Howard Kurtz Claims He'd Turn Down Opportunity to Interview Casey Anthony

Because Imus asked, Howard Kurtz said he supposed more people read his writing now that he works for The Daily Beast. Informed of the I-Man’s displeasure with the online news site’s new layout, Kurtz sarcastically replied, “I’ll pass that along to Tina Brown.”
 
He was less loyal to his other employer, CNN, in discussing their decision to hire—and subsequently fire—Eliot Spitzer from his nightly hosting duties on the network.
 
“That was not the most brilliant idea CNN ever had,” Kurtz, whose show Reliable Sources also airs on CNN, said. Though he commended Spitzer’s “aggressive” interviewing style, Kurtz noted the decision to oust him was likely to make room for Erin Burnett, whom CNN recently poached from CNBC.
 
But Burnett, like any cable news star, can only hope to score the same ridiculous ratings garnered over the last six weeks by the Casey Anthony trial, which reached its fateful conclusion last week when the jury declared Anthony not guilty of murdering her two-year old daughter Caylee.
 
“It was appalling in terms of the way in which it just seemed to take over the American media,” said Kurtz, who was the Washington Post’s media critic and still covers it for The Daily Beast. “There was undoubtedly more arguing, and more coverage, and more legal loudmouths popping off about this verdict last week than there was about the fact that the entire country’s about to go into default.”
 
Anthony’s trial was, he observed, “basically a local crime story” that got blown up into a national soap opera because Anthony is “white, and attractive, and goes to parties while her kid is missing.” The media has been doing this for years, Kurtz insisted, because “it’s very good for ratings, and it’s very good for online traffic.”
 
Imus didn’t buy Kurtz’s outrage, and swiftly accused him of being part of the problem. “Become a brain surgeon if you’re so unhappy with the media,” he suggested.
 
But Kurtz was unrelenting in his criticism, and noted that in three years, yesterday was the first time he talked about Casey Anthony on Reliable Sources, and it was only to discuss the media’s overboard coverage.
 
More worthy of media attention, in his view, is the standoff between President Obama and the Republicans over raising the debt ceiling, an issue that must be resolved by a rapidly approaching August 2^nd deadline.
 
“John Boehner wanted to do the deal,” Kurtz said, referring to the Democrats’ proposal to make cuts to programs like Medicare, but also to close tax loopholes for giant corporations. “His troops rebelled. It was a revolt.”
 
Facing pressure from the Tea Party, Republicans are loath to push through any legislation that smacks of a tax increase on anybody, under any circumstances. Kurtz believes that, in all likelihood, a short-term fix will be applied, even though that’s “exactly what Obama and Boehner say they don’t want to do.”
 
Obviously kinda bored with that discussion, Imus wondered how his guest would react if Casey Anthony wanted to do her very first interview with, well, him. “I would turn it down,” he said, adding, “I can think of a few hundred journalists who wouldn’t.”
 
We’ll see about that.
 
-Julie Kanfer