A History Lesson for Howard Kurtz: Honest Reporting Died Long AgoBy Austin Bay • 08/18/16 8:00am
“The horror! The horror!†Joseph Conrad’s fictional trading post agent Mister Kurtz whispered as he died, delirious with jungle fever, in the novel Heart of Darkness. On August 9 Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz emerged (at least momentarily) from the New York-Washington-Los Angeles media jungle. In a commentary delivered that day, our non-fictional Kurtz revealed a troubling discovery: the big time media journalism he loves and advocates isn’t the journalism he loves and advocates—at least not in the 2016 presidential election.
In his commentary Kurtz laments the loss of the “credo†of fairness by mainstream media “reporters, editors and producers.†It takes a long quote to get a sense of his deep and abiding shock—he discovers his beloved journalists are “flat-out†unfair.
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Congratulations, Howard, you’re emerging from the media jungle. However, you’ve a chronic case of historical amnesia, one that often accompanies life in the mainstream media’s heart of obliviousness. So what do you say we do a little historical research, sir, to establish an even more lamentable context? Remember the 2008 campaign? In February 2008 The New York Times and Washington Post both ran poorly-sourced but innuendo-laced stories about John McCain’s relationship with a lobbyist.
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Let’s consider 2012. Obama versus Romney. George Stephanopoulos, Howard. Is he a reporter? No. He’s a Clinton operative, and early on in 2012 he inserted the “war on women†meme into the campaign. ...
... George performed a strategic political operation for the Democratic Party. His contraception insertion (so to speak) set the stage for another “war on women†outrage tsunami later in the campaign. Do you recall the media-wide outrage ...
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2004. Specifically Dan Rather in 2004, with RatherGate’s fabricated Air National Guard documents that supposedly proved George W. Bush had shirked military duty.
Wasn’t ole Dan a reporter, Howard? Or supposed to be a reporter? And recall Democratic candidate John Kerry was running as Vietnam War hero
Austin Bay could indeed have kept going. He could have brought up the MSM denigration of 1992 economic growth when GHWB was running for reelection that was double the growth rate under Obama that the MSM has called "robust". He could have brought up the MSM being WJC's attack dog against Kenneth Starr. He could have brought up the MSM's portrayal of Reagan, in 1980, as a dangerous warmonger who would bring on a nuclear holocaust. He could have brought up the MSM's lionization of LaSheehan in 2006 (and dumping her after November, 2006). He could have brought up the MSM's portrayal of Reagan as heartlessly refusing to fund AIDS research, when in reality it went from minimal funding to massive funding under Reagan.
So the NYT's public musing about dropping
all pretense of non-partisanship is unique only in stating that they would cease the pretense. MSM partisanship has been going on blatantly for decades, they've just denied it heretofore. How Kurtz could/would not recognize and acknowledge it I do not understand.
