Neutral-perspective media critic and
walking conflict of interest
Howard Kurtz is going to be the Daily Beast’s Washington bureau chief. This means he will quit one of his two existing jobs—the one where he wrote for the Washington Post about CNN, not the one where he talks on CNN about the Washington Post.
Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, whose business model is based on paying freelance writers so little that they are
obligated to work for as many competing outlets as possible
,
praised Kurtz in a statement
for his “understanding of media and politics as the story of our era.”
Kurtz, in his part of the press release, was quoted as saying “”I’ve wanted to work with Tina Brown forever—well, for a long time.” How long? Twenty-two months ago, when he wrote a piece for the Post (via Romenesko ) about the launch of the Daily Beast, Kurtz found people to tell him the following things about Brown: “I’m dealing with a pitch-perfect editor who knew exactly what she was doing”….”Tina is always on. This is a medium made for her”….”I love Tina…She’s totally open-minded”….”I knew with Tina at the helm it would be real journalism.”
Erik Wemple of TBD.com asked Kurtz if the Post had made him a counteroffer . “”I’m not going to get into that,” Kurtz replied.
