Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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Journalism reporters
Shining light on excesses
For the last 10 years, Howard Kurtz, 47, of The Washington Post has
opened a window for readers to peer into the sometimes mysterious operation
of the news biz. He says his job is to second-guess the people who second-guess
the rest of society — and that makes him less than popular at times.
Yet Kurtz has outlasted his critics. He has been the Post’s media reporter
for a decade and writes a weekly column that combines reporting and commentary;
he is a media analyst for CNN and co-hosts its “Reliable Sources” show;
he is the author of four books, the most recent of which — “The Fortune
Tellers” — was published Sept. 6.
Kurtz joined the Post in 1981, after the newspaper he was working for,
the Washington Star, folded.
“I was always interested in creative writing but didn’t realize you
could make a living at it,’’ he said. That was before he volunteered for
the student newspaper at the State University of New York at Buffalo and
discovered that he and daily journalism were a good fit—“and that somebody
might be willing to pay me to do it.’’
This is an edited transcript:
THE AMERICAN EDITOR: How did you make the transformation from reporter
to critic?
KURTZ: I would argue with the premise. People use those terms interchangeably,
but I consider myself a media reporter, not a media critic. To me, a critic
is somebody who watches sit-coms from the news desk. I do a lot of analysis,
particularly in my column, but most of what I do is based on reporting
as opposed to thumb-sucking.
Q. How do you decide what to write about?
A. Always a good question; hard to answer. I write off the news a lot.
So that in the presidential campaign, I do a lot about the intersection
between media and politics. Same thing during the impeachment trial, O.J.
Simpson trial. I try to reflect the media culture and media excess during
big news stories.
Beyond that, I look for ways to shed light on how this strange beast
called the press operates, to highlight some of the personalities in the
business, to raise ethical questions and to pull back the curtain in a
way that helps the average reader understand the strengths and weaknesses
of the media.
Q. How do you get tips?
A. I read about 10 papers a day and spend a lot of time online. My phone
rings a lot with a wide range of tips, which are useful. Colleagues and
sometimes friends send me e-mail with story ideas. And from all of that
bubbling stew I try to pick out the story that seems most compelling or
most interesting or, occasionally, the most fun.
Q. Give me an example of an especially sensitive story that might
be looked at by somebody who would not normally read your material pre-publication?
A. The story I did in 1996 about the decision of news organizations,
particularly The Washington Post, not to publish information about Bob
Dole having had an affair several decades earlier was a sensitive one for
the paper and was looked at by a top editor or two, but I don’t recall
any substantive changes being made.
Q. What purpose do you, and people who do what you do, serve for
the journalism community and the readership community?
A. I’ll take the second part first. Despite the belief of some editors
that media reporting is essentially navel gazing, I find that many readers
are fascinated by this huge industry, its impact, what many see as its
sensationalism and excesses. In short, people just lap this stuff up. I
get tremendous reaction to what I write in terms of phone calls, e-mail.
I think in a small way I help people understand both what the press does
wrong and the fact that it rarely involves the sort of conspiracy theories
that some people imagine about the media.
I think I probably play a small role in helping to hold accountable
journalists and media institutions that love to hold everyone else accountable,
who are not accustomed to having the spotlight shine on them. I try very
hard to sort of draw connections between media behavior, politics, finance
and the culture so that I’m not just writing in a vacuum about what a bunch
of Fourth Estate types do for a living.
Q. What happens if you—and other media reporters and analysts—don’t
exist?
A. I think without a strong core of media reporters, a lot of journalistic
mistakes simply get swept under the rug. For example, there continues to
be an embarrassing outbreak of plagiarism incidents. I think there was
plenty of plagiarism 15 years ago, but it rarely got written about. I think
it’s harder for networks to hide behind prepared statements in an age when
media writers are going to view their problems with great skepticism. So
to the extent that we help keep people on their toes and occasionally tick
them off, I think that’s a healthy influence.
Q. Do you find that people are more thin-skinned than people in other
professions?
A. I used to say that journalists were incredibly thin-skinned. I now
believe most of them are no-skinned in terms of being incredibly sensitive
to the slightest criticism. That doesn’t apply to everyone, but I am sometimes
still surprised by the extent to which I get stonewalled or stiffed or
counter-attacked by media outfits that love to poke into everybody else’s
business.
Q. What’s your newest book about?
A. It’s an examination of the unbelievable impact that financial journalists
have on the stock market, a subculture in which media commentators are
not just the usual loudmouths but players who can affect the price of stock
in real time.
Q. What conclusions did you draw?
A. I’m somewhat critical. The bottom line — to use the phrase used by
business executives — is that while lots of financial journalists do a
terrific job, the degree to which rumors, misinformation and hidden agendas
make their way into business reporting can provide a distorted picture
for consumers. Many of these people are rarely held accountable in the
hyperactive world of Wall Street.
