Smart piece on Howard Kurtz's new show

Jack Shafer:

Kurtz moves from CNN to Fox with the same old song

After “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz parted ways with CNN in June [2] and announced the move of his Sunday morning TV act to Fox News Channel, he had a chance to retool the media-news-and-criticism formula he purveyed on the network for 15 years. Instead, he has dressed his old CNN show in Fox bunting. In the Sept. 8 debut, he recruited members of the “Reliable Sources” stock company (David Zurawik, Nia-Malika Henderson, Lauren Ashburn, and Michelle Cottle) to chat with him about the week’s news. The new show even appears in his old CNN time slot, 11 a.m. The only new thing about the show is its name, “MediaBuzz.”

I was surprised that Fox News just repackaged the old and lame "Reliable Sources" for their new media program.

Once again we see the Murdoch method at work: never let excellence get in the way of doing it cheaper. (See: Cable news, vox populi, and professional sleaze).