Reliable Sources

As NewsBusters reported Friday, MSNBC's Tamron Hall threw a hissy fit when her conservative guest, the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney, called her network's coverage of the Washington Post's hit piece on Mitt Romney "ridiculous" and "absurd."

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, host Howard Kurtz came down strongly on her asking, "Does Hall only want guests who agree with her handling of every story?" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, Ann Romney got mercilessly attacked last week for having the unmitigated audacity to wear a $990 shirt on television.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, Thomson Reuters' Chrystia Freeland said this was "fair" and "fine" because "Michelle Obama gets bashed if she wears expensive clothes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Joe Muto, the self-described “weasel,” “traitor” and “sell-out” who for a few days last week was the “Fox News Mole” for Gawker.com until FNC identified him, disclosed on CNN’s Reliable Sources that he tried to leave the network but was unable to get hired elsewhere because the rest of the cable news industry “blackballed” him since they presumed anyone who worked for Fox News is “a nut.” Not very tolerant.

Muto, an associate producer for The O’Reilly Factor until Wednesday, told Howard Kurtz “I sent out dozens and dozens of resumes. CNN must have gotten twenty resumes from me.”

As NewsBusters reported, President Obama praised Mika Brzezinski Friday after she participated in a White House forum regarding the President's performance on women's issues.

CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday's Reliable Sources took issue with this asking his guests, "Should an MSNBC anchor be moderating a White House event and talking about celebrating what the administration has accomplished?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Howard Kurtz was astonished that MSNBC has allowed Al Sharpton to be both an activist and a news anchor in covering the Trayvon Martin shooting. Near the beginning of his 11 a.m. Sunday show Reliable Sources, Kurtz maintained that Sharpton should have had to choose between activism and journalism in that case.

Kurtz asked "how on earth can Al Sharpton go there, and be an activist and stand with the parents and he asked people to contribute money and he went to the Justice Department with the parents of Trayvon Martin....And then he does his show and then he speaks at the rally again?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Frum was on vulgarian Bill Maher's show less than two months ago.

The folks at CNN sure are interested in Rush Limbaugh's sex life.

Two days after the host of Piers Morgan Tonight chatted with magician Penn Jillette about watching the talk radio host have sex, David Frum - billed as one of the network's "conservative" analysts - said on Sunday's Reliable Sources, "I think it would be a nice gesture if [Limbaugh] were to send Sandra Fluke one of his sex tapes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Conservative author S.E. Cupp didn't take kindly to Bloomberg's Margaret Carlson calling Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum a zealot on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday.

"Rick Santorum is not a zealot," scolded Cupp. "He happens to be a Christian and a conservative. That's it, end of story" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported Friday, HBO's Bill Maher recently gave $1 million to pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, host Howard Kurtz correctly observed, "There’d be a bigger fuss if comedian Dennis Miller gave a million dollars to a pro-Romney or a Santorum Super PAC" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The Washington Post's "conservative" blogger is now telling Republicans to shut up and move on from their complaints of a liberal media double standard. The Post's Jennifer Rubin told all the GOP candidates to "grow up" on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday.

"These candidates should grow up, get their message out," she ranted, emphasizing that conservative candidates have grown "obsessed" over the media's liberal treatment. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

As NewsBusters reported Tuesday, Politico's Jonathan Martin, while chatting with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, referred to some of Florida as "cracker counties."

Despite the firestorm this created, Howard Kurtz on CNN's Reliable Sources spent seventeen minutes Sunday - almost half of the show when commercials are taken out - with Martin as one of his guests and never said a word about this controversy.

Those familiar with Kathleen Parker's work are well aware that this supposedly conservative columnist is a fine example of a Republican in Name Only.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, Parker proved it once again saying that the National Review "was created from an ideological point of view...As opposed to, for example, the Chicago Tribune or The Washington Post" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN must have known that when it pitted Glenn Beck TV's Amy Holmes against the perilously liberal David Shuster of Al Gore's Current TV, sparks were going to fly.

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, when the media's coverage of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Bain Capital surfaced, the pair did end up facing off with Holmes not surprisingly looking like the only adult in the room (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

The media has an "antipathy" toward Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, asserted Dana Milbank of the Washington Post on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday. Given the media's treatment of Santorum after his Iowa success, that would be safe to acknowledge.

Milbank noted that the ill-will stems from Santorum's social-conservatism, adding that "liberal pundits and I think the media in general have a particular antipathy towards Rick Santorum because of the cultural differences." When asked why the media were focusing on his social beliefs when voters are concerned about the economy, Milbank lamely responded that "Whenever we focus on the economy, it's terribly boring." [Video below the break.]

Time magazine's editor-in-chief Richard Stengel was asked on Sunday's Reliable Sources to respond to NewsBusters criticizing the inclusion of the Occupy Wall Street movement into Time magazine's "Person of the Year" award, given to "The Protester." In contrast, the Tea Party which helped the Republicans win a landslide election victory in 2010 earned only runner-up status in Time that year.

CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Stengel straight-up about criticisms of the magazine's bias: "Now, some of the criticism of this cover selection comes from the right, the conservative site, NewsBusters saying, 'Time is so liberal that it could not consider the Tea Party protest as a 'Person of the Year' entry, but that's not true with Occupy Wall Street.' Your response?" [Video below the break.]

Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik on Sunday called NBC hiring Chelsea Clinton a "journalistically-bankrupt decision."

Talking to CNN's Howard Kurtz about Clinton's debut, Zurawik said if she's been preparing for this all her life "it's been a largely wasted life" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Faux-Republican David Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers on Sunday when he told CNN's Howard Kurtz that "people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events." Frum's interview aired during the bottom half of the 11 a.m. hour of Reliable Sources.

Even Kurtz, who has worked for the liberal media for three decades, challenged Frum's hard-line criticism of the right-wing media. "You're tarring with an awfully broad brush there" he told Frum, who in a recent New York Magazine column accused the conservative media of running an "alternative knowledge system" of "pseudo-facts and pretend information." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday seemed to be oblivious to his own sense of irony.

Seconds after the Reliable Sources host ridiculed conservative author Ann Coulter for being bleeped by MSNBC while on Morning Joe last week, he actually praised a poorly received promotional ad for the very show she was on (video follows with transcript and commentary):

When the Washington Post's "conservative" blogger Jennifer Rubin last Sunday accused the right-leaning media of being "embarrassingly bad this election cycle," it seemed a metaphysical certitude CNN's Howard Kurtz would soon have her on to advance her view.

True to form, exactly one week later there was Rubin on Reliable Sources with the host saying, "This indictment suggests, my reading of it, that the conservative media, parts of the conservative media are essentially corrupt" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You want to talk about hoaxes?

On Sunday's Reliable Sources, CNN and host Howard Kurtz actually promoted the Obama-loving Andrew Sullivan as a "conservative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift made a rather revealing statement about the media's treatment of Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich Sunday.

Shortly after CNN's Howard Kurtz asked his Reliable Sources panel, "Why do some of these commentators have such a deep-seated animus toward Newt," Clift surprising said, "I think he's right about a lot of [things]. And I think that's even more irritating, the fact that he is right" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

A rather extraordinary thing happened Sunday.

CNN's Howard Kurtz actually took Bill O'Reilly's side in the Lincoln book dispute the Fox News host is having with Kurtz's former employer the Washington Post (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Former Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker said Sunday he chose not to run the story that former President Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky because he and his staff didn't feel they were on firm enough ground.

"If we had gotten that wrong," Whitaker told CNN's Howard Kurtz on Reliable Sources, it "could  have been a mortal blow to Newsweek's reputation" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Howard Kurtz considers himself to be a media analyst, yet on Sunday's Reliable Sources, he spent 22 minutes discussing Politico's hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain without once mentioning how the press handled Bill Clinton's actual  sex scandals.

The program began:

There are times when I'm sickened by what I see so-called journalists do on television.

Sunday was one of those times when Politico's Roger Simon, appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources, said being "a little bit racist perhaps, gives you good bona fides in a Republican primary. It shows them you're on the same side as they are" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday mocked the hiring of sex scandal plagued former governor Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) by Fox News.

Hypocritically, the "Reliable Sources" host neglected to mention his own network's prior relationship with the prostitute loving former governor Eliot Spitzer (D-N.Y.) (video follows with transcript and commentary):

I'm not sure what press reports media analyst Howard Kurtz observed since Thursday's announcement that Moammar Gaddafi had been killed in Libya, but they certainly can't be what most people in this country have seen.

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, Kurtz actually asked his guests why the press aren't giving President Obama more credit (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Sunday's Reliable Sources on CNN, host Howard Kurtz and guest Erik Wemple of the Washington Post both took exception with FNC's Bill O'Reilly for recently calling some of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters "far-left loons" and "anarchists." Kurtz noted the contrast in how MSNBC and FNC have responded to the protests:

CNN's newest addition to its prime-time line-up, former CNBC anchor Erin Burnett, told Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz on Sunday that yes, she would be "more opinionated" at CNN than in the past. Burnett's show, "Out Front," airs for the first time on Monday Oct 3 at 7 p.m. EDT.

Kurtz interviewed Burnett at the bottom of the 11 a.m. hour on Sunday. He asked her "Are you going to be more opinionated, Erin Burnett, then you have been in your previous role as business correspondent?" She answered in the affirmative.

[Video below the break.]

Given the way most media members treated former Vice President Dick Cheney during his book tour last week, CNN's Howard Kurtz asked an absolutely perfect question on Sunday's "Reliable Sources."

"Would liberal pundits be satisfied with anything other than Cheney confessing to war crimes?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) caused quite a stir last week when she said if elected president she would bring back $2/gallon gasoline prices.

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman - without supplying any economic data to support his claim - called Bachmann's pledge "flat out nuts" (video follows with transcript and commentary):