Howard Kurtz - Personal Opinions and Potential Conflicts of Interest

Personal Opinions and Potential Conflicts of Interest

Kurtz has publicly declined to state his political affiliation. His opinions on various media issues are featured in his five published books about the media industry.

As a high-profile media critic and analyst, Kurtz's political leanings, multiple employers and potential conflicts of interest sometimes have been discussed or called into question by other media critics and pundits. Both liberal and conservative viewpoints have been perceived in his writing. Journalist Mickey Kaus, reporting on and partially quoting from a letter by journalist Charles Kaiser in The New Republic, wrote that Kurtz "has large, non-technical conflicts of interest, since he free-lances and takes money 'from the people he writes about, from Time Warner to Condé Nast.'... One seemingly conflicting interest is Kurtz co-hosting CNN's Reliable Sources, in of which he obtains monetary supplements as well as national renown."

Kurtz has received criticism from some for his perceived friendship and implicit support of controversial syndicated radio host Don Imus. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly has criticized Kurtz for criticizing Fox News. The network had covered a story about the United States Justice Department regarding its tepid prosecution of members of the New Black Panther Party for accusations of voter intimidation during the 2008 United States Presidential Election. O'Reilly had criticized the network news media outlets, particularly Bob Schieffer of the CBS News talk show Face the Nation, for not asking Attorney General Eric Holder about the story. When Kurtz talked about the topic to his audience on Reliable Sources, he had mentioned that Fox News was "pushing" the story. O'Reilly criticized Kurtz's description that Fox was pushing the story and said that Kurtz's own newspaper, The Washington Post, had its own ombudsman Andrew Alexander say that it regretted not pursuing the story earlier due to newsworthiness.

KURTZ: I think the argument that I've heard Olbermann make in the past about Fox News – it's not an argument that I embrace – is that, because it poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it's misinforming our society. But you know what? They're entitled to do that.

Kurtz's 2008 “Reliable Sources” interview of Kimberly Dozier, a CBS journalist wounded in Iraq, was criticized by several media ethicists due to the fact that Kurtz's wife had been paid to serve as a publicist for Ms. Dozier’s memoir. During the interview, Kurtz praised Dozier and read passages of her book.