Author Archives: Howard Kurtz
Why the Campaign Bites
April 22nd, 2012
I was going to write about how the campaign is going to the dogs.
Can you believe we’re still chattering about Mitt Romney’s 30-year-old Irish setter-on-the-roof incident—Diane Sawyer even asked about it last week—and that Mitt’s team has countered with Barack Obama eating dog meat as a 9-year-old in Indonesia?
I mean, is this what the average hard-pressed voter wants to hear about in a presidential election?
But then I thought that no, I should write about Ted Nugent instead. Who really cares what a washed-up rock singer said at the NRA convention, even if he did declare that “we need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November” and drew a visit from the Secret Service?
Speaking of the Secret Service, Obama must somehow be to blame for that sex scandal, huh? And did you see the Daily News photo of that alleged Colombian call girl, and the Facebook page where the agent said he was checking out Sarah Palin, and Palin’s response and…
Hold on.
When did we allow the campaign to be hijacked by these trivialities?
The ’60 Minutes’ Generation Gap
April 15th, 2012
When veteran journalists talk about the old days, it can often sound like history colored by nostalgia, or worse, pining for a golden age that never was.
But a discussion I had with Steve Kroft and Bob Simon of 60 Minutes yielded some cold-eyed realism.
It was, of course, about the death of Mike Wallace, but soon became broader than that. (His son Chris Wallace offered a moving tribute on Fox on Sunday.)
On CNN’s Reliable Sources, the two CBS stalwarts told me that today’s television correspondents simply aren’t as experienced as those of the Wallace generation, or their generation.
The explosion in cable news, Kroft said, means “a lot more emphasis right now that’s placed on live and panel discussions and people standing in front of buildings doing live shots around the world.” It’s now “very hard to find people” brought up in the evening news tradition of going out, reporting, and putting together story packages.
The Veep Virus
April 8th, 2012
Are you sick of the veepstakes yet? I sure am.
The chatter over who Mitt Romney might tap as his running mate is pretty pointless—but reveals a great deal about our media culture.
First, it’s a journalistic way of declaring the Republican race over. Why pay attention to Rick Santorum’s campaign when we can endlessly argue over who Mitt might pick, or should pick, or won’t pick because he’s too short-sighted to listen to us?
It’s a way of filling up column inches and cable segments at a time when the campaign has hit a lull. And it indulges the seemingly bottomless desire of the pundits to predict the future, on the theory that no one will remember if they were wrong.
Could Staring At a Computer Screen Kill You?
March 28th, 2012
Top 5 Signs No One Cares About the Presidential Campaign
March 27th, 2012
1) Mad Men is getting more coverage than all the presidential candidates combined.
2) March Madness is getting more coverage than GOP madness.
3) Dick Cheney’s new heart is getting more attention than any of Mitt Romney’s organs.
4) Tiger Woods is getting more coverage than any scoring by the candidates, and not for his extracurricular activities.
5) Ordinary BS is getting more attention than Rick Santorum accusing a New York Times reporter of BS.
Top 5 Signs No One Cares About the Presidential Campaign
March 27th, 2012
1) Mad Men is getting more coverage than all the presidential candidates combined.
2) March Madness is getting more coverage than GOP madness.
3) Dick Cheney’s new heart is getting more attention than any of Mitt Romney’s organs.
4) Tiger Woods is getting more coverage than any scoring by the candidates, and not for his extracurricular activities.
5) Ordinary BS is getting more attention than Rick Santorum accusing a New York Times reporter of BS.
The Media’s Failure on Trayvon Martin
March 25th, 2012
The killing of an unarmed black teenager has become a national outrage, more inexplicable by the moment as the saturation coverage turns a searing spotlight on Sanford, Florida.
But why did it take the national media more than two weeks, and in some cases three weeks, to discover the case of Trayvon Martin?
We examined the case on CNN’s Reliable Sources (video here), with Daily Download’s Lauren Ashburn making the point that social media is playing a growing role: “Once the parents started to speak out, you see advocacy groups, like Change.org, which started the petition that now has 1.8 million signatures calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman. You also have people who are just now beginning to use the hash mark of his name and you've got celebrities coming out like Spike Lee or LeBron James.”
Snoozefest 2012
March 14th, 2012
The presidential campaign has somehow turned into Groundhog Day.
Every day, every week, those of us in the news business are looking at our shadows.
Really, how long has it been since you heard someone make a fresh observation about the 2012 race?
Exit Strategy: Time to Go?
March 7th, 2012
Presidential candidates feel perfectly comfortable calling each other knaves, liars and fools, but recoil in horror at the thought of asking a rival to drop out.
There is some kind of honor among thieves holding that you simply don’t push a fellow professional to make such a personal decision. But that proposition is being sorely tested as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich warily circle each other in the dogs days of the GOP race.
Dumbest Post – Breitbart Spawns Conspiracy Theories
March 3rd, 2012
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