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, Sept. 24 at noon ET to take your questions and comments.

A transcript follows

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San Francisco: When was the last time, in your memory, that anyone got to appear on all the Sunday gabfests on the same day? Sen. Clinton, who made no news that I heard, promised no exclusives and yet got all the networks and cable news to agree to have her. How does that work, exactly?

Howard Kurtz: It's happened a few times, and in fact is known as the Full Ginsburg, named after Monica Lewinksy's onetime lawyer, William Ginsburg, who pulled off the feat in 1998. Hillary has stayed off the Sunday shows since declaring for president, so they all jumped at the chance to have her, even though no one was happy at having her everywhere at once.

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Wake Forest, N.C.: Why was Dan Rather vilified over one possible breach of journalistic ethics while ABC and Brian Ross have been given a free pass after using the fake terrorism expert Alexis Debat on many of their stories?

Howard Kurtz: I don't think ABC has gotten a free pass, but no one has yet cited an incorrect fact that the network reported as a result of its association with Debat. And by the time it came to light that Debat had faked interviews with all kinds of prominent Americans for a French magazine, ABC had already fired him for falsely claiming to have earned a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. Rather's problem remains what it was when the Memogate story blew up in 2004: proving that the documents are real, despite CBS's admission that they have not been authenticated.

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Bluffton, S.C.: Love reading your Media Notes blog. Today's was particularly packed full. About Secretary Rice being dissed by Schieffer and Russert because the talking points have all been heard -- have either of those fellows noticed how often they have Joe Biden on and he never gets off script? And Hillary sure was on message yesterday. As a news junkie I checked out 4 of her appearances and by the last one I knew exactly what was going to come out of her mouth. She sure can filibuster. A true master, taking one phrase from the question and turning it into her stump speech. Why do you think her interviewers didn't dare interrupt her?

Howard Kurtz: I think a couple of them did interrupt her a couple of times. It's more difficult to do with a guest at a remote location (in this case Chappaqua) as opposed to sitting in the studio. Your larger point, though, is right: If the Sunday shows banned all guests who try to get their talking points out, they would wind up with nothing but monologues by Tim, Bob, George, Wolf and Chris.

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Marcia Clark now a journalist?: Howard, is there something that you, the media, can do to stop this? Entertainment Tonight has hired Marcia Clark as a reporter for the new O.J. case? Amazing. Talk about a biased reporter! It seems they believe they can put the term "reporter" on anyone these days, no?

Howard Kurtz: Well, I don't know if she'd call herself a journalist, but it is odd to see the newly blonde former prosecutor acting as a pundit in the case of the man she failed to convict of murder.

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Lincolnshire, Ill.: The staged outrage over the MoveOn ad targeting General Petraeus should have prompted some commentary and analysis regarding our myopic tendency to treat the military as a sacred cow. After the Powell debacle at the UN, we should have learned something about the Bush administration's willingness to exploit the military for it's own political purposes. Why have you failed so utterly to examine the facts behind the ad and the Republican's obvious attempts to drive a wedge between Democratic candidates and MoveOn?

Howard Kurtz: The Post ran a lengthy truth-squad piece last week on the accuracy of the MoveOn ad (the political debate, of course, has largely focused on the "Betray Us" headline and whether that went too far). And the media in general have made quite clear that Republicans, including President Bush last Thursday, have tried to drive a wedge between Democrats and MoveOn.

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Princeton, N.J.: But Howard, has there ever been any proof that the facts alleged by Rather about Bush's "service" were not true?

Howard Kurtz: It doesn't work that way. If you go on national television with what purport to be 30-year-old National Guard documents, you have to prove them to be true, not say that the burden is one someone else to disprove them. Especially when the source of the documents admits that he lied to you and can't prove where the memos came from, and the late commander's secretary said she didn't type them. It's not as if Bush's problems with the Guard were a secret at that point, but Rather claimed to have new information in the form of these documents.

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Chicago: How much significance will be attached to newspaper endorsements in the early primary states? Do the decisions of the Des Moines Register or the Union Leader (New Hampshire), etc., carry the weight that they once did? Or, have the blogs and the 'Nets (where so many activists ... the people most likely to vote in a primary) eroded the power of local papers to make a difference?

Howard Kurtz: The Manchester Union Leader isn't as influential as it once was, but it's still a very big deal in the New Hampshire GOP primary. The paper's 1992 endorsement of Pat Buchanan helped him make a strong showing against the first President Bush, and to win the primary four years later. (In both years it was downhill from there.) Its influence ha been enhanced because there is only one network affiliate in New Hampshire, WMUR-TV. My recollection is that the Des Moines Register backed John Edwards last time and he surged to a second-place finish.

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McLean, Va.: Why haven't commentators talked more about Rudy Giuliani's claim that MoveOn "shouldn't be allowed" to attack General Petraeus? Did he mean that they should be arrested?

Howard Kurtz: I sure hope that's not what he meant. Presumably Rudy has read the First Amendment.

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Alexandria, Va., re: the Florida taser incident: Howard, I am saddened at the response to the Florida taser incident. I watched the entire episode (from several vantage points) and it was apparent that the student had done nothing to merit his being detained in the first place: he asked a few questions, made a speech. The police stated that they arrested in for "inciting a riot" - a ludicrous pretext of a charge.

And yet people in the media have gone to great lengths to point out that the student runs a Web site, or is a publicity hound, or was rude or obnoxious, as if this excuses the police's conduct. I saw news anchors tacitly smirking when reporting the story, as if he somehow deserved this treatment.

Where is our sense of history? The people who stood on the front lines of changing our society have always been its most vociferous, most unlikable or unpleasant citizens. For example, Patrick Henry was horribly obnoxious. By contrast, Dick Cheney speaks in measured tones while tacitly condoning torture. Indeed, Colin Powell, Congress, all were docile, polite, while this administration got us into this debacle in Iraq.

This student may have been a blithering idiot -- so what? Isn't the point that our free speech guarantees are designed to protect even the most offensive speech? Or are your colleagues in the media so enraptured with frat boy civility that you would rather unpleasant truths be ignored?

Howard Kurtz: There's no question in my mind that the campus police overreacted. But anyone who looks at the tape will see that Andrew Meyer is clearly fighting and resisting arrest. That doesn't justify the tasering, but it does show why things escalated out of control.

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Doylestown, Pa.: "I've been scouring the Net, searching for anyone this side of Mary Mapes who says Dan Rather helped himself with his $70-million suit against CBS. No luck."

Should have looked in your own paper, Mr. Kurtz. Eugene Robinson seems to think Rather is doing himself some good.

Howard Kurtz: True. But that was not up when I finished the column. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times's Tim Rutten really rips Rather in his column today.

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St. Paul, Minn.: Another Rudy question. That phone call he took the other day during his speech to the NRA. What did you think of it? Apparently, this has happened at least once before.

Howard Kurtz: Mark me down as suspicious, especially because it's happened a couple of times before. He couldn't silence his cell, or give it to an aide, during the speech?

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Katy, Texas: TimesSelect has come to an end. Any overriding reason? What was the subscription numbers?

Howard Kurtz: The overriding reason was that the Times was limiting access to some of its biggest stars, and thereby forfeiting not just more page views but greater advertising revenue that would have come with those page views. As it stood, 225,000 people signed up for the $49.95-a-year service, which brought the company an additional $10 million in annual income. That's a nice chunk of change. But it's hard to be one of the few newspapers charging for content when everyone else is doing it for free. Rupert Murdoch is now saying he may drop the subscription fee for WSJ.com when he takes over the Journal.

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Green Bay, Wis.: We hear a lot about the "church-state wall" between advertising and editorial at newspapers. Has the New York Times given up on that considering the "Betray Us" ad? If so, it seems like a rare case of editorial influence advertising, rather than the other way around.

Howard Kurtz: The Times now says the cheaper rate was a mistake by the advertising department. I haven't seen any evidence that the editorial department had anything to do with it. So the argument boils down to whether there is a liberal ethos at the paper so all-pervasive that it seeps through the air into the offices of the salesmen who sell ads.

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Chicago: I am not defending the Move On ad -- however, why hasn't someone on the Left complained about the charge that anyone calling for a draw-down of troops is "surrendering" to the enemy? To me, that's equally offensive as "betrayal".

Howard Kurtz: I think some on the left have complained about that insinuation, although if any Petraeus defender has put it that explicitly, I missed it.

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Los Angeles: Why have so many papers and networks -- including The Post -- reported that the Petraeus testimony has "shifted the debate" on Iraq when the majority of polls show no such thing?

Howard Kurtz: I think what the papers are suggesting is that it affected the Washington political battle, not public opinion at large. The Democrats entered September hoping that they could draw enough Republican votes to a compromise proposal to at least limit tours of duty for U.S. soldiers, which would have the effect of reducing troop levels. That effort has failed, at least for now, and many analysts are citing the Petraeus testimony.

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Rochester, N.Y.: I realize this isn't your favorite topic, but I hope you'll get this.

Will the Dan Rather suit bring out into the open the perils of large corporate ownership? I'm referring specifically to the allegation that Sumner Redstone killed stories to curry favor with the Bush admin. Isn't that in fact what any good CEO would do if he owned a TV network and had other important business before the government? It seems to be patently absurd that we can expect good news coverage from an organization that is owned by a company with larger interests that might be affected by the organization's news coverage. That's just common sense, no? How come no one ever talks about this?

Howard Kurtz: Corporate ownership of media organizations is a problem, but I don't know whether the Rather suit will shed any light on that. Even Rather does not allege that Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom, "killed" any stories. After all, Rather's former network did run the Bush/National Guard story. What Rather's suit does is address the aftermath: Redstone said he would like to see Bush reelected, and Rather was forced from the anchor chair and, after a stint at "60 Minutes," his contract wasn't renewed. I don't know whether Redstone played a role in those decisions or not. Rather was, after all, somewhat radioactive after that Memogate story blew up. He apologized on the air. In the past, he has maintained that he relinquished the anchor chair voluntarily, but now says he was dumped, and that he was pressured into the apology as well.

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Valparaiso, Ind.: On "Good Morning America" today, I saw Chris Cuomo grilling the president of Columbia University over the visit of Ahmadinejad. It's ironic that there was no mention of the months-earlier interview of Ahmadinejad by Diane Sawyer, clad in a head scarf. Wouldn't any argument to air an interview with Iran's president, also be a valid argument to allow him to speak at a university? Do you think this is why Cuomo, and not Sawyer, conducted today's interview? And when did free speech become a controversial topic?

Howard Kurtz: That's an interesting question. Certainly, there are those who think journalists (such as Diane Sawyer and Brian Williams) shouldn't interview hostile heads of state (just as some slammed Dan Rather for his sit-down with Saddam on the eve of war). The journalistic argument is that it is better to understand how our enemies think, however odious their views may be. When a university invites someone like Ahmadinejad, there is inevitably a free speech debate that has to be covered. I don't see any reason why Sawyer couldn't have covered that as well.

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Taser incident: So let me get this straight -- Andrew Meyer goes to a public event, bullies his way to the front of the line, goes on and on and on with no intention of ever letting anyone else talk or answer his "questions" and now he's a free speech hero? Give me a break.

Howard Kurtz: Clearly, opinion is divided on this. My main point in this morning's column is that we wouldn't even be talking about this had another student not taped the incident and sent the footage to CNN and YouTube. If all we had were written accounts based on interviews, it would have gotten three paragraphs in the paper.

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Atlanta: Howard, I swear, I think you are avoiding my question! Over the last month or so, Chris Matthews has been -- how can I put this? -- sexually harassing female guests! He told one guest to "move closer to the camera so I can get a better look at you." He was so over-complimentary, to the point of fawning, over Laura Ingraham, you could even see that she was uncomfortable. Is Chris having a mid-life crisis? Going through a divorce? What?

Howard Kurtz: I wrote about the incident involving Erin Burnett in my recent profile of her. Chris Matthews is an exuberant fellow. Whether he went too far or was just joking around (or both) is up to viewers to decide. But I don't think we can brand it sexual harassment when he was in Washington and she was in New York.

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Raleigh, N.C.: This is a comment that I hope elicits a comment from you. In your column today, you mentioned something Arianna Huffington wrote, criticizing the media for a pro-conservative bias. My take is that left blogs are satisfied with public opinion, which is very strongly on their side on Bush and Iraq. What the left is upset with is that elite pundits and political leaders are so weirdly out of step with public opinion on those issues. For example, Bush's approval ratings were terrible for a very long time while the media would still describe him as "popular," and politicians would still fear him. (And in light of Bush's ratings, too many politicians still fear him.) In my opinion, left blogs and left activists believe that if media elites would reflect public opinion on Bush and the war, then politicians would follow suit.

I see that as rather wrong-headed, in that it assumes that media drive politicians more than politicians drive the media. In my view, the latter is a bigger factor.

Sorry there's no question here.

Howard Kurtz: I got into a debate with Arianna on that point. Her argument that the media weren't fact-checking Bush's claims about the progress of the war simply wasn't supported by the facts. I pointed to accounts in The Washington Post, on CNN and elsewhere that specifically challenged the president.

Here's how one Post story began: "In his speech last night, President Bush made a case for progress in Iraq by citing facts and statistics that at times contradicted recent government reports or his own words."

Maybe there should have been more of this. But the question is whether Arianna wants an aggressive media that challenges the White House or wants journalists to function as antiwar activists.

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Los Angeles: Here's a pretty basic, Journalism 101 question:

In Cillizza and Murray's piece this weekend, they cite a poll that's unfavorable to Obama and Clinton. Why didn't they say that the poll came from Celinda Lake, who works for Joe Biden, one of the front-runners' opponents?

Howard Kurtz: Absolutely fair point. It should have been mentioned. I just checked to see if you were right and came across a story -- "Celinda Lake Joins Biden's 2008 Team" -- by Chris Cillizza.

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Baltimore: Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but your article on point-and-click journalism seems to support a trend in the MSM. With few exceptions, notably the Walter Reed story, most MSM stories these days are reactionary. Reporting on an event, press releases and press conferences seems to be the norm. There are fewer and fewer real investigative stories out there. Is the problem that investigations cost money and don't always pan out? Or is it just inertia/laziness?

Howard Kurtz: I disagree with your premise. The New York Times story disclosing Bush's secret eavesdropping program. The Washington Post story disclosing the existence of secret CIA prisons overseas. ABC's story on Mark Foley's sexually explicit emails to teenage House pages. Those are just a few examples of reporting that is hardly reactionary.

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Alexandria, Va.: I completely disagree with you about Republicans trying to drive a wedge between Democrats and MoveOn. Republicans -love- MoveOn, and would much rather associate them with Democrats in voters' eyes than wedge them apart.

Howard Kurtz: I don't think those are mutually exclusive. If a Republican -- say, I don't know, the president -- demands that the Democrats denounce the MoveOn ad, he is tying those who don't to the controversial group. This is an old rhetorical trick in politics. Remember when David Geffen launched a harsh attack on the Clintons, and Hillary demanded that Obama return any contributions from him? It's a device to tie a politician to something questionable that someone else did or said. The Democrats didn't know anything about the MoveOn ad, and so are hardly responsible, but the group does raise a lot of money for Democrats.

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Arlington, Va.: You don't think it's possible to sexually harass some one remotely? What if he called her "toots" and told her he liked her bosom?

Howard Kurtz: It would be all over YouTube.

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Re: Florida tasering: Howard, I think Alexandria's point was that there was no reason for the police to detain the student in the first place. No one has made much of this fact.

Howard Kurtz: As I said, the police overreacted. Kerry didn't call for the guy to be removed. And being obnoxious isn't against the law. But once police started escorting him out, however wrong-headed that may have been, Meyer's struggling with the cops clearly contributed to the escalation of the incident.

Thanks for the chat, folks.

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