show.

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Seattle: If your paper is going to run a story on Internet incivility, how about providing some examples thereof? Just calling the Internet (I mean, really, the entire Internet?) a vast, venomous place is pretty lazy. And in this constant stream of anti-poster stories, never once do those that write them engage their supposed attackers. I would love to see the critiques of some of the more well-thought-out posters -- Glenn Greenwald is one example -- actually engaged, instead of written off as vitriol. It's a tired game, but The Post seems to enjoy playing it.

washingtonpost.com: Sunshine for the Virtual Town Hall (Post, May 14)

Howard Kurtz: That was an opinion column. The purpose of an opinion column is to provide, how shall I put it, the writer's opinion. I've written at some length about vile and obscene comments being posted on Web sites, including washingtonpost.com, and made clear that while this is a tricky problem, it's a tiny minority of folks who are putting out the really abusive stuff.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

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