Why Howard Kurtz Needs to Dig a Little Blacker ...

We find Washington Post Staff Writer Howard Kurtz's recent "Media Notes" entry on Race & Class ("Katrina in Black & White," 9.10.05) compelling considering his failure to qoute at least one Black public intellectual or media source on the subject. He simply cites Chicago hip hop phenom Kanye West's unscripted and teary-eyed diatribe on NBC several nights ago, perhaps satisfied with filling his Black quote quota for the month or quarter, and then steers into a litany of White responses to the subtext of racism that West denounced.

"Media Notes," the Washington Post's premier online column gauging the pulse of the national media on public policies, has long been an interesting cross section of mainstream pop culture newspaper quotes and what Kurtz praises as his own personal starting line-up of prominent bloggers. Yet, in this particular instance, isn't it a trite irresponsible that out of the countless African American websites, Black-owned newspapers and blogs (such as this one) which focus on a vast array of public policy issues affecting Black people, Kurtz couldn't say "Let's see what the Blacks are saying about this," do a quick Google and draw a few insightful quotes from Black media sources that live, breathe, eat and excrete these same issues?

Big ups to Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Daniel Rubin for doing just that in his Blinq blog. Rubin dug for a Black perspective and found one on Afro-Netizen during a recent Sept. 8th entry.