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• Monday, June 4, 2007 11:19 AM

  Kurtz's credibility

  I realize that this is merely a drop in the bucket, but Howard Kurtz once again showed that his brief is defending the media rather than critiquing it, as the title of his Washington Post column claims.

  In a chat today ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/01/DI2007060101431.html ) the first question he took was from Arlington, VA. The questioner expressed dismay at the media's intense coverage of reporters who got injured in Iraq, compared to the relative silence about injuries and fatalities suffered by US soldiers. Kurtz's reply, in total:

  Howard Kurtz: If you had seen Kimberly Dozier's special or read my piece, you would know that she puts the emphasis on what happens to American troops, not on her injuries or the deaths of her two CBS colleagues. Yes, prominent network correspondents who are injured tend to get more attention than unknown soldiers, but both Dozier and Bob Woodruff have used their personal tragedies to train the spotlight back on the soldiers. Here's what Dozier, who had more than 25 operations after the bombing, told me:

  "The importance of that day is not that we were there. We were there during what happens to soldiers 20 to 30 times a day. Everything that happened that day is the story of the U.S. military in Iraq."

  As you probably noticed, Kurtz was being disingenuous. The questioner wasn't criticising the injured reporters; s/he was critiquing the rest of the media. Why did Kurtz chose to pretend otherwise?

  I posted a comment immediately:

  Mr. Kurtz, your response to Arlington, Va. begged the question. The questioner was not blaming the injured reporters for the skewed coverage; s/he was blaming the rest of the media, i.e. your beat.

  Instead of responding, you used the injured reporters themselves as cover to avoid the issue. Could you respond to the question that was asked, please?

  Needless to say, my comment did not meet Mr. Kurtz's high standards for response. Thank goodness he had time to address such important issues as large-breasted spammers on MySpace, his experiences wearing bell-bottomed jeans, the wackiness and irrelevance of Cindy Sheehan, a replacement for Don Imus, and the state of Stone Phillip's career.

  Nice to know that Mr. Kurtz has his priorities - and his duties as America's most-respected media critic - in order!

  —Peter Maranci Read Peter Maranci's other letters
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