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You are here: Home / Like A Nursing Home for Media Hacks

Like A Nursing Home for Media Hacks

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So Howard Kurtz has been shown the door by CNN, ending the laughably titled Reliable Sources. But don’t worry, he’ll land on his feet:

Fox News said on Thursday that it had hired Howard Kurtz, the reporter who for 15 years has hosted the Sunday morning media criticism program “Reliable Sources” on a rival network, CNN.

Mr. Kurtz will take over “Fox News Watch,” the network’s media criticism program, which is broadcast on Saturday and bears some resemblance to “Reliable Sources.” Fox News said in a news release that the program would have “a new format.”

Mr. Kurtz said in a statement: “I’m excited to be bringing my independent brand of media criticism to Fox News. I want to thank CNN for giving me such a prime opportunity over the years and was tempted to continue, but the chance to create a revamped program and establish a strong online presence was too good to pass up.”

I’d like to see Kurtz, Palin, Dick Morris, and Kilmeade on the same show to see if their collective density will create a black hole of stupid.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  1. 1.

    NCSteve

    If Bachmann and Palin appearing on the same stage together last year didn’t bring on the Stupidity Singularity, nothing will.

  4. 4.

    Joey Maloney

    I’d like to see them all on the same show so I know where to point the missile.

  5. 5.

    YellowJournalism

    @NCSteve: One of them would have to cut the other’s head off in order to absorb the stupidity. “There can be only one!!”

  6. 6.

    schrodinger's cat

    I don’t get cable where I live and at times I miss it but not even for one second have I missed the so called news channels. They have no redeeming value whatsoever, they don’t inform you about anything. I have even stopped watching the snooze hour. I get all my news from the intertoobz.

  7. 7.

    bill d

    CNN isn’t ending Reliable Sources, they are going to have revolviong auditions. The one who gets the most hate mail gets the job.

  8. 8.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Fox already is a white hole. The stupid spews forth every second it is on, contaminating the surrounding space.

  9. 9.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    I’d like to see Kurtz, Palin, Dick Morris, Kilmeade and an engine block lashed together with piano wire and dropped into the Marianas Trench

  10. 10.

    pokeyblow

    I’d like to see them all on the same ship with one-way tickets to Antarctica.

  14. 14.

    Bruuuuce

    FSVO “independent brand of media criticism” = “Yessir, Mister Ailes, sir, you tell me what to say and you bet you’ll hear it.”

  15. 15.

    Mandalay

    I want to thank CNN for giving me such a prime opportunity over the years and was tempted to continue,

    You know Kurtz was told to seek alternative employment by CNN when he says claims that he “was tempted to continue”.

    CNN told him to get lost, he found another job, and to save face he has to pretend that he thought about staying at CNN. If only a CNN spokesperson would clarify the obvious.

  18. 18.

    bill d

    @Mandalay: Grennwald, for some freaking reason, has been doing the Howie show. I wonder if he will continue to be a guest once Kurtz gets settled in?

  26. 26.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Glad Fox has gained some balance. Now they have Republicans and independents talking about how the Democrats are Hitler and Obama stole the election.

  29. 29.

    Todd

    I’d like to see Kurtz, Palin, Dick Morris, and Kilmeade on the same show to see if their collective density will create a black hole of stupid.

    Nope. Putting that much density together will cause the heat death of the universe, as their processes slow to a universal stop.

  30. 30.

    GxB

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: I was thinking more like a Cummings diesel from an Abrams tank – I hear there are plenty of those lying around with nothing better to do. Even better, just use the tank itself – tell ’em it’s a submarine to Reagan’s underwater shrine… off the coast of the Philippines…

  33. 33.

    quannlace

    I’d like to see Kurtz, Palin, Dick Morris, and Kilmeade

    I’d like to see these people try to make a living, without Fox News.

  34. 34.

    Richard

    I’m shocked that they haven’t hired Jeff Gannon/Jim “8 1/2 uncut” Guckert, the male prostitute/”Talon News reporter” who’d throw softball questions during Bush era White House press conferences.

    Kurtz even defended the guy on his CNN program after his true background had been revealed.

  37. 37.

    Alex S.

    How much stupid can Fox compress into a single space? I mean, they’ve only got 24 hrs each day. They have to put so much assembled stupid into each program, they will inevitably create a wingnut singularity.

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    @Alex S.:

    How much stupid can Fox compress into a single space?

    More than they are now. I think the limit of stupidity on Fox is something like Peak Wingnut; any time you think you’re close, something will happen to prove just how much further it’s possible to go.

  39. 39.

    A Ghost To Most

    What? No more Reliable Mouthpiece on CNN? The logical progression (per T. Carlson et al) is FOX, followed by a vanity website

  40. 40.

    Elizabelle

    Glad to see Howard Kurtz officially sinking to his level. Many years too late.

    Did you all discuss Russell Brand’s appearance on Morning Joe yesterday? Joe himself was absent, but Mika, Katty Kay and some guy in a green tie got royally schooled by Brand on not being able to convey actual news.

    Brand threw them questions at the end of his appearance on what they thought about NSA surveillance, etc. and —

    crickets.

    Give the show to Russell Brand!

    Alexandra Petri called it a Jon Stewart schools Crossfire moment, and it was.

    Watch the last three minutes, at least.

  41. 41.

    burnspbesq

    This will likely surprise absolutely no one, but Congressional Republicans have launched yet another attempt to repeal the estate tax.

  44. 44.

    Yatsuno

    @Elizabelle: Heh. RedKitteh had that up on her FB this morning. It was pretty epic I must admit. I’m afeared poor Russ won’t be invited back, though I really wish Smarmy Joe had been there.

  46. 46.

    Steeplejack

    @burnspbesq:

    Serious question: where would you, as a tax lawyer, set the estate tax? Or maybe the question should be how would you like to see it structured?

  47. 47.

    Katie5

    @Elizabelle: I’d like to see a few others on that ship to Antarctica (Fox News): Katty Kay and any of the other mouthpieces on Morning Joe. And definitely Chuck Todd. His deference to all things right wing is obvious.

  48. 48.

    Trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    BAM! Would love to have had Squint around to receive some of the love, although I’ll bet he’d have lost his shit to the point they’d have to cut to commercial.

    When did Katty Kay start doing American news shows?

  49. 49.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Trollhattan: I have seen her on Tweety’s Sunday Morning Show, during the Bush era, so for a long time.
    BBC America does seem to put out a shoddy product compared to the original. I guess being DC makes them like the rest of the MSM.

  53. 53.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    Why were they so rude to him? Talking about him in the third person?

    Perhaps being around genuine intelligence unsettled them?

    It was surreal.

    Maybe they realized he could eat them for lunch. And he did. They gave him the opening.

  57. 57.

    Katie5

    @Elizabelle: He was great on Morning Joe. But he has emotions that are coiled like a spring. Saw him at a small comedy venue. He’s not someone you want to challenge because he has this air of “I’ll attack you if you look at me the wrong way.”

  59. 59.

    mouse tolliver

    And with that every single one of Kurtz’s liberal critics is vindicated. He’s been carrying water for Fox for years.

    This Sunday he worred that the Zimmerman trial coverage was making it seem like black people are treated unfairly by the justice system. He’ll fit right in over at Fox.

    Funny how all of Fox’s new hires are usually CNN rejects.

  60. 60.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Richard: Prostitute? Journimalist? What of it, they both fellate power.

    It was just too too France pre-Revolution, wasn’t it?

  63. 63.

    Another Halocene Human

    @Elizabelle: It was Mika who shocked me. I don’t think it’s an act. Ugh. Lady needs therapy.

    Gretchen Carlson, Tamron Hall, even MHP–none of them would have been 0wned on their own gig like that.

    Mika was thrown off balance because Brand complemented her in a fairly pro-forma way, deflecting their aggressive opening attacking his mode of dress, which, btw, he’s an entertainer so why exactly is his clothing shocking? You know what’s silly? A news reader dressed like jr Wall Street asslicker. Pink silk tie, wasn’t it?

  64. 64.

    MikeJ

    @Elizabelle:

    Made me a Russell Brand fan. Would definitely watch him doing interviews.

    Pity FX canceled Brand X then.

    Look for clips on youtube. He had a guy from WBC on, whom he very calmly and respectfully took apart.

  65. 65.

    Mike in NC

    So Howard Kurtz goes from the WaPo to the Daily Beast to CNN to FOX News.

    Next stop: press secretary for Kim Jong-Un?

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    @Steeplejack:

    Serious answer: a $4 million exemption, then two brackets: 45 percent from $ 4million to $10 million, and 55 percent above $10 million. If more than 50 percent of the estate consists of shares in a non-public company or a farm, you can take 10 years to pay, with interest at prime plus two.

    Same exemption and brackets for gift tax.

    Do away with the generation-skipping transfer tax; it adds too much complexity and raises almost no revenue.

  71. 71.

    Jay in Oregon

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate:

    I’d like to see Kurtz, Palin, Dick Morris, Kilmeade and an engine block lashed together with piano wire and dropped into the Marianas Trench

    What have you got against engine blocks?

  72. 72.

    dance around in your bones

    “You can’t judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.”

    “But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens I tell you, it had gone mad.”

    Marlow makes this comment as he reflects on meeting Kurtz alone in the wilderness of Fox News.

  73. 73.

    AA+ Bonds

    LOL yes, but, if you read Fox News/Nation you know this is because mocking him for screwing up something basic in his Daily Beast story was there transmogrified into oppressing him for being properly anti-gay

  74. 74.

    AA+ Bonds

    The Fox viewers think he hates gay people in other words and unless he gets on some hating gay people he will be fired in short order as a ratings suck

  75. 75.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Katie5:

    He’s not someone you want to challenge because he has this air of “I’ll attack you if you look at me the wrong way.”

    This is the defining element of stand-up comedians

  77. 77.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I want to thank CNN for giving me such a prime opportunity over the years and was tempted to continue

    AH HAHAHAHAhahahahahahaha!

    [gasp]

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hahahahahahahahahaha!!

    [whew!]

    Hahahahahaha…..!

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