Howie gets a pink slip from the Daily Beast:
The Daily Beast is dropping Howard Kurtz, the veteran media critic who made headlines this week for his erroneous report about NBA star Jason Collins.
“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company,” Tina Brown, the site’s editor in chief, said in a statement sent to POLITICO.
The decision comes after Kurtz published a blog post that falsely asserted that Collins, who announced he was gay in an article for Sports Illustrated, had neglected to mention his previous engagement to a woman. In fact, Collins mentioned that engagement in the article and in a subsequent interview with ABC News. The Daily Beast retracted that post on Thursday morning.
For those of you keeping score, that means that Tina Brown, magazine killer, has more integrity than CNN.
Napoleon
. . . or the Washington Post.
JPL
Integrity walked out the door of CNN buildings with Ted Turner.
Morzer
One rat throws another rat off the sinking ship.
Scout211
@Napoleon:
Didn’t he leave the Washington Post when he started at the Daily Beast?
From TVNewser:
scav
Or she just found a plausible cover for pruning desired for other reasons. (People regularly offer to write drivel for less on these very pages!) Need more details.
Suffern ACE
Sorry, I missed the whole thing. Even if Collins had left the detail out, what was the inside scoop here that Kurtz wanted to dwell on?
Trollhattan
Isn’t being canned by “Daily Beast” like being fired from your paper route? It’s not the bottom of the totem pole, it’s the wood shavings left over from carving the pole. (“Heh-heh, he said, ‘carving the…'”)
Another Halocene Human
It’s like when a lesbian has a baby, it’s proof they’re faking. All GLBTQSS ppl are faking, you know that, right? They’re just narcissists who want attention. Look at meeeee, I’m different. That’s why they get over it when they graduate college. QED.
Trollhattan
@Suffern ACE:
IIUC
Step the first: “He forgot to mention…”
Step the second: “He MAY have mentioned, but really downplayed…”
Step the third (not Howie): “We’ve pulled this entire piece, sorry ’bout that.”
Eric U.
someone send kurtz a link to lmgtfy.com with the search term “beard.” Not that Jason Collins was marrying for that reason, but just for Kurtz’ general education.
scav
@Another Halocene Human: Being seen once with a bona fide female in public totally proves you’re 100% not gay, fur sure, and for ever, amen. QED.
Scott S.
Wait a minute, a Villager got fired for making a boneheaded error? After years and years of making dumb mistakes and sucking up to other villagers?
Did I wake up in the Mirror Universe this morning?
YellowJournalism
Maybe InfoWars will hire him.
cbear
Regretfully he is not leaving his post at the Daily Beast to spend more time with Broder, Breitbart, Russert and Bob Dole’s dick.
Fucking asswipe.
agorabum
Mistah Kutz…he dead.
May so go all these hollow men, these stuffed men
ranchandsyrup
@Suffern ACE: Mean old gay person deliberately deceiving his fiancee. He was a liar then and he’s a liar now in Howie’s fever dreams.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can’t decide if the average IQ of Tina Brown’s Daily Beast masthead went up or down by a fraction.
NotMax
He can pull up a chair on the Scarborough wankfest, right next to Mike Barnicle, who also had to leave his position due to questionable practice in print.
Trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Perhaps like the Iowa saying: if southern Iowa broke off and joined Missouri it would improve both states’ IQ.
NotMax
Forgot one (obvious) snark.
Kurtz booted?
The horror, the horror…
the Conster
THere’s a delicious symmetry to this since Unreliable Source Kurtz always fails to mention his own wife is a paid Rebublican activist.
jayjaybear
Give Howie some credit…he’s done what was once thought impossible.
He’s actually embarrassed Tina Brown.
Redshift
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’d guess no.
Schlemizel
Not sure why we should be pleased, its not like there isn’t an endless line of these vapid assholes clawing over each other for the opportunity to polish the knobs of the .01%. The next Howie Squirts will probably be worse
El Tiburon
All-in-all kind of amazing really. People like Kurtz don’t get fired for what he did. Otherwise there would be NOBODY on TV or anywhere really.
I guess Kurtz and Judith Miller can host the 2:00am slot on Fox.
Villago Delenda Est
Exqueeze me, but WTF is wrong with now indisputably proven hack Kurtz? I mean, come on, Howie. You’re not commenting on BJ and skimming something and missing a key fact. You’re supposed to be a fucking profes….
Oh, wait. That involves actual work. As a Villager, you’re unfamiliar with the concept.
Never mind.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@YellowJournalism:
Au contraire, Kurtz has demonstrated exactly the qualities beloved by the editorial boards of WaPo and NYT.
Scout211
@Trollhattan:
HEY! I resemble that remark!
[grew up in B-town]
Keith
David Koch
he end up on the shit rag politicos
they don’t care about being correct
Just Some Fuckhead
This is how Bernie Goldbergs happen.
Villago Delenda Est
@Scott S.:
Check your face. Are you sporting a goatee? If so, then yes!
Jebediah
Since I don’t see a current open thread: for anyone who has been following the saga of Freckles, a short video of him getting to meet a couple of other pooches. He is now going home with Chelsea each night. He still has to go back every day for continuing medical care, but he is getting nightly sleepovers with a family.
Ash
What I really want to know is what right wing blog did Kurtz get that ‘exclusive’ information on Jason Collins’ life?
Schlemizel
@Jebediah:
Since you started it:
Edward Wellington Mouse Ripper III (Ripper) 1995-2013 was called home to the embrace of Bastet on May 2nd.
Ripper peacefully fell asleep in her humans arms after a full and interesting life. Despite a rough beginning that resulted in food anxiety and fear of strangers most of her life was lived in comfort and fully loved by her humans.
She more than earned the name ‘ripper’ as an adolescent kitty ripping around in games of chase with the kids. Always a bit prickly she never really made peace with the other cat in the house or many of the people who passed through her life; she lived on her own terms.
She grew to love her time outdoors once she understood leaving the yard meant outside time was over. For many years she fiercely defended her backyard territory over the boisterous objections of birds and squirrels while compiling a perfect record of no captures and 0 kills. She was, however, an outstanding defender of the home, no bug was safe. Family often wondered at her ability to appear sound asleep on the sofa only to leap up and pounce on some hapless bug that had accidentally wandered in.
In later years she mostly enjoyed the breeze in her fur and sun on her face from her perch on the deck. This past winter was particularly difficult for her as she really struggled with the endless winter that prevented her from snoozing on the deck until a few days ago.
Because she was lived with responsible humans she leaves behind no children but a cousin, who probably will be relieved, and humans who will be heartbroken. In lieu of flowers Ripper requests donations to local animal shelters like the one that gave her a second chance.
Hug your kitties
hamletta
@Trollhattan: Sounds kinda like the opening credits to Holy Grail, where the people who did the silly credits got sacked, then the sackers got sacked….
NotMax
@Villago Delenda Est
@Scott S.
Race you to the Tantalus Field control panel.
EconWatcher
“For those of you keeping score, that means that Tina Brown, magazine killer, has more integrity than
CNNHarvard University.”FTFY
Hal
A closeted gay man who pretended to be straight and dated women? Well that totally something new. Never happened before Jason Collins.
Patricia Kayden
Wonder if he still writes for the Washington Post or hosts CNN’s “Reliable Sources”. Always knew he was a jerk.
Even if true, so what if Collins had left out that he had been engaged to a woman? I don’t get the scandal in that.
Patricia Kayden
@Morzer: Two thumbs up just for the imagery!
Trollhattan
@hamletta:
A møøse once bit my sister!
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Kurtz always struck me as a bitter old douchebag (He also sucks at the Twitter). There have to be better media critics out there who can also be entertaining.
Jebediah
@Schlemizel:
Lovely eulogy – so sorry for your loss. But it is a source of comfort, when we lose our pets, to know we provided them with a good life.
NotMax
@Trollhattan
Hokey smokes, Bullwinkle.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Schlemizel: You made a comment earlier that had me fearing something like this was in the works. I’m very, very sorry.
Napoleon
@Scout211:
Yes, but he left on his own. I think by the time he left he was an obvious clown.
NonyNony
@El Tiburon:
The nut graf of the politico article is not quoted above:
Kurtz didn’t get let go because he screwed up a story that brought a ton of hits to Brown’s e-rag for people to point and laugh at the sideshow clown. Brown hired Kurtz to be wrong on the Internet. Monetizing “being wrong on the Internet” is Tina Brown’s entire business model for The Daily Beast.
Kurtz got let go because he’s spending more time with other rags than he is with Brown’s rag, and Brown can get other people to be just as wrong for half the amount Kurtz probably charges to be wrong.
(The only question is whether those folks can not only be just as wrong as Kurtz but also bring the eyeballs of people pointing and laughing. I doubt it – Kurtz was good for the eyeballs because Kurtz is often so obviously wrong and yet apparently respected by his peers that going to see what train he wrecked this week was always good for a few drive by blog links…)
Scott S.
@Villago Delenda Est: I had one of those already. Hence my confusion… :(
@NotMax: Wait, promise you’ll zap me from existence? Is a world with Rand Paul even worth living in?
Baud
Sorry to be contrarian, but I would like the door to hit Howie.
CaseyL
@Schlemizel: A really lovely eulogy that describes her cattitude beautifully. Condolences on your loss.
different-church-lady
I’m hardly a fan of Brown, but far from killing The New Yorker, she reinvigorated it. I didn’t always like the way she did it, but there’s no question it was alive in new ways while she was editor.
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
I’d take that eulogy over the collected works of Howie Kurtz, Tina Brown and Andrew Sullivan any day of the week.
MattR
@Jebediah: That is fantastic news. Do you know how things are going on the financial front? Were they able to raise the funds they needed?
David Koch
@NonyNony: Bingo!
this is the real reason why he was fired:
screwing up the collins story was just the legal pretext, when in reality tina brown was pissed that he wasn’t promoting her site.
Another Halocene Human
@ranchandsyrup: If only he had married his fiancee and not tasted that … strange fruit.
Another Halocene Human
@NotMax: It’s just an observation device, not a remote kill ray! That allegation has never been proven and would a five star Imperial fleet commander lie to you? Well, would he???
Another Halocene Human
@CaseyL: For a moment, I thought this comment referred to Tina Brown.
BruceJ
I dunno, he musta done something to really piss off Brown, because if ‘being egregiously wrong’ meant anything McArglbargle would have disappeared from the site approximately 15 minutes after her first week of postings…
Bokonon
I’ll bet that Howie Kurtz is in the process of barbequing his staff of research assistants and ghost writers, even as we speak.
I bet Kurtz is screaming, “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, YOU LITTLE PUTZES!! I HAVE A REPUTATION TO KEEP UP!!! All of you … FIRED! RIGHT NOW!!!”
Michele C
@Schlemizel: I am so sorry for your loss.
Jebediah
@MattR:
I don’t know – none of the email updates I have gotten mention any specific needs for funds, but since his care is still ongoing and pretty intensive, I can’t imagine there wouldn’t still be a need for more.
Maybe his case is so horrific that it has already attracted a surplus of funds – they do mention that they have gotten a lot of interest in adopting him. Maybe local/regional media carried the story?
Not surprisingly, they also mention he is still sometimes fearful of certain humans.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@NonyNony: What the hell is the Daily Download?
scav
@Schlemizel: That was a proper cat. Congratulations and Condolences.
And, as for this precise iteration of the as-par-for-the-course developements-issued-by-tweet-correction, if this was somehow already in the works and a done deal and no big surprise nohow totally amiable et cetera et cetera, somebody chose an excellent shiv moment to announce the nothingburger.
gelfling545
@Schlemizel: A touching tribute. You were lucky to have found each other. My condolences on your loss.
Hungry Joe
@different-church-lady:
Agree. She 1) put bylines at the top of the stories instead of at the end; 2) stopped running 3-part, 108,000-word essays on seaweed; 3) introduced photos; 4) allowed profanity; and 5) drove off Garrison Keillor.
Actually, I’m not sure all these changes were hers, but some of them were. And 5), the most important, was definitely her doing.
Villago Delenda Est
Makes sense. No one who has been accepted as a full Villager, as Mistah Kurtz has, will ever be expelled for mere errors of fact. The only way to get the heave-ho is to defy one of the primary dogmas of the Village, such as discarding the “both sides do it” meme and pointing out that the current problem with federal governance is solely due to Rethuglican intransigence, racism, and just plain Cleekism.
That is an absolutely unforgivable sin. No way to redeem yourself after you broadcast that the courtiers are wearing no clothes…and that their nakedness reveals ugly that goes all the way to the bone.
Hungry Joe
@NotMax:
Are you referring to plagiarism and fabrication? Those questionable practices?
Villago Delenda Est
@Hungry Joe:
Doesn’t seem to have derailed his talking head gravy train, now has it?
Supposedly major journalistic ethical lapses are just swept under the carpet if you’ve got Village tenure. Really sad for Stephen Glass that he didn’t get vested before that asshat Lane found out.
Origuy
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I dunno, but if someone posts a link, I’m not clicking it at work.
Elizabelle
Any day you come home and find out Howard Kurtz got shitcanned is a good day.
Getting fired by Tina Brown — um, maybe not as great a sting as getting your walking papers from the NYTimes or the WaPost or even The Atlantic.
But I’m smilin’ ….
PS: absolutely gorgeous sunny in northern Virginia. So it was a good day even earlier.
MattR
@Jebediah: Gotcha. Thought you were more in the looop than just being on an email list. I guess I could always email them and ask.
(EDIT: Just watched the video. He looks amazing compared with just a couple weeks ago. And the fact that there are over 1300 comments is probably a sign that they have received quite a few donations)
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: And this is why, upon carefully crafting my bon mot du jour, I dutifully scroll through the entire thread to make sure some other BJuicer hasn’t scooped me…
Jebediah
@MattR:
It really is something to see, isn’t it? I think you’re right – 1500 comments probably means significant donations.
I’ve been similarly enjoying the Lucy updates – cute video of her, too, clearly enjoying life these days.
fuckwit
@cbear: lol.
“drink a dick, dude” is my new favorite insult
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Schlemizel:
I am so sorry. Hugs to you.
(off to hug our three furbabies)
mouse tolliver
I guess this “impartial” media critic wanted to spend more time with his Republican media strategist wife — that he never bothers to mention when he’s attacking the media for being too liberal.
Walker
Kurtz has always been a right wing pundit who hides behind his role as a “media critic” to promote his ideology. Unlike most both-sides-do-it pundits, he knows exactly what his false equivalencies are doing.
He cannot get discredited fast enough.
JGabriel
So, if erroneous reporting can get you fired … when will Fox drop Hannity?
lojasmo
@Schlemizel:
Well that sucks. Sorry to hear.
Kurtz can work for James O’Keefe, maybe.
patroclus
I heard from Olyvar the Squire that Loras Tyrell was once engaged to Sansa Stark. I guess Loras isn’t gay after all.
Morzer
@patroclus:
If I were threatened with engagement to Sansa Stark I’d probably embrace being gay with extreme fervor.
MikeBoyScout
Any chance the Snooze Hour will stop featuring this bigoted know nothing douche?
Frankensteinbeck
@Hal:
It clearly proves he’s straight and lying to get all of the advantages of the gay lifestyle. For a gay guy to be so desperate to not be gay that he gets engaged to a woman would require massive social pressures such as the open hostility, even violence of his adolescent peers towards anything that reminds them of homosexuality.
Hunter
I’m still trying to figure out why anyone cares that Collins was once engaged to a woman.