Howie Kurtz Plays Nice with Candy and Poppy
Howard Kurtz's show on CNN with the very ironic title of “Reliable Sources” had some good stories to cover this past week.
His show is supposed to be about the media and their coverage of the news.
This week Howie picked a number of topics to cover.
The Jay Leno debacle at NBC. Another new about Fox Boss Roger Ailes. The Daily Caller’s ailing story on Sen. Robert Menendez and a few other stories were packed into Howie's show.
But one story that seemed to get at least as much play as some of those above was CNN's awful coverage of the Steubenville Rape Case Verdict.
The live report was butchered by both CNN's Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow. Yet Kurtz did not decide to touch on the story that was on his own network.
Kurtz told the Washington Post "I made the editorial judgment not to focus on a few comments made in a breaking-news report that, while certainly not handled ideally, did not outweigh CNN’s generally fair coverage of the trial. It’s worth noting that nobody at CNN asked me not to cover the story, which is in keeping with my program’s long-standing tradition of independence."
Maybe Howie didn't want to piss off new boss Jeff Zucker by picking on Poppy. Never mind that almost 300,000 people have signed petition (which is more people than watch Kurtz's show) taking CNN to task for their coverage. It was also the subject on many websites (including FTVLive) and newspaper stories.
Howie decided it was a non story.
"Unreliable Sources" sounds like a better title for the show if you ask us.