Here's Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz this morning: “MSNBC is down to just five daytime hours of straight news, which once formed a counterpoint to its liberal evening programming.”
Funny, I thought the three hours a day that former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough hosts an MSNBC show might be something of a “counterpoint” to MSNBC's “liberal evening programming.” The evening programming to which Kurtz refers (Schultz, Maddow, and Olbermann) takes up -- wait for it -- three hours.
But Kurtz didn't even mention Scarborough. He gives readers absolutely no indication that MSNBC has a single conservative host, much less one who gets a three hour block each day.
This isn't the first time Kurtz has glossed over Scarborough in order to pad his case that MSNBC leans left.
And just last week, Kurtz pretended that Chris Matthews is a reliably Democratic-leaning host, despite his lengthy history of attacking prominent Democrats, dismissing liberals, and gushing over conservatives like George W. Bush, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.
So, once again: If MSNBC is really as liberal as Howard Kurtz says it is, why does Kurtz insist on exaggerating his evidence?