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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Thu May 2, 2013, 03:39 PM May 2013

UPDATED: Howard Kurtz Out At The Daily Beast

Source: TPM

Howard Kurtz, The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief, has left the company, editor-in-chief Tina Brown announced on Twitter Thursday. Daily Beast spokesman Andrew Kirk confirmed the news to TPM and forwarded Brown's memo to staff on the news:

“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company. Under the direction of our newly named political director John Avlon we have added new momentum and authority to our Washington bureau with columnists such as Jon Favreau, Joshua Dubois and Stuart Stevens joining our outstanding DC team of Eleanor Clift, Daniel Klaidman, Michael Tomasky, Eli Lake, David Frum and Michelle Cottle - giving us one of the best politics teams in the business which was instrumental in this week’s Webby win for Best News site.”

Politico first reported news of Kurtz's ouster. Kurtz, a media critic for The Daily Beast and other news organizations, came under fire on Wednesday over a blog post in which he wrote that NBA player Jason Collins, who recently came out as gay, failed to mention he was once engaged. Collins did, in fact, disclose that detail in his announcement, and The Daily Beast has retracted the piece.

"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," The Daily Beast wrote in its retraction, adding that the site "sincerely regrets Kurtz’s error—and any implication that Collins attempted to hide or obscure the engagement."

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Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/howard-kurtz-out-at-daily-beast



Howard Kurtz and the Daily Beast “part ways” after Jason Collins error

After claiming that Jason Collins lied about or "downplayed" his past, the media reporter is out of a job

BY DANIEL D'ADDARIO

Howard Kurtz, until today the Washington bureau chief for the Daily Beast, is leaving the company, editor Tina Brown announced via Twitter.

Tina Brown ✔ @TheTinaBeast

.@thedailybeast & @HowardKurtz have parted company...we wish him well
3:04 PM - 2 May 2013


The tweet is a blunt method of getting the point across. It comes after an even-more sharply worded retraction of a Kurtz column that claimed newly-out-of-the-closet NBA athlete Jason Collins never mentioned his fiancée in his Sports Illustrated confessional essay. (Collins did mention the fiancée.) Kurtz went on to attempt to clarify his misreading in a manner that only muddied the waters, claiming Collins “downplayed” his past relationships with women.

HowardKurtz ✔ @HowardKurtz

Apologies: Jason Collins did mention his engagement in SI article. But he didn't tell the full story--his ex says she just learned he's gay
5:11 PM - 1 May 2013


Collins did no such thing: in fact, he wrote, “When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her.” Kurtz’s misunderstanding of Collins’s explanation of his romantic life was so confusing that Kate Aurthur at BuzzFeed asked whether Kurtz, who said in a Daily Download video clip that Collins had “in basketball terms, played both sides of the court,” understood what being gay meant. Gay people can have had relationships with members of the opposite sex without it being a major scandal — the sort of nuance that sometimes can lost in the rush to generate content for three discrete news outlets.

full article
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/02/howard_kurtz_and_the_daily_beast_part_ways_after_jason_collins_error/
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Freddie

(9,231 posts)
7. Yes, it's common
Thu May 2, 2013, 04:32 PM
May 2013

I personally know four women whose first marriages (with children) broke up when their husbands finally "decided".

Cha

(295,899 posts)
5. I hadn't heard that about Kurtz and what he was writing about
Thu May 2, 2013, 04:09 PM
May 2013

Jason Collins. Whatever possessed him? Nevermind, it's Howard Kurtz we're talking about. I use to abhor him during the bush years when he carried their water.

Howard Kurtz dissing Jason Collins. Is he stupid?! Apparently.

thanks DonViejo

rocktivity

(44,555 posts)
6. "Coming up next -- Collins' finance didn't know he was gay!"
Thu May 2, 2013, 04:26 PM
May 2013

Last edited Wed Jun 3, 2015, 10:01 AM - Edit history (1)

That's what I thought I heard from the hairdresser's TV, but I was being shampooed at the time. I thought, "I didn't know he was engaged -- and surely he either broke it off or told her that he was going to out himself FIRST!" Then they showed the interview of her saying that HE broke off their engagement in 2009.

Kurtz's punishment fits the crime -- while his story was technically true, it wasn't accurate. A journalistic cautionary tale for us all.


rocktivity

 

randome

(34,845 posts)
8. "...sincerely regrets Kurtz’s error..." Kurtz's error, not the Daily Beast's.
Thu May 2, 2013, 05:54 PM
May 2013

That's hanging him out to dry right there.

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