In his column today, Howard Kurtz discusses (sort of) the uproar over Stephen Colbert’s weekend verbal ambush of President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Mr. Kurtz complains that the liberal blogs are claiming a cover-up of the weekend’s goings on:
What’s more, you may be interested to know that there’s a MEDIA COVERUP of the Colbert performance. The MSM don’t want you to know about how the Comedy Central man made them look bad! (Never mind that the thing was carried on C-SPAN and the video is widely available online. I played two clips of Colbert on my CNN show, so apparently I didn’t get the memo.)
I am wondering how many people watch C-SPAN on a typical Saturday night. I will go out on a limb and venture that most people are probably not tuned to C-SPAN at that time. Mr. Kurtz also asserts that the video is widely available online. I believe the video is available on liberal blogs such as Crooks & Liars and on C-SPAN. Again, I will venture that the general public does not run to the C-SPAN website for the news. So, that leaves us the liberal blogs to give us the news that Stephen Colbert indeed was at the event and that he delivered a stinging commentary on this Administration’s policies.
Was there a MSM cover-up? I don’t think so. But did the MSM ignore the inconvenient Colbert segment at the dinner. Absolutely. Howard Kurtz might have considered, for example, the article by Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times about the dinner. How many times does this article in the paper of record mention Stephen Colbert? Zero. It does not even mention that he was there. Mr. Kurtz might want to spend another column discussing why it is that the MSM ignored Stephen Colbert. Now that would be biting media criticism.
Instead, Mr. Kurtz spends the remainder of the article discussing how the Stephen Colbert episode has become fodder for bloggers on both sides of the aisle. Although he does me the honor of citing my article on the topic (personal note: next time you cite me Mr. Kurtz, please cite my original post and not my cross post on Daily Kos. Thanks a bunch!), he misses the importance of the event by reducing it to a right-versus-left food fight.
It is a significant event when the leader of the free world is held at attention for 20 minutes and roundly rebuked for all the world to see. Whether it was funny or appropriate is debatable and quite frankly irrelevant. Whether it was news worthy is beyond doubt. This story will resonate in spite of the major news outlets’ general disinterest.
My suggestion to Howard Kurtz is that he get ahead of this story before this story runs him over.
One wonders what the result would have been if this had happened in front of any other audience. Would it have been worthy of reporting on then?
Yes, I know Howard wasn’t there, but he quickly adopts the “is it funny or not” standard as to whether or not Colbert’s performance was worthy of coverage.
He then also laughingly cites his own mention of the performance twice, as well as the airing of the entire event on CSPAN, as evidence that the media did not ignore the spectabcle of Colbert disemboweling the President.
Howard Kurtz’s reaction to this whole incident was, frankly, shocking to me. His denigration of the entire online community as well as his insular blindness was not what I expected.
Kurtz has probably moved on, since he has now prognosticated on the subject. He is the ubermeister of media self-examination (just ask him if you don’t believe me), and there is another news cycle coming, after all. So instead of reporting on this story, he has just become another part of it.
glamberson, it looks like Howard Kurtz just got run over by the story. He should have taken my advice. :d
His wife’s name is Sheri Annis. She is a Republican PR Operative. She works for Gov. Arnold in Calll-i-fornia, or anyone she can whore herself out to in that party. We should never mention Kurtz without putting his allegiences in context.
Jacques Steinberg of The New York Times wrote an article about the blogoshpere’s reaction to Colbert’s peformance in Wednesday’s edition of the Times.
The article is rather tepid if not outright cold towards Colbert’s twenty minute performance. That this is so is the least surprising, in my view. After all, one of the major messages stemming from Colbert’s brilliant and courageous satire was no other than this: media, where are thou? Thou’ve been conspicuously absent when most needed.
Alfredo, the media is busy writing the fiction that Colbert spoke about \:d/
Yes! \:d/
This is the Wellstone Memorial redux.
But now our tears are from laughing and the joy of having found our voice, so we can fight back.
Let me get this straight,MSM’s excuse for not writing about Colbert’s performance was because it was horrible.Now if this was the case and Colbert bombed, do you honestly expect us to believe you wouldn’t have reported the hell out of it.He’s the mouse that roared and we all know how the herd loves mice.
Howard Kurtz was clearly mad, as Colbert ripped him and every other cowardly “journalist” who has treated this administration with kid gloves.
It is obvious Kurtz is going the way of O’Reilly, Hannity, etc. He is not a true journalist, just another talking head.
I think the Media is getting Colber’s message; “Stop showing us things that we don’t want to see.” So, the Media has protected the public, once again, from uncomfortable information.
News “Worthy” is “New-e-tainment”