A little Inside Baseball, I’ll admit, but I’ve enjoyed Kurtz-gate:
The Daily Beast has retracted a May 2, 2013, blog post by Howard Kurtz titled “Jason Collins’ Other Secret.” The piece contained several errors, resulting in a misleading characterization of NBA player Collins and the story he co-wrote in Sports Illustrated in which he came out as gay.
A summary of Kurtz’s big mistake:
From “Jason Collins’ Other Hidden Secret,” by Howie Kurtz (May 1, 2013):
One of the reasons that Jason Collins’ coming out packed such an emotional punch is that he appeared to be telling all. … Except that he left one little part out. He was engaged. To be married. To a woman.
From Jason Collins’ Sports Illustrated article (Apr. 29, 2013):
When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged.
Kurtz later amended the post to say “Except that he downplayed one detail” before the Beast finally retracted the whole thing.
I liked this tweet on the subject:
Except that Kurtz left one little part out: He was ransacking Africa. Ruthlessly. For ivory.
— Alex Burns (@aburnspolitico) May 2, 2013
Tom Levenson
What’s the latest over/under for the Beast’s survival? Has it ever made money, either in this or its prior incarnation?
DougJ
@Tom Levenson:
I give it about year.
Hunter Gathers
Kurtz also thought basketball was actually curling.
Roger Moore
But apparently not the lack of editorial oversight that let such an obvious and egregious error through. Editorial oversight is so 20th Century.
D.N. Nation
@Roger Moore:
One of the many things I was thinking after reading Collins’ piece was “I didn’t realize he was engaged, but now I do.”
As in- One of the FREAKIN TAKEAWAYS from the story was that he was engaged, and then wasn’t, during his period of figuring himself out.
Had ANYONE read Kurtz’ piece with a discerning eye, it would’ve gotten killed. And I bet $1 that Kurtz didn’t even read the SI article.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Mistah Kurtz – he shithead.
jayjaybear
I’m not sure I understand why the fact that he was engaged was some dark, sinister secret, anyway, according to Kurtz. If I had a nickel for every gay man I know who had a girlfriend (or girlfriends) or was engaged or was married (with or without children), I wouldn’t have to put my WOW subscription in abeyance every other month. It’s the way the world has worked up to VERY recently, that gay men, in general, go through a period of trying not to be gay, which means going through the motions of heterosexual life, including opposite-sex relationships and sometimes marriage and children.
It’s gotten better, but not entirely and definitely not a long time ago.
Ed in NJ
Not that anyone will notice, but this type of egregious error sort of disqualifies him from being a media critic. He has no credibility.
Sad_Dem
Isn’t there an overzealous intern around who can take the blame for this?
El Tiburon
I don’t think you are payiing attention. That Kurtz is such a fucktard makes him the quintessential media critic for the MSM.
to wit.
Petorado
I hate these “mistakes were made” statements when an organization gets caught using false information in an attempt to trash another person. It sounds like the Daily Beast really feels bad for its own reputation when it was busted trying to do a hit job on someone else’s name. How about apologizing to Jason Collins for trying to make him look bad? Would that be so fking hard?
Califlander
Everything Kurtz says is worthless because Kurtz is, himself, worthless. This has been well-established for many years.
kindness
DailyBeast, Politico….doesn’t much matter. They both send us all to drinking the Prestone as Charles is so fond of saying.
aimai
Setting aside the Kurtz’s issue here I actually am pretty disturbed by the throw away line in Collin’s interview “I dated…was engaged.” Since it seems like he dated the same woman and was engaged to her for EIGHT YEARS. I think she is owed one heck of an apology which she didn’t even get a hint of in his interview/essay and which apparently he didn’t really give her much in advance of coming out of the closet. He strung this girl along for eight solid years and broke off the enagement with her (right before the wedding? Its unclear) without telling her at the time why. That’s majorly fucking with someone’s life right there. I wasn’t shocked that there are gay atheletes out there using women (or men) as beards but placeholding in someone’s life like that? Preventing someone who loves you from finding someone who will honestly and honorably love them back? For eight years? That’s pretty sick.
Morzer
Mistah Kurtz, he deadhead.
scav
@aimai: We’ve really no clue what happened in that relationship, nor what was talked about, discussed, overt, covert, tacitly understood, whatever. She may, note the may, have been just as happy with a placeholder eternally put off wedding relationship to keep nosy busybodies off her back as he. Assuming marriage right away was her goal is an assumption, she still had agency in keeping with something for 8 years.
ricky
Well it was only a blog post. Lots of things have been downplayed in blog posts surrounding the Jason Collins story. Like the fact Brother Broussard of ESPN condemned many heterosexuals for ignoring the path of Jesus in the same sainted breath he condemned homosexuals.
Persia
@jayjaybear: One of the things that’s really pissing me off over all this is the people who keep pretending that it would’ve been easy for Collins to come out in, say, high school. He’s younger than I am but not by much. Not nearly by enough.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Ed in NJ:
As if being wrong, even laughably and consistently wrong, has ever caused anyone in the punditocracy their job.
Roger Moore
@Petorado:
It’s more that they’re blaming the person who made a mistake to draw attention away from their own failure to exert any editorial control. Where was Kurtz’s boss when he was making the mistake?
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Depending on what she says (if she’s even willing to say anything publicly), I’m actually willing to chalk that up to the common phase most GLBT people go through where they try really, really hard to deny their feelings. If it was something where they were both in college and/or she was in grad school after college, an 8-year engagement doesn’t sound all that crazy. I know a lot of people who dated the same person all through college and grad school and ended up breaking it off after grad school was done and they had to start living in the non-academic world.
Shortstop
Jason Linkins (the only reason to visit HuffPo, in my view) had a funny piece on this, too.
Shortstop
@ricky: which he coincidentally never thought to do until the uppity gay guy came out. But thanks for showing up only during Collins posts and then only to fluff Broussard. I hope the internship is a paid one.
Napoleon
That Burn’s tweet is hilarious.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Took a little longer than I expected for the knives to come out for Mr. Collins, for violating the most sacred rule of American sports – no fags allowed.
Expect more, and more vicious, attacks in the days ahead. They’ll all fail – but I tell you this, I wouldn’t want to be him. Going to be an unpleasant year for Mr. Collins.
ricky
@Shortstop:
I see your incredible mind reading ability extends to Brother Broussard.
And thanks for thinking comments to which you choose to react contitute all which are made. Your assertion is as false as your assumption that pointing out the shortcomings in coverage of Broussard are aimed at benefitting Broussard rather than being simply comments on the coverage.
jayjaybear
@aimai: Your ability to read between the lines is absolutely phenomenal! Or maybe it’s just an awful lot of assumption (and PREsumption…because it’s basically none of our business how it went down or what apologies he made to his former fiancee).
Your post reads like you imagine Collins rubbing his hands together like Snidely Whiplash while planning more deliberate humiliation and deception for the poor woman. Has the possibility that Collins was lying to HIMSELF for those 8 years (and more) completely slipped your mind. Like I posted before, if I had a nickel for every gay man who spent a lot of years trying to be straight…and that means actually sincerely trying to be straight, because they don’t WANT to be gay. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. Unfortunate for the men AND for the women, not to mention any children produced by the exercise in (otherwise) futility.
This is one major reason why we fight for equality, and for tolerance. Because it’s NOT just gay men and lesbians who get hurt when they try to become “the norm”. It’s everyone involved, sometimes including children.
Castigating someone for “using” someone else as if there were some sort of sinister master plan to use that other person is kind of dumb, when there’s really no master plan other than avoiding the kind of hurt that being “found out” as gay in our culture would cause (until VERY recently).
scav
@Shortstop: Ditto, exactly, but ricky is handy as a bright underscore to the cheesy and duplicitous morality bleated at high volumes by the self-trumpeting xian authorities. They pride themselves on finding all unworthy of grace and speak for God and his Reported Son despite anything He / They and the Spooky One might apparently have had to say on the subject. Ricky will put those deities on notice too, get them to pull up their socks and get on with the smiting.
TooManyJens
That didn’t take long:
https://twitter.com/TheTinaBeast/status/330035094347722752
ranchandsyrup
@TooManyJens: I’m sure he’ll fail upwards.
TooManyJens
@ranchandsyrup: They always do.
drkrick
@ranchandsyrup: It’s the Daily Beast – there’s no other direction to fail.
ranchandsyrup
@drkrick: HA! Well played, Doctor.
ricky
@scav:
Isn’t “ditto” the fave phrase of praise for those who worship Lord Limbaugh?
scav
@ricky: Grasp at straws and assign guilt by speaking a common language dear, they’re the mightiest armament in your mental arsenal. Just saw the news @TooManyJens: posted. Ha!
ricky
@scav:
Actually it was just a question.
Ditto is a phrase commonly used to express total agreement with someone else. What your use of it and its chant by those who follow Reverend Rush have in common is giving assent to something totally in error.
different-church-lady
@aimai: Gotta join the chorus here. I’m not following the Collins narrative very tightly, but you really did whiff on picking up the struggle and ambiguity that’s fairly common to the lives of gay people in our society. You usually have more on the ball, so I’m just gonna chalk it up to a bad start.
Morzer
@ranchandsyrup:
Maybe he can get a gig with Sully’s media empire.
Morzer
@scav:
It is indeed the case that women are capable of breaking up with men. I speak from personal experience.
Edmund dantes
@aimai: Yahoo sports already talked to her. They were together in college. She was also a basketball player. He told her a couple of days to a week beforehand depending on source.
She was pissed at him for the breakup since at the time there never was a good reason for it. Now she has an answer for it. She’s not ecstatic about how it went down, but she’s happy he figured it out.
All paraphrasing. Carolyn Moos. A little research would have given you the lowdown on how she felt. Search Collin’s fiancée and it comes up without a problem.
scav
@ricky: So you’re not a stellar example of christianity? An error I’ll happily agree with.
Morzer
@ricky:
I just want to note for the record that, like Rush Limbaugh, you use the words ‘a’ and ‘the’ in most of your sentences.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Has anyone told Howie about Elton John, yet? Ya know, the engagement to a woman, the break-up, the suicidal depression, the friend and the song about it that got quite a bit of play on Top 40 radio?
Howlin Wolfe
@ricky: Yes and anyone who ever uses it is a Rusty fan, a veritable barnacle on his whale of an ass.
Touche, Ricky! Where do you get your wit? Same place all sad trolls, do, I would guess.
Aimai
@different-church-lady: oh for christs sake I get it. Gay men and women have been using straight for beards for ever. She might even have been in a tacit agreement with him that he was covering for her and she could have been in the closet, too. But she is reported not to have been gay, not to have been aware that he was struggling with his sexuality, and not to have been given much warning that he was coming out thus rendering him the hero if the new “I gotta be me” narrative ( which I see nothing wrong with) and rendering her the butt if enormous jokes and humiliation. I get that he was a confused kid blah blah blah but he is still culpable if leading her on when he could have broken it off earlier than eight years. Also I did read the interview with her–that’s why I brought it up. I still think it was a shitty thing to do to another person.
Morzer
@Aimai:
Too soon for a BJ-United Nations peace conference chaired by Lennay Kekua?
EthylEster
DJ wrote: I liked this tweet on the subject.
Someone please explain the tweet to me. Start with which “he” is meant. Kurtz? Collins?
EthylEster
@aimai: Boy. This is the silliest thing I’ve ever read by you. IMO whatever went on between them is none of anyone’s business.
If the woman he was engaged to has grievances, then let HER express them. What’s with you deciding that she was detrimentally affected by his actions?
Would you prefer that he married her? Now THAT would have been an action deserving criticism.
DougJ
@EthylEster:
Heart of darkness.
EthylEster
@DougJ: thanks. I have goggled without success. i was afraid that i was not aware of all internet traditions.
MaryRC
@different-church-lady: I’m with aimai here. I’m not saying Collins isn’t brave to come out but let’s not just brush the ex-fiance’s pain aside. She’s a human being too. And to everyone who’s saying that she must have known, she had no idea she was his beard.
Hob
@Aimai: I can’t believe I’m saying this, since normally your comments are stuff I wish I had written, but I still don’t think you get it in this case. You’re assuming that unless he was absolutely sure he was straight, the whole relationship must have been a sham and she was just a beard. But there are plenty of people for whom it wasn’t that clear-cut at all; I know quite a few of them, enough that I sometimes forget it’s not a familiar story to everyone. They didn’t spend those 5 or 8 or 20 years thinking “I’m gay but I can’t admit it; this relationship can never work for real, but I’ll keep it up for show.” They were thinking things like “I guess I’m bi… I mean, I’m capable of having sex with this person of the opposite sex and enjoying it… so that can’t be the problem… and we love each other, so I’m sure we’ll eventually sort out our problems, whatever they might be.” They just had set a really low bar for “enjoying it”, because they hadn’t ever experienced the spark of passion that makes the difference between “yeah, this is fun” and “I need this.” Straight kids don’t necessarily experience that the first few times either; there are lots of ways to be only mildly compatible, regardless of orientation. It’s easy to conclude that this might just be as good as it gets.
Right out of high school I got into a 10-year relationship that had a similar dynamic; sexual orientation per se wasn’t the problem, but other things of similar magnitude. It’s easy for us both now to say “Dammit, at such-and-such a point I should’ve/you should’ve known this couldn’t work,” but that just means we were young and dumb, not deceptive.
But ultimately, my friends and I aren’t relevant anyway… because there’s just no way for either you or I to know what two strangers’ relationship was really all about.
Mnemosyne
@Hob:
I’m not gay myself, but from stories my friends have told me, it really isn’t as simple as him lying to her or using her as a beard. A lot of times, people hope so much that their love for the other person means they can be “normal” that they’re fooling themselves, too.
It can actually be weirdly comforting to find out that the relationship that never quite worked out and/or ended in a strange way was because the other person was gay and not because of something you yourself did. If he had actually gone through with the marriage, then I’d be more willing to call him an asshole, but he was at least able to hold back from taking that step that would have really complicated her life.
ETA: Even in the story that MaryRC linked to, his ex sounds more relieved than anything else, like it’s all clicked for her now and the breakup makes more sense. And do we even have to discuss how much more difficult it is for African-American men to come out?
Crad
I swear Collins is being very rude by coming out of the closet and not being a completely perfect person before hand. As a perfect person who’s always done the right thing from the point of view strangers years after the fact, this whole topic is offensive.