Howard Kurtz Correctly Wants The Media To Question A War In The Middle East

By Yashwanth Manjunath

On his Sunday talk show “Reliable Sources,” Howard Kurtz criticized the media for not asking enough questions about the new military intervention into Libya.

What happened to the media’s skepticism? Kurtz said. The media get excited by war…and sometimes something is lost in that initial excitement, It reminds me of eight years ago this very weekend, when shock and awe was rained down upon Baghdad and the media utterly failed to ask skeptical questions…What if there’s a long-term stalemate here? What is this goes on and on? What if there are American casualties? Do you stop this operation with Gaddafi still in power? These are the questions I think we need to be asking.

For once, I totally agree with Kurtz. However, “eight years ago” it’s not clear that Kurtz would have agreed with Kurtz 2011. Kurtz certainly was not worried about where the “media skepticism” was when he criticized journalists for writing “infamous pieces” about Afghanistan becoming a “quagmire.” Eight years later, Afghanistan now has the “infamous” distinction of being America’s longest war. Oops?

But Kurtz appears to have learned something over the past eight years. He deserves credit for his show on Sunday, but he would have earned a great deal more if he had admitted that he was one of those media figures who got it wrong eight years ago.

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