Some folks seemingly can’t resist the temptation to gloat. And former Washington Post reporter, former CNN host and former The Daily Beast Washington Bureau Chief Howard Kurtz — in yet another unfortunate tidbit for his branding — comes across as having yielded to the tempatation. The Huffington Post has the Tweets and story HERE but suffice to say:
1. Newsweek has been sold to a digital company. The Daily Beast and Newsweek were for a while joined at the hip with magazine publishing legend Tina Brown at the helm. Many considered it a puzzling marriage, since print news magazines are going the way of Republican moderates, pay telephones, and non-plastic Italian dressing in most restaurants.
2. When it was announced Newsweek has been sold to a digital company many stories focused on why the merger failed and some were critical of Brown. Remember that a)finger pointing is inevitable in a story like this b)sources on a story may give factual accounts or gleefully give a long-awaited comeuppance. But Brown clearly was under fire and in future years The Daily Beast Newsweek merger will not be pointed to as a shining success.
3. Kurtz could not resist and offered a Tweet about the person who freed him up to spend more time with his family or on other projects: “”Tina tried hard to save Newsweek, which was probably impossible, but this captures the chaos, waste and dysfunction.” Coming from another media critic, this would have been OK. But not given the facts surrounding Kurtz’s exit.
4. Brown pointed that out in a stinging Tweet: “Hey @HowardKurtz am I forgetting something or didn’t I fire you for serial inaccuracy? Shurely shome mishtake as British hacks like to say..”
A few things:
But this is another sad media episode: in terms of branding, Brown isn’t hurt by this tiff. But Kurtz came across as typical “disgruntled former employee.”
Now, I’m still looking for a gruntled employee.
But any journalist knows you need to disclose a conflict of interest. Kurtz might have added, “as a former employee” — or something that acknowledged his status. Perception is everything in imagery, and Kurtz should have passed on this one, or mentioned his former association….good intentions or not.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.