Howard Kurtz Covers A Lot of Ground, And Proves Why He's an I-Fave

The Washington Post’s Media Critic Howard Kurtz, who also hosts CNN’s Reliable Sources show, is most fascinated this week by a story involving Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, aka “Fergie.”

As Kurtz explained it, a British tabloid called The News of the World carried out an undercover sting where one of its “reporters,” impersonating a businessman, caught Fergie on tape agreeing to introduce this man to her ex-husband Prince Andrew for a sum of 500,000 pounds.

“The Brits love this sort of blood sport when it comes to the royal family,” said Kurtz, who owed that Fergie’s conduct was appalling, but that this purported news organization’s was worse.

“Why is it okay for a journalist to lie and cheat and deceive and pretend to be somebody else in pursuit of a story?” he asked.

One of the tabloid’s representatives told Kurtz they were performing a public service, which he all but laughed at. “I didn’t know that a washed up, former Weight Watchers spokeswoman was posing any grave threat to British society,” he said.

Also on Kurtz’s radar this week is the gradual shift in tone of the press as it covers the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. “This is the week when the press has really turned on Obama, and really gone hard after the White House about why this has been allowed to fester, why BP is still in charge, why the government isn’t doing something,” he said. It reamains unclear, however, just what people expect or want the government to do.

Even staunch Democrats like James Carville and Donna Brazile, both Louisiana natives, have turned on Obama, saying  the White House should be more involved. Obama will head to the region tomorrow to speak to reporters, but it’s unlikely that maneuver will appease anybody.

“They may be doing a lot behind the scenes,” Kurtz speculated about the White House. The federal government, he added, needs BP, “the oil company who created this problem, that operates this equipment, and knows how to do deep sea operations,” to help solve it.  

Finally, Kurtz reported that Jay Leno is back on top as host of the Tonight Show, with David Letterman now often coming in third to Nightline, the ABC news program.

“My only disappointment with the whole situation is that they’ve toned down attacking each other,” he said, referring to Leno and Letterman. “That was my main interest in the whole late night thing.

And that, Howard, is why we like you.

-Julie Kanfer

Comments

[Canada Doug]

What a breath of fresh air..Howie Kurtz has so much to teach the "reporters" of today
Instead of good hard hitting investigative reporting we end up with the latest Lindsay Lohan
reports. How about our brave young soldiers fighting for their lives in Afganistan while the
President of the country turns a blind eye to his brother's drug dealing