The Daily Beast announced today that they were “have parted company” with media critic Howard Kurtz. The announcement came just a day after Mr. Kurtz came under fire for a blog post where he made the false claim that basketball player Jason Collins, who recently came out as gay in a Sports Illustrated cover story, failed to mention that he had been engaged. The Daily Beast retracted the post today.
“The Daily Beast and Howard Kurtz have parted company,” The Daily Beast’s editor Tina Brown said in a statement to Politico’s Dylan Byers. “Under the direction of our newly named political director John Avlon we have added new momentum and authority to our Washington bureau with columnists such as Jon Favreau, Joshua Dubois and Stuart Stevens joining our outstanding DC team of Eleanor Clift, Daniel Klaidman, Michael Tomasky, Eli Lake, David Frum and Michelle Cottle – giving us one of the best politics teams in the business which was instrumental in this week’s Webby win for Best News site.”
After the news broke, Mr. Kurtz tweeted about it–adding that it “in the works for some time.”
“I’ve enjoyed my time at the Daily Beast but as we began to move in different directions, both sides agreed it was best to part company,” Mr. Kurtz tweeted this afternoon.
“This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website,” he added on Twitter a moment later.
UPDATE: A CNN source tells TV Newser that Mr. Kurtz’s “current deal with the cable channel will likely be his last.”
