Howard Kurtz

Last week, The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote about Twitter, the kinda useful, sorta ubiquitous, sure to be short-lived new tool for journalists—and cellphone-enabled journalist-like individuals—who want to bring readers the world in 140-characters or less.

Mr. Kurtz called twittering "the digital equivalent of a sound bite, a throat-clearing, a terse observation or two for a cloistered community online."

If you're hoping to hear Fox News' Greta Van Susteren clear her throat online, you're out of luck: The On the Record host tells The Huffington Post's Danny Shea that Twittering may not be for her:

I'm not sold on it yet... I have so much going—I have a webcam, I have GretaWire, I have Greta LiveWire which is my internet show that I do every night between 9:45 and 9:50, I'm now doing the Strategy Room, I've got my pictures, my video...remember I told you it's that hairline [between being digital and being crazy]? Twitter may be it...

It also sounds mildly obscene. Am I the only one who thinks, like, Twittering... I don't know. Do you Twitter? It's like, I thought we had a don't ask, don't tell policy!  read more »

After months of speculation, The Washington Post's executive editor Len Downie finally announced to staff today that he's retiring and that his last day will be Sept. 8. The Post's Howie Kurtz is reporting that the Post's publisher Katharine Weymouth will announce a replacement soon. At a meeting this afternoon, Mr. Downie said, "A new younger publisher needs a new younger editor" and that "it is time for me to retire as editor."

Kurtz reports on the top candidates, widely known in media circles for about a week now:

Those considered to be the strongest contenders for the job are Post Managing Editor Philip Bennett; former Wall Street Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli, who was ousted in April after Rupert Murdoch took over the paper; and Jonathan Landman, a New York Times deputy managing editor who has run the paper's Metro staff and Week in Review section.

Who was the big media star of the weekend? The Huffington Post's citizen journalist extraordinaire Mayhill Fowler, of course! After her rope line "interview" with Bill Clinton made headlines, Ms. Fowler has found herself at the center of a journalistic ethics-new-new-new media kerfuffle.

After the jump, a snapshot of Ms. Fowler's big weekend (as compiled with the help of the redoubtable Jim Romenesko):  read more »

Jacques Steinberg at The Times poses a question: Did Howie Kurtz do anything wrong when he brought a client of his wife's onto his show? Kurtz's wife, Sheri Annis, did PR work for Kimberly Dozier's memoir, Breathing the Fire, which was the centerpiece of an interview Dozier had with Kurtz on his CNN show, Reliable Sources. Kurtz made a brief disclosure at the end of the show, but even so, is it kosher?  read more »

Here's another online Q&A, this time with the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz. Some choice bits:

"But the shrinkage, as I wrote, is painful, and some of those departing are close to irreplacable."

"I'm an ink-in-the-veins newspaper guy, I believe in newspapers and in The Washington Post. That doesn't mean that those who took the offer don't believe in the paper."

That might be up for debate.  read more »

Filling out the rumors floated in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, today the New York Times reports that a “wide-ranging discussion” about Katie Couric’s future took place among CBS executives back in February:

 read more »

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.—Former President Bill Clinton, the only class-A champion worker of the media here in South Carolina, is up to something. And no one, particularly the press, is exactly sure what he's doing, or why he's doing it.

In Kingstree, around 6 p.m., Bill Clinton was taking questions and doing his Great Explainer thing for an almost entirely African-American audience in a municipal center. In the back of the room, the New York Times' Kit Seelye was typing away at her story that ran today. "Bill Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Stirring Race Issue" was the headline, with contributions from two other reporters in other cities and scripts of new campaign ads provided by her editors. The story was largely about Clinton's unexpected (by the media, at least) remarks that took place a bit after 1 p.m. down in Charleston.  read more »

The enormous cluster of reporters surrounding Mark Penn dispelled any question as to whether last night’s debate was all about Hillary Clinton. It was.

With four Clinton spinners on the spin room floor (Penn, media consultant Mandy Grunwald, and spokesmen Jay Carson and Phil Singer) the Clinton campaign was clearly imbued with what Barack Obama might call “the fierce urgency of now.”

Here’s what Penn was saying, essentially continuing Clinton’s assault on her opponents’ change credentials.  read more »

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has weighed in on the controversy over his paper's front-page story last week which gave space to false rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Writes Mr. Kurtz, in a WashingtonPost.com chat:

It's always a subject of journalistic debate as to when a rumor or smear has gained enough currency that a newspaper should weigh in and debunk it, even at the risk of spreading the original trash. I had debates in this newsroom many times about wanting to knock down some of the Clinton scandal rumors that were gaining currency in tabloids or British papers, and that was before the Internet was the force that it is today.

 read more »

... why does The Washington Post allow Howard Kurtz to write a news story about charges that CNN acted improperly when he hosts a regular segment on the network? Yes, there's a line of disclosure at the bottom, but still -- isn't there anyone else they could have assigned it to?

Today's Washington Post brings us what's at least the fourth major installment in the ongoing "Hillary vs. the campaign press" storyline that The Observer first identifed back in February. Since then, The New Republic and The Washington Times, among others, have weighed in on the same subject. 

Howard Kurtz's dispatch from the trail today fleshes out the picture a little more, offering some anecdotes about Clinton staffers thwarting reporters' efforts to ask questions, and judging that "reporters can generally get close enough [to Clinton] to watch but no further, as if separated from the candidate by an invisible sheet of glass."  read more »

We know Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz is prolific. But perhaps he, or his editors, should take a little more time to get up to speed on the existing reporting on some of his subjects.

First, as both The Observer and Gawker reported last week, the scoop that Mr. Kurtz and The Post used to promote his new book on the network news--that Dan Rather had threatened to take his story about President Bush and the National Guard to The New York Times if CBS wouldn't run it--had already been reported, almost two years earlier, in a book by then-Village Voice editor David Blum.

Today brings a less embarrassing, but still noteworthy, instance of Mr. Kurtz apparently missing some relevant coverage.  read more »