Who Watches the Watchdogs II: Did the JournoListas Get to Howard Kurtz?

My colleague Alex Marlow has already done an effective job of pointing out how Howard Kurtz of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” maneuvered his Sunday coverage of last week’s “Hardball” redo into yet another MSM hit that intentionally ignores the fact that the video Andrew Breitbart posted on Big Government did in fact include footage of Shirley Sherrod discussing her racial redemption. But that was only the first part of Kurtz’s dishonest segment. The second part was how Kurtz chose to tell his audience only a half-truth about what really happened during the hour of “Hardball” in question.

Kurtz is supposed to be a media gatekeeper, a watchdog. But he’s not. If he were, everyone in the MSM wouldn’t affectionately refer to him as “Howie.” If Kurtz wasn’t a member of the club, if he truly held the JournoListas accountable, they wouldn’t refer to him with any affection whatsoever. The JournoListas love Kurtz because he’s a media guard dog disguised as a watchdog and the rhetorical tricks played in the “Reliable Sources” segment below are a perfect example of how a “media analyst” can abuse his responsibility and not only mislead viewers but also willfully ignore what would be The Real Story for any true media analyst.

Let’s watch the Kurtz segment again:

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The “Hardball” clip Kurtz highlights there is from a 5 p.m. broadcast (which we covered last week here), and in that specific clip Matthews may well have been legitimately confused over how much of the Sherrod speech was posted on Big Government. But this is the only information Kurtz wants you to have. And at best, what he’s telling the audience is a half-truth, and therefore not the truth at all.

Here’s the full story…

Later, in that same 5 p.m. hour, according to NewsBusters, Matthews and his audience did take a look at the full video posted on Big Government, and guess what happened next? Matthews still committed a high JounoListic treason and still defended Breitbart, pointing out a fact that no one in the MSM wants to discuss: that the footage of Sherrod discussing her redemption was included in the Big Government video.

You can watch Matthews do this for yourself. Below is that later segment from the 5 p.m. hour that Kurtz and Company want memory-holed:

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Why didn’t Kurtz play that segment? Why doesn’t Kurtz want his audience to know that, after Matthews was fully clear on exactly which Sherrod footage had been posted on Big Government, Matthews still defended Breitbart?

As Marlow pointed out, Kurtz not only twisted this story in such a way that allows him to further the untrue narrative that the Big Government video did not include Sherrod’s redemptive moment, he also intentionally leaves you with the impression that Matthews’ defense of Breitbart was based only on his not knowing the facts — When the truth is that Matthews still defended Breitbart after knowing the full story:

So, Joan, that part, that part in there about redemptive revelation was actually in the initial tape.

Kurtz is also avoiding the real story here, a story any true media analyst wouldn’t hesitate to jump all over.

Sometime between the 5 p.m. “Hardball” broadcast and the 7 p.m. do-over, something so profound happened to Matthews that he felt it necessary to re-tape the show rather than rerunning the 5 p.m. show in that slot, which is what MSNBC normally does. And in the redo, for whatever reason, and just as fiercely as do his hard-left guests, Salon.com’s Joan Walsh and Politico’s Ken Vogel, Matthews rips into Breitbart — when just a couple of hours earlier he had been defending him.

Keep in mind that in this 7 p.m. redo in which Matthews attacks Breitbart (you can watch below) he is no more informed than he was defending Breitbart in the 5 p.m. segment:

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Any true media analyst would see that the real story here is that the re-taping of “Hardball” had nothing to do with Matthews’ confusion over anything. If there was any confusion it was completely cleared up and corrected later in the same hour. The real story here is who or what changed Matthews’ mind to the point where he would want a seemingly unprecedented “Hardball” redo so he could get back on the Destroy Breitbart talking points.

But to tell that story means repeating a fact inconvenient to the Leftist narrative: that footage of Sherrod’s redemption was included in the original video posted on Big Government.