Those who observe American media, and observe what passes for Legacy Media’s “criticism” of our American media, have long been irritated by the Washington Post’s declaration that Howard Kurtz’s disclosure of his CNN role (host of “Reliable Sources” and media critic) satisfies WaPo readers that he has no conflict between his CNN role and his WaPo role, even when writing about CNN. Moved up the Versailles foodchain to Washington Bureau Chief (of the Daily Beast, but still….) Howie will retain his CNN Sunday hosting role.

“Media critic” at the Washington Post Howard Kurtz informs his readers today that Ken Mehlman’s gayitude was an open secret. Another media critic might actually, you know, criticize the media over such an open secret well-known to everyone who produces media but no one who consumes it, but not Kurtz. Speaking of Open Secrets, though, Ken has a few others of interest as well: donations to anti-gay politicians.

Another example of what’s horrifyingly wrong with our elite media institutions, particularly the Washington Post.

Rachel Maddow performed another fine public service last night by connecting the dots on the various Fox News stories designed to convince white people to be afraid of blacks and minorities.

A FOX News spokesman violated the confidentiality of Rachel Maddow’s job application to his network in order to provide a snarky response to her criticism of the activism FOX sparks through its advocacy.

Howard Kurtz pointed out this morning that the $3 million in funding for Tucker Carlson’s new project — the Daily Caller — comes from a man named Foster Friess. Of particular interest, Kurtz notes that Freiss ‘calls much of the information on global warming distorted and manipulated.’ Looking into this a bit further, it certainly appears as if the primary funder of Tucker Carlson’s new website is a climate change denier.

Writing on his blog, Freiss refers to this speech by Questar CEO Keith Rattie (PDF)as the best thing on global warming he has read.

Howard Kurtz, tired of Letterman’s penis, finally gets on Sen John Ensign

Howard Kurtz says that Keith Olbermann announced he’d stop talking about O’Reilly, THEN GE and Fox started talking. Brian Stelter of the NYT says that Fox execs “chuckled” when they heard Olbermann’s rant, because “they knew that a pact had already been struck by Mr. Olbermann’s bosses to end the feud.”

Who got punk’d by their sources?

Uh-oh. Howie Kurtz, in his WaPo online chat today, claims that Rick Santorum may be the link between FOX News and John Ensign.

Is there a difference between media critics Howard Kurtz and Frank Rich?