Howard Kurtz forgets about Howard Kurtz
October 12, 2009 11:06 am ET by Jamison Foser
Howard Kurtz today:
Yet while the Letterman saga has unleashed a tsunami of coverage, serious allegations involving Sen. John Ensign have barely produced a trickle.
...
Was Ensign, whose parents just happened to give $96,000 to Cynthia Hampton and her family, trying to buy the couple's silence? Despite such troubling questions, the Ensign controversy barely exists on television -- although CNN's Dana Bash did manage to stake him out for a quick interview in which the senator said he'd violated no ethical rules and has no plans to resign.
The Ensign story is complicated and not very visual. Letterman is far more famous. So the comic is turned into media fodder and the officeholder largely stays under the radar.
Left unmentioned in Howard Kurtz's half-hearted attempt to explain why David Lettermen has gotten so much more media attention than John Ensign: Howard Kurtz's own obsession with the Letterman story. Marcy Wheeler documented that obsession last Tuesday, and it has continued to this day.
So, Kurtz himself has been obsessed with Letterman -- and has fanned the flames of the Letterman story as much as anyone. And now he purports to analyze why the media -- as if he isn't part of it -- has paid so much attention to Letterman, without ever once mentioning his own role or motivations.
Instead, he offers up the absolutely inane explanation that the Ensign story hasn't gotten more attention because it's too complicated. Really? We're supposed to believe the media can't figure out how to report that a Senator had an affair with one of his staffers -- who happened to be married to another of his staffers -- then tried to buy the couples' silence by giving them $96,000 from his parents and getting the husband a new job?
Seems like something they could figure out how to cover if they put their minds to it.
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Compared to what? How is the Letterman story any more "visual" than the Ensign story? As far as I've seen, the visual element of both stories up to this point is two fellows sheepishly admitting their affairs on camera.
And I won't even start on how the visual elements are relevant only to TV, and visuals ought to be meaningless to print outlets like newspapers.
Ensign, on the other hand, isn't. I think that explains why the Ensign scandal isn't nearly as visible as the Letterman scandal. On top of that, Letterman actually has brought up the scandal on his own about 3 times, and so that's another difference.
Ensign hasn't repeatedly talked about this like Letterman has.
Those are two entirely different things. If he'd said it's a question of which scandal is more visible, Letterman wins by a mile.
Kurtz is trying to say that media aren't reporting the Ensign story because there are no visual images to go along with it.
And that's hooey.
On the other hand, there are no visuals of the $96,000 that Ensign's parents gave to the husband of Ensign's mistress. There's not contemporary videos of the woman.
I don't think that there's this big distinction between visual and visible that you think there is.
You didn't have to be redundant, Kurtz is a right wing crackpot shill.
I guess it's following the right wing rule. If you bash the left 100% of the time, you're fair, if you go after both sides, you're a librul, and if you primarily criticize Republicans, you're a far left smear and hate merchant.
Maybe I don't know all of the details, but as far as I know, Letterman is a rich and famous guy who had affairs with co-workers while he was dating his future wife.Sleazy? Yeah, but the fake outrage over this is almost as amusing as the panic attacks over ACORN.
It's true that Letterman shows no sign of having a particular hatred of gays, nor is he known to be a wearer of white sheets. But he's pretty apolitical, and his views are the same wishy-washy views of millions of people who just want life to be peaceful and make sense. He happens to be rich and have a good job in the media, so he's probably not terribly alert to just how rancid life has become for the non-rich, but that certainly doesn't make him liberal - it may just mean he's oblivious.
Meanwhile, the elephant in the room is that completely non-visual nothing-at-all-there item called "Whitewater". No pictures, no story, no unethical behavior on the part of the Clintons, and yet they appointed a special prosecutor to go after it. And, if I recall correctly, Howard Kurtz did not spend much time telling everyone how boring it was.
However, Letterman is Hollywood and chasing that story is apparently much more interesting on a personal level to Kurtz.
Professional Responsibility to do to your job? Does not apply when you are a News Personality like Kurtz (or at least a wannabe).