Reliable Sources

Appearing as a guest on Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, the Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford – formerly an MSNBC political analyst – admitted that the mainstream media have "listen[ed] too much to the Democratic message" that the Tea Party movement will harm Republicans rather than Democrats in this year’s congressional elections. He further charged that the media are "playing into that…

Howard Kurtz on Sunday asked the editor of Time magazine why he doesn't have any conservative columnists. "Rick [Stengel], you've just hired Fareed Zakaria, whose "GPS" program on CNN precedes mine," said Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources."And you have, of course, Joe Klein, well-known liberal writer and columnist," continued Kurtz."Now, with all the hiring that you've done, how have you not…

Howard Kurtz on Sunday smacked down liberal talk radio host Bill Press for saying the Park Service allowing Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" event at the Lincoln Memorial was like "granting al Qaeda permission to hold a rally on September 11th at Ground Zero."Towards the end of the opening segment of CNN's "Reliable Sources," Kurtz surprisingly brought up last Friday's disgraceful editing job by…

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, during a discussion of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, after Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson recommended that the mosque be moved as a compromise, NPR’s Michel Martin – formerly of ABC News – compared relocating the mosque to similarly treating a Catholic church after the Oklahoma City bombing.Even though McVeigh -- who described himself as "agnostic" despite…

Is it possible for CNN to do a 7 1/2 minute segment about Hurricane Katrina without mentioning George W. Bush's name?Given the media's approaching five year obsession with blaming one of America's largest natural disasters on a Republican president, it seems highly unlikely, doesn't it?Yet that's what happened on "Reliable Sources" Sunday when Howard Kurtz invited Harry Shearer on the program to…

The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik on Sunday made fools out of CBS White House Correspondent Chip Reid and former CNNer Frank Sesno.Ironically, this happened during a "Reliable Sources" segment on CNN dealing with today's "Poisonous Press."With host Howard Kurtz leading a discussion about how news outlets today are spending a great deal of time bashing each other, the conversation predictably led…

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Walsh responds, claims this isn't what she said!Joan Walsh on Sunday said former USDA official Shirley Sherrod is allowed to say anything she wants about racism -- including calling Fox News and Andrew Breitbart racist -- because her father was killed by a white man.Discussing last week's controversy on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Salon's Editor-in-Chief actually claimed, "…

CBS's Bob Schieffer on Sunday said the reason he didn't ask Attorney General Eric Holder about the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case on last week's "Face the Nation" was because he didn't know about it. Chatting with Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources," Schieffer said, "This all really became a story when the whistleblower came out and testified that he'd had to leave the…

Howard Kurtz on Sunday used a Keith Olbermann tactic of selectively editing and cherry picking from a Rush Limbaugh radio transcript to make the conservative talk show host look racist.In a "Reliable Sources" segment dealing with the embattled Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, Kurtz played a highly-edited clip of statements Limbaugh made Tuesday about this issue.Unfortunately…

At this point, we all know the Dave Weigel saga, which is as a so-called blogger for The Washington Post, he made some disparaging remarks about the people he covered as a conservative beat blogger. That eventually led to his resignation at the Post and he addressed it on CNN's July 4 "Reliable Sources." Weigel was asked by host Howard Kurtz if in this day and age it was "an uncomfortable fit"…

Lara Logan, CBS’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, took to CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday to accuse Michael Hastings, who was interviewed by Howard Kurtz in the preceding segment, of using subterfuge and Rolling Stone of pushing an agenda in their hit piece on General Stanley McChrystal, both of which unfairly tarnished McCrystal and will lead to more military wariness toward the…

Howard Kurtz on Sunday said most mainstream media outlets "really blew it this week" in how they reported North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge's attack on students."Most treated it as intriguing footage or a good gossip item, but the guy went bonkers when approached by two young men with a video camera," Kurtz said near the end of CNN's "Reliable Sources."After playing the video of the…

It's one thing for a so-called journalist to claim media members in 2008 were all taken with the historical notion of electing the country's first black President, but it's quite another to say they were right in doing so.Despite the seeming absurdity, this is exactly what the Pulitzer Prize-winning editor of the New Yorker magazine told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz Sunday.During the "…

CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday said an inconvenient truth that few in his industry would care to admit: "Helen Thomas has been saying all kinds of questionable things in [the White House] press room for the past decade, but her colleagues, for the most part, had given her a pass until now."This indeed is the real lesson behind last week's retirement of the nation's longest living member of the…