CNN's Media Watchdog Kurtz Virtually Ignores Editgate

After devoting his entire show to such burning issues as “Was it good for the Today Show to have Sarah Palin on?” and “Should the media pay attention to Ron Paul?” CNN’s Howard Kurtz devoted only one minute to covering the biggest news scandal of the year–NBC News’ atrocious edit of the George Zimmerman 911 call that has ignited and the stoked the flames of racial tensions in America.  (Video below)

The show opened with a discussion of the passing of Mike Wallace.  The panel then moved on to an in-depth analysis of Sarah Palin’s performance on the Today Show, after which a round table tackled various issues in the world of political media coverage.  

Finally, in a wrap-up segment at the very end of his show, Kurtz acknowledged the NBC News scandal. No discussion of the ramifications of the edit and how it played into the network’s over-all coverage of the Martin story.  No discussion of how NBC News handled the issue by keeping the producer’s name secret so he could work in the industry again.  No broader discussion of NBC News and Al Sharpton and their roles in advocating and stoking the Trayvon story rather than objectively covering it.

No, the priority for Kurtz and “Reliable Sources” was to have a ten minute panel discussion about Sarah Palin’s performance as a guest-host on the “Today Show”.  Thanks for keeping a close watch on the media for us, Howie.