Howard Kurtz Likes to Touch Newspapers

Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media critic and host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, stole—er, borrowed—I-Fave Dick Cavett as a guest on his show last week, where Cavett questioned the point of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s forthcoming “Rally to Restore Sanity” by wondering when, exactly, sanity ever existed at all.

Cavett had not, as news outlets widely reported, criticized Stewart. But at least he stayed current. “Half the time he winds up talking about people who even I’ve never heard of,” Imus said of Cavett.

Reliable Sources has been on the air for years, but CNN will debut a new show tonight called Parker Spizter, featuring former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker.

“A lot of people are going to have a hard time getting past their last image of Eliot Spitzer,” Kurtz said, talking, of course, about Spitzer’s predilection for prostitutes that forced him from office in 2008.

In anticipation of the show’s premiere, Kurtz interviewed Spitzer, who acknowledged that doing this show dredges up a past that would have otherwise remained part of the history books.

“He said, ‘Some people are going to be gratuitously mean. I want to get back in the game, I want to be part of the conversation,’” Kurtz said. “And he’s willing to put up with the review of his recent history as a price of admission.”

Kurtz’s other employer, The Washington Post, is still publishing everyday, but, like the rest of the newspaper world, is struggling to stay current amidst technological advances. Many veteran print reporters are jumping ship to online outlets like the Huffington Post.

“I’m old-fashioned enough to think that newspapers, particularly the best ones, will continue in some form,” Kurtz said. “I like turning the pages. I know young people think that sounds like something out of the stone age.”

Always ahead of his time, Imus, who is definitely not a young person, said, “I haven’t read TIME or Newsweek since I was on the cover.”

On the broadcast news front, Kurtz called Christiane Amanpour’s iteration of ABC’s This Week “a work in progress,” nothing that ratings have not been great. “She has to get more comfortable with that format,” he said. “And the audience, perhaps, has to get more comfortable with her.”

Though he has written five books, Kurtz isn’t working on one now, but told Imus, “I don’t want to write the 412th book about the Obama administration.”

But even if he did, Imus would welcome him to promote it on this program. Following days of on-air ribbing, of course.

-Julie Kanfer