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.
NCSteve
If Bachmann and Palin appearing on the same stage together last year didn’t bring on the Stupidity Singularity, nothing will.
Butch
I’m sorry but the most coherent comment I can muster is “barf.”
somethingblue
It’s nice to see Kurtz finally wind up where he’s always belonged.
Joey Maloney
I’d like to see them all on the same show so I know where to point the missile.
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!!”
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.
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.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Fox already is a white hole. The stupid spews forth every second it is on, contaminating the surrounding space.
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
pokeyblow
I’d like to see them all on the same ship with one-way tickets to Antarctica.
FlipYrWhig
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Save space for Glenn Kessler and Maureen Dowd.
piratedan
to paraphrase from Dune….
we have derpsign, an assemblage of stupid that not even God has ever seen
schrodinger's cat
@pokeyblow: Better still, let us send them to moon along with Gingrich.
Bruuuuce
FSVO “independent brand of media criticism” = “Yessir, Mister Ailes, sir, you tell me what to say and you bet you’ll hear it.”
Mandalay
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.
gocart mozart
They could bottle the stupid and sell it to Assad as a WMD
Yatsuno
@pokeyblow: Why for do you hate the penguins?
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?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@FlipYrWhig:
I buy piano wire by the roll.
LAC
ahhh…Fox News. The biggest collector of single cell organisms on the planet.
bill d
@bill d: I wish I could spell
GxB
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: You’re going to need a bigger block.
Omnes Omnibus
@pokeyblow: Why do you hate penguins?
Villago Delenda Est
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I second this.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@GxB:
Ford 428 long block. I’m keeping the dual quad hi-rise intake manifold.
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: Bastard.
Roger Moore
@YellowJournalism:
I fully endorse the plan of Republicans cutting off each others heads until there’s only one left. Time for them to get started.
Todd
Nope. Putting that much density together will cause the heat death of the universe, as their processes slow to a universal stop.
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…
Yatsuno
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry cuz. It’s BJ, ya gotta be quick.
alhutch
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: NO! FE motors are to be cherished. I’ve got a crap 460 around here somewhere you can use instead…
quannlace
I’d like to see these people try to make a living, without Fox News.
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.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: I’ve been busy!
/Luther from 48 Hours
Higgs Boson's Mate
@alhutch:
A 460 would be perfect. Throwing one into the ocean would give me the warm fuzzies.
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.
Roger Moore
@Alex S.:
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.
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
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.
burnspbesq
This will likely surprise absolutely no one, but Congressional Republicans have launched yet another attempt to repeal the estate tax.
A Ghost To Most
@Roger Moore:
This presumes that cutting the head off a Publican does not result in two more heads growing back.
raven
Shortblock Chevy’s rule!
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.
EconWatcher
@Richard:
I’d forgotten all about Gannon. Where is he now?
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?
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.
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?
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.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: Why were they so rude to him? Talking about him in the third person?
schrodinger's cat
@Katie5: What about MoU?
Katie5
@schrodinger’s cat: Lost me there
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
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.
schrodinger's cat
@Katie5: MoU= Mustache of Understanding = Tom Friedman, the hackiest hack that ever existed.
Elizabelle
@Yatsuno:
Made me a Russell Brand fan. Would definitely watch him doing interviews.
Katie5
@schrodinger’s cat: He and David Brooks should be left on an ice flow.
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.”
schrodinger's cat
@Katie5: Good idea!
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.
Another Halocene Human
@Richard: Prostitute? Journimalist? What of it, they both fellate power.
It was just too too France pre-Revolution, wasn’t it?
danimal
I think I can come up with a win/win solution to the media suckitude and Afghan military supply issues.
http://www.belgeinfo.com/us-scrapping-military-equipment-worth-billions-before-leaving-afghanistan-24485-2013/
I think it’s worth the trade-off if we dump excess vehicles and their embedded media overlords into the Marianas Trench.
Another Halocene Human
CNN: Fox’s farm team?
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?
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
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.
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?
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
They don’t make much of a secret of what they really care about, do they.
LanceThruster
Compare that mentality to this – http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2013/06/19/2181151/russell-brand-schools-morning-joe-panel-so-why-are-we-surprised-when-he-does-smart-things/
I saw it and it was a thing to behold.
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.
LanceThruster
@NCSteve:
How many pinheads can dance on the head of an angel?
lojasmo
@mouse tolliver:
He and I got into a slapfight on twitter over some stupid goddamned “both sides do it” crap. He left stung, and I blocked him.
Jay in Oregon
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
What have you got against engine blocks?
dance around in your bones
Marlow makes this comment as he reflects on meeting Kurtz alone in the wilderness of Fox News.
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
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
AA+ Bonds
@Katie5:
This is the defining element of stand-up comedians
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Cummins QSK 50 V16 diesel. That might just be enough to insure proper floatation.
SiubhanDuinne
AH HAHAHAHAhahahahahahaha!
[gasp]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Hahahahahahahahahaha!!
[whew!]
Hahahahahaha…..!