Howard Alan Kurtz (; born August 1, 1953) is an American journalist and author and host of Media Buzz on Fox News. He is the former media writer for The Washington Post and the former Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast. He has written five books about the media. Kurtz left CNN and joined Fox News in 2013.
Early life and education
Kurtz was born to a
American Jews family,
in the
Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, the son of Marcia, a homemaker, and Leonard Kurtz, a clothing executive.
[ "See Howie Kurtz Run by Garrett Graff, July 1, 2005, Washingtonian.com] He is a 1970 graduate of Sheepshead Bay High School,
[ Sheepshead Bay High School yearbook, 1970] and also of the University at Buffalo (State University of New York). In college, he worked on a student newspaper, the
Spectrum, becoming the editor his senior year.
Kurtz earned a B. A. in psychology and English in 1974. He then attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Career
After college, Kurtz went to work for the
Bergen Record in New Jersey.
He moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a reporter for syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.
Kurtz left Anderson to join
The Washington Star, an afternoon paper. When the newspaper closed in 1981, Kurtz was hired at
The Washington Post by
Bob Woodward, then the Metro editor. Kurtz has also written for
The New Republic,
The Washington Monthly, and
New York magazine.
The Washington Post
Kurtz joined the staff of
The Washington Post in 1981 and left in 2010 (29 years). He served there as a national affairs correspondent, New York bureau chief and deputy national editor.
[ The Fortune Tellers by Howard Kurtz author biography (Google Books)] Kurtz covered the news media between 1990 and 2010 for
The Washington Post.
Reliable Sources on CNN
From 1998 until 2013, Kurtz served as host of the weekly
CNN program
Reliable Sources, a cable television program that explores the standards, performance and biases of the media.
[ "Journalist, Cover Thyself" by Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times, November 21, 2005] Kurtz led the scrutinizing of the media's fairness and objectivity by questioning journalists of top news organizations, including those at CNN.
[ CNN bio ] The show premiered in 1992 when it originated as a one-hour special to discuss the media's coverage of the Persian Gulf War.
[ CNN website Reliable Sources webpage]
Kurtz's 2008 Reliable Sources interview of Kimberly Dozier, a CBS reporter wounded in Iraq, was criticized by several members of the media because Kurtz's wife had been paid as a publicist for Dozier's memoir. During the interview, Kurtz praised Dozier and read passages of her book.
The Daily Beast
In October 2010, Kurtz announced he was moving to the online publication
The Daily Beast.
He served as the Washington bureau chief for the website, writing on media and politics until 2013.
His salary at
The Daily Beast was reported to be $600,000 a year.
[Henry Blodget (2011-01-19) THE GOLDEN AGE OF NEWS: Mainstream Media Staffers Agog At Huge Salaries Huffpo And Daily Beast Are Paying Big-Name Stars, Business Insider] On May 2, 2013, the site's editor-in-chief
Tina Brown announced that Kurtz and
The Daily Beast had "parted company".
It occurred in the aftermath of a controversy in which Kurtz incorrectly accused NBA player
Jason Collins of failing to acknowledge a former heterosexual engagement when he
came out as a homosexual; Kurtz stated the parting was mutual and "in the works for some time".
Sources inside the
Daily Beast newsroom have stated that Kurtz's departure became inevitable once he began writing for and promoting a lesser-known media website called Daily Download.
Kurtz was previously the subject of controversy when Nancy Pelosi denied making a statement Kurtz attributed to her,
and a quote Kurtz attributed to
Darrell Issa was reported to have actually been made by his spokesperson.
Brown later said on
Twitter she fired Kurtz for "serial inaccuracy".
Fox News
On June 20, 2013, Kurtz left CNN to join Fox News Channel to host a weekend media program and write a column for FoxNews.com.
Kurtz's
Media Buzz replaced the
Fox News Watch program hosted by
Jon Scott. Fox News has been supportive of
Donald Trump's presidential campaigns. In an October 2024 interview conducted by Kurtz, Trump "was challenged directly on some of his most glaring falsehoods of the campaign."
His TV show
MediaBuzz was cancelled in September 2025 after 12 years on the air; the
podcast format of the show is expected to continue for at least two more years.
Books
Media Circus: The Trouble with America's Newspapers (1993, ) identifies problems afflicting U.S. newspapers and offers suggestions. Among the issues identified are timid leadership, a spreading tabloid approach to news with a growing focus on celebrities and personal scandal, poor coverage of racial issues and the Persian Gulf war, increasing bureaucracy and a pasteurization of the news.
[ Amazon.com listing and excerpted reviews][ Media Circus review by Frye Gaillard, September, 1993, The Progressive]
Hot Air: All Talk, All the Time (1997, ) describes failings of the talk-show and political talk-show format even as it had been rapidly proliferating on television and radio. Some problems he identifies include superficiality, lies, hysteria, lack of preparation, sensationalism and conflicts of interest.[ Amazon.com listing - summary and excerpts from reviews]
Spin Cycle: Inside the Clinton Propaganda Machine (1998, ) describes various techniques used by the Clinton White House to put spin on the controversies and scandals surrounding the Clintons and to refocus the attention of the media on topics other than non-issues focused on by the media.[ Amazon.com listing with excerpted reviews]
The Fortune Tellers: Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation (2000, ) addresses the growing public fascination with stock market trading as fueled by cable television shows and internet sites providing platforms to pundits, stock touts and brokerage firm stock analysts. The potential for manipulation of the media and the public by stock market insiders is discussed.[ Amazon.com listing - summary and excerpts of reviews][ New York Times book review by Richard Bernstein, September 11, 2000]
Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War (2007, ) chronicles the struggles at TV networks ABC, NBC and CBS to enhance the stature, credibility and audience draw of their anchors of the evening network news programs. The book's focus is on ABC's Charles Gibson, CBS's Katie Couric and NBC's Brian Williams.[ "Weighing Anchors" review by Marvin Kalb, Washington Post, October 21, 2007]
, which was released in January 2018, discussed Donald Trump's fights with the news media during the first year of his presidency.
Personal life
Kurtz married Lauren Ashburn in January of 2020, a journalist and media commentator since 1992. She has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC and CBS. She has written for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and other publications. Lauren is the president of Ashburn Media Company and currently writes a column for Barrett Media. She has three children from a previous marriage.
Kurtz married Sheri Annis in May 2003. Annis, a media consultant and political commentator, served as campaign spokesperson for Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and has worked on various conservative political initiatives, including California's Proposition 227 and Proposition 209.[ "Critiquing the Press" on washingtonpost.com] As a high-profile media critic and analyst, Kurtz's political leanings and multiple employers and possible biases have been discussed by fellow media critics and pundits. Both liberal and conservative viewpoints have been observed in his writing.
External links
