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."

He was online Monday, August 6, at noon ET to take your questions and comments.

A transcript follows

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Avon Park, Fla.: I must say that I was a little upset that George Stephanopolous read the Republican candidates' poll numbers before their Iowa debate on Sunday. What was the purpose for that? That has never happened before the other debates. I don't think it's fair to the lower-tier candidates. Isn't this an example of the the press putting too much stock in national polls?

Howard Kurtz: I was really struck by that. It just seemed, I don't know, crass. It kind of diminished those who were at 1 percent and 2 percent as they stood on that stage. Obviously, ABC was trying to promote its Iowa poll, done with The Washington Post, but it might have seemed less jarring if the numbers had been flashed on the screen once the debate was under way.

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Belmar, N.J.: Now that Tony Snow has been handling the spokesperson job long enough that we've seen him say some very questionable things, I was wondering if any reporter has ever asked him if the administration realizes that there is either a paper trail, videotape or audiotape of everything they say? I mean, it's getting easier and easier for someone like Jon Stewart to point out their lies. I realize the MSM still doesn't like to use the word lie, but when you see a clear video of them saying one thing and contradicting the statement a few months later, what would you call it?

Howard Kurtz: I think White House reporters have challenged Snow again and again on the things he says, and that Tony seems to relish this kind of combat. I certainly challenged him in an interview last year, at one point reading him a negative assessment of Bush and asking him who had said it. (It was Snow himself, pre-White House employment.) You can see these exchanges in the transcripts, since cable news obviously doesn't carry the briefings every day. I will say this: In contrast to Scott McClellan, Snow is willing to engage in sharp debate with reporters rather than just repeat talking points (although he does that ,too, on occasion).

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GOP Debate: Hi, Howard -- I caught a few minutes of the CBS morning show today. They started out talking about the Republican debate in Iowa, but instead of showing sound bites and pithy moments, they brought in a commentator to talk about Rudy's wife and his family issues.

When they cover the Democrat debates, they always have face time for Hillary, Obama, and one other token candidate. This is why people say that CBS "News" is biased.

Howard Kurtz: I'm surprised that CBS didn't play any bites at all, if that's the case. Everyone seems to be jumping on Judith Giuliani -- don't underestimate the impact of yesterday's front-page New York Times profile, which followed that scathing piece in Vanity Fair (which I discussed with the author on my show). But the candidates talked substance in that debate, and it certainly deserved some air time.

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Floris, Va.: Howie: Off to Georgetown Hospital for an MRI so asking this question early a.m. On Friday you wrote in your column"... [Edwards] has boycotted the cable channel only since Jan. 23. Before that, Edwards appeared on Fox programs 33 times."

Who was your source for that statement -- Fox? And did the Post's researchers independently verify the claim? Does a 22-second snippet of a speech Edwards gave and has no control over which organizations run the footage constitute an "appearance"? How about two questions hurled by a Fox reporter that Edwards answers after a press conference in order not to appear churlish -- is that an "appearance"? While I'm sure Edwards has appeared on Fox because he's under contract to sell a book or was running for national office, it's very likely that you can count any actual appearances on one hand.

Howard Kurtz: I checked the figure with the Edwards campaign and his folks did not dispute it. "Appearances" refers to separate interviews with a Fox reporter or on a Fox show, not a couple of sound bites from the day's events.

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16th and M, Northwest D.C.: Fox apologists say that a right-leaning counterweight is needed to the mainstream media, which tilts left. If this canard was true, however, there would be no difference between The Washington Post, the New York Times, NBC news, etc. and publications like Mother Jones and the Nation.

But there ARE differences, ones big enough to drive a truck through. People that accuse the MSM of bias ought to broaden their horizons and fetch a copy of either Mother Jones or the Nation. They might not agree with what they read, but it would certainly put other reportage in perspective.

Howard Kurtz: The MSM is a very big tent that too often is reduced to a singular caricature. There are even differences between, say, the New York Times and Washington Post editorial pages.

I don't believe that the Nation and Mother Jones, as opinion-driven magazines, consider themselves part of the MSM. (I have an item in this morning's column on how Mother Jones is ramping up from two reporters to seven in D.C.).

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Sterling, Va.: Hi Howie, I've been meaning to ask the following question for several weeks: When there is an important testimony, hearing or proceeding in Congress, why doesn't the cable news channels broadcast it live? When I was in junior high school, they broadcast a lot of the Watergate deliberations in class. Now, the testimony of Alberto Gonzalez or a Monica Goodling in front of the Senate judiciary committee really is nothing short of riveting. The news channels have the staff, resources and analytical ability to explain and, more importantly for ratings sake, dramatize and hype the implications of what's going on. I do not buy the argument that since this stuff is on C-Span3 or on the Internet, then the info is available for anyone who is interested. What I'm puzzled about is why the networks don't make a play for ratings out of these Congressional testimonies. There's a lot of good raw material there to get excited about and it doesn't take a lot of effort to roll out non-partisan political analysis just to explain the constitutional implications.

Howard Kurtz: I suppose the one-word answer would be: ratings. While Fox and MSNBC were willing to go wall to wall with the Anna Nicole hearings before soon-to-be-celebrity-TV-judge Larry Seidlin, congressional hearings rarely get such coverage -- or draw a big audience. In fairness, having covered dozens of hearings on the Hill, they can be slow, repetitive and tedious. But I do think parts of them could be carried on important subjects. The cable networks spent endless time discussing the firing of the U.S. attorneys, but when Monica Goodling testified, they took the first few minutes and dumped out. That hearing had drama as well as substantive importance, but it didn't make the cut.

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Washington, D.C.: Are you in the MSM aware that you the media, not we the people, pick the president of the United States? It's sad really, that an obsessive fixation on things such as haircuts, cleavage, and earth tones make that much of a difference ... but alas, they probably do.

Howard Kurtz: You, The People? Actually I hadn't heard that.

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Baltimore: Re the Judith (don't call me Judi) Guiliani profile in Vanity Fair: Is this likely to have any long-term affect on the presidential campaign? If half of what Judy Bachrach wrote is true, Mrs. Giuliani seems to have stepped out of the pages of a 19th century British novel about a woman, born to less than wealthy circumstances, who does anything to get what she thinks she deserve in life. Oddly enough, William Thackery's novel, Vanity Fair, created the prototype in Miss Becky Sharp.

Howard Kurtz: I don't know -- it depends on how many votes might be swayed by Rudy's marriage. Many political analysts think the spouse's importance in presidential politics is overstated. I think the issue for Rudy is not so much Judi as his messy personal life overall, as exemplified by his very ugly and very public divorce from Donna Hanover when he was mayor. The Giulianis need to figure out a way to make her more accessible to the press, as perhaps they have started to do by arranging for her to talk to the New York Times for yesterday's profile. Otherwise, everyone else will get to define Judith Giuliani, and she seems to have her share of detractors.

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Johnson City, Tenn.: Why does the Washington Post and the MSM feel compelled to portray illegal immigrants as heroes when the great majority have committed felonies (making up or stealing SSN punishable by $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison)? Why do they frame them in the words "just trying to make a better life for my family and risked their lives" when the great majority of individuals in prison today could say the exact same thing. Why the disconnect between reporters and the majority of U.S. citizens concerning illegal immigration?

Howard Kurtz: I don't know where you get the information that the "great majority" have committed felonies. Nor do I think The Post has portrayed them as heroes, though there has certainly been sympathy for those who work hard and try to give a better life to their children. I don't think we can or should lose sight of the fact that they broke the law to get here, but as a practical matter you can't kick 12 million people out of the country. President Bush recognized this in proposing a path to citizenship for those here illegally while also trying to tighten border security.

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For 16th and M: Most conservatives who would accuse the media of bias would assert that having a spectrum that runs from the very liberal Mother Jones to the left of center Post is like someone in a bar saying that they have both kinds of music -- country and western.

Howard Kurtz: Although as many of The Post's detractors have pointed out, the "left of center" Post supported the Iraq war and largely continues to support the war on its editorial page.

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Cincinnati, Ohio: Howard: Love your work, thanks for the continually interesting columns. I do have one quibble from your chat last week. Regarding the Republicans and the YouTube debate, you typed: "Governor, how are you going to deal with Osama bin Laden if you can't deal with a snowman?"

This is a fair point, but do you realize that this is the exact same quote that Roger Ailes used in talking about the Democrats that ducked a Fox News debate? I don't know if your comment was intentional or not.

As a Republican, I do believe that the Republican candidates should have a YouTube event, but the Democrats should receive some criticism for ducking Fox News. The reasoning is the same as yours: if they cower in front of Fox News, how are they going to handle al-Qaeda and Osama?

Howard Kurtz: I don't see how Ailes could have used the same quote, since my tongue-in-cheek remark was specifically in response to CNN's YouTube debate for Democrats and whether Romney and other Republicans would participate in another CNN/YouTube debate. That doesn't seem to apply to Fox at all. If Ailes did say something like that, I was unaware of it.

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New York: Howard, Dick Cheney claims he's a member of the legislative branch when he claims to be above laws concerning classified information, but Cheney claims he's a member of the Executive branch when he claims "executive privilege" defying Congressional subpoenas. So Cheney claims he is always above any law. Why won't the WaPo call him out on that? Does the WaPo support a dictatorship in this country?

Howard Kurtz: Here is the front-page story that The Post ran on June 22:

Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.

Since 2003, the vice president's staff has not cooperated with an office at the National Archives and Records Administration charged with making sure the executive branch protects classified information. Cheney aides have not filed reports on their possession of classified data and at one point blocked an inspection of their office. After the Archives office pressed the matter, the documents say, Cheney's staff this year proposed eliminating it.

The dispute centers on a relatively obscure process but underscores a wider struggle waged in the past 6 1/2 years over Cheney's penchant for secrecy. Since becoming vice president, he has fought attempts to peer into the inner workings of his office, shielding an array of information such as the names of industry executives who advised his energy task force, costs and other details about his travel, and Secret Service logs showing who visits his office or official residence.

The aggressive efforts to protect the operations of his staff have usually pitted Cheney against lawmakers, interest groups or media organizations, sometimes going all the way to the Supreme Court. But the fight about classified information regulation indicates that the vice president has resisted oversight even by other parts of the Bush administration. Cheney's office argued that it is exempt from the rules in this case because it is not strictly an executive branch agency.

"He's saying he's above the law," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which released a series of correspondence yesterday outlining the situation. "It just seems to me this is arrogant and shows bad judgment."

And here is what Post columnist Ruth Marcus later wrote:

Of all the vice president's excesses, this one barely registers on the Cheney Scale. Its seismic impact, rather, stems from the combination of so many Cheneyesque attributes: mania for secrecy, resistance to oversight, willingness to twist the law and assertion of unreviewable power.

Not exactly letting the guy off the hook. The veep has since backed off that stance, by the way.

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Rochester, N.Y.: No offense, Howard, but do you ever get tired writing about ginned up "controversies" from the right-wing blogosphere? This one with the New Republic seemed particularly pathetic. What proportion of these turn out be true at all? Has there been a single significant one since 2004 (I'll grant you the CBS memos one from 2004)? Why do you write about them, given that they will almost certainly turn out be bogus?

Howard Kurtz: When the editor of the New Republic tells me in an interview that he takes the questions that were raised about his Baghdad diarist seriously and has launched his own investigation -- that to me is a story. I was the first newspaper reporter to write about TNR's Stephen Glass, and I also exposed the serial fabricators Jayson Blair and Jack Kelley, so I take this stuff seriously. Just because I report that questions have been raised, though, doesn't mean that I think a journalistic fraud has been committed.

Conservatives in the blogosphere certainly gang up on liberal targets (Dan Rather and Memogate), and liberals in the blogosphere have been known to do the same thing (Jeff Gannon). Both of these cases, and others, turned out to be important stories. At the same time, I always make clear when ideological motivations are involved.

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One Quick Bite: CBS did play a five-second clip of Romney defending his anti-abortion actions as governor -- which gave them a chance to paint the frontrunner as a flip-flopper. Otherwise, nada.

Howard Kurtz: Good to hear. On the other hand, that was the roughest exchange of the debate and was featured prominently in most print accounts.

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Washington, D.C.: Howard: there is now a spate of stories across the MSM for the past couple of months about mortgage failures and the problems caused by creative mortgage financing in a down-town.

Do you think the Media is doing/has done a good job on this growing problem? I mean, I see all of these stories about how bad these loans are for banks and lendees, but do you think these financial stories were well covered back when times were good? I don't really recall much in the way of financial reporting to the effect of "Watch it, what goes up comes down. ..." The MSM seemed to be just as giddy as the lenders and the lendees. Thoughts?

Howard Kurtz: I think the media are doing a good job NOW, but while I'm sure there are exceptions, I don't think a terribly good job was done before. In that sense, it reminded me of the S&L crisis that went undetected by the media until all these federally insured banks started failing. To be sure, lots of stories were written about whether there was a housing bubble as prices shot up dramatically, and some questioned whether credit had gotten too easy to obtain. But I didn't know, for instance, that there were so many no-money-down mortgage loans out there, which sounds like a formula for disaster.

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16th and M again: "I don't believe that the Nation and Mother Jones, as opinion-driven magazines, consider themselves part of the MSM."

That's what I'm sayin'. The MSM don't have the supposed liberal bias, the Nation does.

Howard Kurtz: An opinion magazine, whether it's the Weekly Standard or the Nation, can't be "biased." It's in business to publish opinion. It may not be opinion you agree with, but bias generally applies to news stories that purport to be honest accounts of some event or development but are not. Of course, opinion magazines can be unfair, superficial, misrepresent statistics and all the rest. But essentially, they declare their bias up front.

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Chaska, Minn.: Apparently due to the recent purchase of the Wall Street Journal by Murdoch, a court case I was not aware of has been making the round around the blogosphere. Apparently Fox was sued by some of their reporters under the whistleblower laws because Fox News wanted to include some info from the company being discussed. The reporters knew the statement was false and refused. The reporters were fired and sued and Fox claimed they were allowed to broadcast false statements as news because it's protected under the free speech provision of the constitution. They lost in the jury trial, but persevered in the appeals court.

August 18, 2000, a unanimous Florida jury found that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) "a false, distorted or slanted story." The jury awarded her $425,000 in damages.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals overturned the settlement awarded to Akre.

How does the rest of the media regard this decision? Is this what we can expect from the WSJ? Yikes.

Howard Kurtz: This involved one local Fox station, so I don't know that there's any connection to Murdoch and the Journal. Here's what I reported at the time:

Reporter Jane Akre, who was fired by Fox affiliate WTVT in Tampa over an investigative story on a milk hormone, has won a $ 425,000 jury verdict. She and her husband, Steve Wilson, say the station pressed them to put false information in their story after complaints from Monsanto Co., a hormone manufacturer. The jury found no wrongdoing in the couple's firing but said WTVT violated Florida's whistle-blower law after Akre threatened to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission.

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Louisville, Colo.: Hi Howard,

Amid the calls for increasing taxes after the Minnesota bridge collapse, the media has done almost no presentation of what is actually being spent on infrastructure maintenance and new construction.

Is this because it's difficult to research or because editors don't believe that readers are interested in actual numbers?

In general, there is a lot of reporting about new legislation, but very little reporting about how effectively governments actually spend money.

Howard Kurtz: I couldn't agree more with your last point. I do think in the wake of the Minneapolis collapse that there has been a lot of reporting on how many bridges are deemed structurally deficient and how much money is spent on maintenance, especially in local newspapers and on local stations. But where were these stories before? A few outlets did a good job, but journalists, like politicians, prefer to focus on things that are new: A new project, a new program, a new plan. Maintenance of infrastructure is considered boring -- until a bridge collapses and people die. You see the same pattern with other federal agencies: How many pieces were written about the dysfunction at FEMA before Katrina?

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Anonymous: Has anyone asked Mitt Romney something like, "If you were such a great governor, why didn't you run for reelection after serving only one term? How good can your record be if you didn't have the courage to defend it to the voters of your own state?"

Howard Kurtz: No one, to my knowledge, has asked that. Obviously, he made a calculation, unlike Michael Dukakis, that it would be easier to run for president without being encumbered by an actual job.

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Washington DC: Re media coverage of meltdowns in the economy: It seems we go through one of these debacles every 10 years or so. In the late '80s, it was the S&L deregulation scandal. In the early 2000s, it was the dot com bust. Now it is subprime mortgages. It seems that after the fact, the media can point to exactly where things went wrong, but they are strangely silent beforehand. Are these stories simply too complex or hard to untangle? Or are they just too unsexy for lots of column inches until the bottom falls out? Thank you.

Howard Kurtz: I think the media performance was somewhat better on the housing market than during the dot-com boom, when, as I've written, too many outlets served as cheerleaders for companies with no earnings whose stocks were reaching ridiculous heights. Too many journalists got swept up in the mania, and anyone who didn't jump in was made to feel like a bozo with magazine covers that asked why YOU weren't getting rich too. Having been burned, there was a more sober tone to the housing market coverage and a recognition that the boom couldn't last forever. But there wasn't enough focus on all the shaky loans that would obviously spell trouble when the downturn came.

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Plainsboro, N.J.: Mr. Kurtz: I was just listening to yesterday's episode of the "NPR: It's all Politics" podcast. It is hosted by NPR political director Ken Rudin and another guy whose name I don't remember. They were referring to the "trophy wife" of former Sen. Thomson in a very disrespectful tone. Nothing explicit mind you, but a lot of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, "say no more" variety. And then referring to Clinton and Obama, one of the podcasters said, "Which one of them is the male?" or something very close to that. I was shocked. We are talking about the political director for NPR (who seems to think that he is a comedian). Just because it is a podcast, it does not mean you can dispense of all dignity. What do you think of such locker-room banter on podcasts?

Howard Kurtz: Well, I'd be shocked and appalled at the trophy wife reference, except that the New York Times devoted an entire article to whether Jeri Thompson deserved that label.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Slate had an online article about Guliani's daughter supporting Obama. They saw that she was in an Obama group on her Facebook page, sent her an inquiry. After they sent an inquiry she left the group and didn't answer the e-mails from Slate. ...

How would you handle this -- is it news to report that she was in an Obama group even though you can't get confirmation that she supports him and she won't talk? Is it a safe assumption that she does support him since she was in that group? The end of the article said "Caroline's Facebook profile does not reveal why she doesn't want her father to win the White House." Probably not safe to assume that, either.

Howard Kurtz: Since Caroline is a teenager, my inclination would be to leave her the hell alone. On the other hand, anyone who posts things on Facebook has to know by now that it is a public declaration that will leak out -- especially if you happen to be the daughter of a Republican presidential candidate. In effect, Giuliani's daughter decided to go public with the news that she is not supporting her father.

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Dallas: Why so few stories on bridge repair before the accident? Reporters would rather write, and ask questions, about haircuts. ...

Howard Kurtz: Apparently the big news in Minnesota was a major appropriation for a new Twins stadium. Now we learn there are about 150,000 bridges across the country that are rated as "structurally deficient." Would have been a good story for someone. Actually, I'm sure we'll learn that a handful of journalists did point this out, but it hardly received widespread media attention.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

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