Alterman in War Paint
Deep in the media jungle, there is Kurtz.
In these mad days of "Countdown: Iraq", television news and
a subservient White House press corps offer dramatic confirmation of the
premise of Eric Alterman�s new book, What Liberal Media?: The Truth
About Bias and the News. The fact that anyone had to write an
antidote to the odious liar Ann Coulter (author of Slander) and
the disgruntled former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg (author of
Bias) is a testament to how far the right wing has gotten in
promulgating the fraudulent charge of a liberal bias within the
media.
Much of the critique in What Liberal Media? has been made before
by Alterman, a Nation columnist and MSNBC.com blogger, as well as
by a handful of others. But by bringing the multitude of facts and
analyses together in one place, Alterman presents an insurmountable
challenge for the liberal-media-myth purveyors.
One among several topics in What Liberal Media? that I�ve hardly
seen elsewhere is a long-overdue discussion of the role played by the
powerful Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz within the
corporate media. Noting the inherent conflict within which Kurtz
operates�both a Washington Post columnist and a CNN on-air
commentator, he still portrays himself as having a distanced eye in
criticizing Big Media�Alterman explains that Kurtz�s conflicts are
nonetheless "rarely raised in the media, owing to the power of the
real estate he controls."
It�s certainly true that Kurtz, among the most influential pundits in
America, hardly ever comes under scrutiny. We often see blistering
criticisms from right-leaning commentators and journalists about Paul
Krugman and Maureen Dowd, or, from those on the left, about Coulter and
Andrew Sullivan. But hardly anyone ever criticizes Howard Kurtz, even
though, as Alterman shows, Kurtz is clearly partisan. Indeed, Kurtz often
promotes a conservative agenda, has given the Bush administration a free
ride and regularly showcases as "mainstream" such gasbags as
Rush Limbaugh and National Review�s idiotic frat boy, Jonah
Goldberg.
The responsibility for criticizing Kurtz thus falls to liberal-leaning
pundits, media critics and journalists. But instead, they fearfully pay
their respects, as if he�s Tony Soprano. In private conversations I�ve
had with some, they call him a hack. They snicker, attempt to dismiss him
and agree that he�s akin to a Republican operative though he poses as an
objective critic. But nobody dares write it.
Why haven�t we seen a thorough and incisive critique of this guy
from those supposedly edgy, weary warriors at Salon since the
onset of the Bush II years? What about the haughty crowd at Slate,
where seemingly intrepid media critic Jack Shafer and resident wise-ass
Mickey Kaus leave no stone unturned in bringing forth every boring bit of
minutiae about goings-on at the New York Times? They�ve thrown a
couple of softballs at Kurtz about his conflicts�and Shafer once wrote a
short, defensive response to a Kurtz slap at Slate�but I�ve not
seen any major piece about either Kurtz�s conflicts or his political
agenda. Alterman notes that only the New Republic, in a
2000 piece by Franklin Foer headlined "Howard Kurtz and the Decline
of Media Criticism," has substantively taken on Kurtz�and it appears
that the magazine paid a price for that in the form of repeated whackings
by Capo Kurtz in the Washington Post.
Kaus, in an off-the-cuff but quite honest remark at a conference not long
ago, admitted the reason why he often refrains from criticizing rabid
sensation-stalkers such as Matt Drudge or Andrew Sullivan, even when he
disagrees with them: He might not get linked to their websites, which
bring Kaus traffic. A similar fear perhaps explains why the wannabe
dragonslayers don�t go after Kurtz. The guy spends almost every day
copying and pasting large chunks of their and a few other peoples� work
(complete with links to it) in his online column on the Washington
Post�s website, and often writes them up positively for his column in
the dead-tree version of the prominent newspaper, which can certainly
help their careers. He�s highly selective about whom he quotes and whom
he doesn�t. Kurtz�s online column in particular is not about the media in
the broadest sense of the word; it�s rather about Howie�s World, a small
handful of online magazines, newspapers and bloggers who are, for the
most part, centrist to far right, with a few left-of-center tokens. He
drives traffic to them, not to mention that he might have them on his CNN
Reliable Sources show, which can also boost their careers and
their publications.
From their perspective, why should they piss him off, even if he
represents everything that is troubling about the media today�and media
criticism�and even if they do consider themselves trouble-exposing
journalists and commentators? Rationalizing, they�d probably tell you
privately that Kurtz is not taken very seriously by the true players in
the media and politics, so there�s no significant reason to make him an
enemy. Though he�s problematic, they might tell you, the exposure he
gives them helps them in taking on what they see as much bigger, more
influential transgressors�sort of like looking the other way of Iran�s
nuclear program in order to get its help in going after Iraq.
After I wrote a widely linked column last year about Washington
Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove�s furthering of cybergossip Matt
Drudge�s smears against Blinded by the Right author David Brock�a
column in which I also criticized Kurtz for not being more critical of
Grove�I received a voicemail message from an editor at one of America�s
largest daily newspapers (no, not the New York Times), who got my
phone number through my editor. This individual didn�t send me an email,
nor even say on voicemail what the call was about, perhaps fearful of
leaving any trail. When I called back, I was told: "I just want to
say thank you for taking on Grove and Kurtz. They are accountable to no
one. It�s terrific that you did that."
Never mind that this editor�s paper has the power to make them
"accountable" if it chose to expend some capital. Never mind
that the paper�s own columnists, if they weren�t so focused on sucking
up, could actually take a few shots at these guys. Never mind that I�m
writing for a small alternative weekly and that Kurtz and Grove, let
alone their bosses, couldn�t care less what I have to say.
That phone call went a long way toward explaining much of what�s wrong
with the media today. Alterman�s What Liberal Media? goes much,
much further.
Michelangelo Signorile can be reached at
www.signorile.com.
http://www.nypress.com/16/12/news&columns/signorile.cfm
