Another Howard Kurtz conflict of interest

Last week, my opinion of Kurtz’s professionalism went from bad to worse when he failed to tell readers an important detail about his personal perspective.

Like every other political reporter in the country, Kurtz has been paying close attention to the California recall race, with plenty of attention on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign.

In fact, in his daily “Media Notes” column, Kurtz mentioned Schwarzenegger five times in five columns last week. Kurtz’s work commented on the Schwarzenegger campaign’s response to the groping allegations, the alleged praise for Hitler, the endorsements from California newspapers, etc.

All the while, Kurtz was offering analysis on the quality of the Schwarzenegger message. What Kurtz failed to mention is that his wife, Sheri Annis, has been Schwarzenegger’s press secretary.

In other words, Kurtz is hardly a disinterested media critic, objectively considering a candidate’s media strategy and communications efforts. Kurtz is critiquing the very message that his wife has been shaping, making this a fairly obvious conflict of interest. Either the Post should have asked a different writer to cover these issues, or, at a minimum, Kurtz should have informed readers of his personal ties to the campaign.

What are we to think about Kurtz’s consistent support of Schwarzenegger’s campaign? Was it just a coincidence that Kurtz was supportive of the campaign’s media strategy in dealing with recent controversies?

Last week, for example, Kurtz was dismissive about the sexual misconduct story, parroting Schwarzenegger’s talking points, saying that “voters will probably see this as a late hit, six days before the recall,” and concluding that the allegations are an old story “discounted by much of the electorate.” Kurtz even mocked the story, saying, “[A] Hollywood star grabbing at actresses and crew members — shocking!”

Actually, for a lot of us, the fact that a gubernatorial candidate has repeatedly made unwanted sexual advances on women, groping and grabbing women’s bodies without their consent, is shocking and hardly the kind of behavior that should be mocked by professional journalists.

In fact, last Wednesday, Kurtz lambasted the Toronto Globe & Mail newspaper for publishing “the most tilted stories I’ve ever seen in a major newspaper” about the Schwarzenegger campaign. Kurtz concluded that he’s scared about the drop in “journalistic standards.”

Isn’t it ironic that a man with such obvious conflicts of interest would be lecturing others about journalistic standards?

http://tinyurl.com/yrqgyl

In fact, the FDA has killed people, by not expeditiously approving drugs or procedures, nor letting people assume the risk of medical means to treat terminal conditions before approval. (Commenters please send me links to support for that fact and I’ll update with it.)

People who don't trust the government, for whatever reason, don't govern well. In many cases it's business interests who don't want to be regulated. I do think your cite NCLB as a reason to do away with the Dept. of Education is too cute by half. Self-fulfilling prophecies and all that. I'm no expert but comparing the FDA today, to the regulatory agency it once was is likely a similar exercise. As soon as we purge all of the ideologues from government, it might start to function normally again. My guess is that Milk Thistle extract can't be patented. There is no money in it for big pharma. Nice try tho.

I still think your reaching. It sounds kind of shrill. How did you feel about flouridation back in the 60s?

That same day, the FDA granted the permission needed. Under FDA regulations, the agency doesn't discuss investigative new drugs but Madaus Pharma confirmed that the approval came swiftly.

"Surprisingly he was able to get this within a matter of hours," said Veilleux. "People were asking me, 'What are the chances he'll get permission?' I said, one in 1,000"

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/January/14/local/stories/01local.htm

I'm a cooperative individualist.

I don't think I'd like to live on an island but I couldn't stand to live in a commune, either.

John Locke, the philosopher of England's glorious revolution that peacefully removed a Catholic king from the throne in favor of a Dutch prince, William of Orange, understood the power of the landed interests in a society where nature was, for all practical purposes, fully controlled by a small, landed elite:

When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.

It is very clear that God, as King David says, "has given the earth to the children of men"; given it to mankind in common.

It is in vain in a country whose great fund is land to hope to lay the public charge on anything else; there at last it will terminate. The merchant (do what you can) will not bear it, the labourer cannot, and therefore the landholder must: and whether he were best to do it by laying it directly where it will at last settle, or by letting it come to him by the sinking of his rents, which when they are fallen, everyone knows they are not easily raised again, let him consider.

This I do boldly affirm, that the same rule of propriety, viz., that every man should have as much as he could make use of, would hold still in the world, without straitening anybody, since there is land enough in the world to suffice double the inhabitants, had not the invention of money and the tacit agreement of men to put a value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions and a right to them.

Unless you are alone on the island. A deserted island. But I don't think I'd like that. I think I'd like living high up in the Rockies. Maybe deep in the woods of the PNW. No islands for me, with or without neighbors.