It turns out he wasn’t just dodging the Edwards story in his role as the nation’s most powerful press critic. He was held back by nameless powerbrokers—the ones who take home the big bucks to decide such matters:

As the political fallout came to be openly debated in the North Carolina papers, I pursued the matter with my colleague Lois Romano and was struck by Edwards’s refusal to talk about whether he had a relationship with Rielle Hunter, his former campaign aide, or to even issue a statement. Edwards’s actions did not seem to be those of a man with nothing to hide. I came to believe that we should publish a story. But I don’t get paid to make those decisions.

But … doesn’t he get paid to write about the issues those mysterious folks decide? They’re called news editors. Media critics cover them! (”I came to believe that Jayson Blair was writing stories that simply weren’t true and that they should not have been published. But I don’t get paid to make those decisions.”)

One of the reasons I distrust Kurtz is not exactly that he’s not rigorous in his thinking … it’s that he’s not rigorous when it suits him not to be. There are two issues here: Whether the Post should have covered the Edwards story … and whether its press critic should have looked at the issue of the mainstream press noncoverage. (As I wrote several days ago, the silence of Kurtz and Tim Rutten at the LAT, not to mention the various folks at the NYT who write media criticism, notably David Carr, is a story in itself, particularly when you consider some of the trivialities often examined in the modern world of media reporting.)

In his latest “Media Notes” column, Kurtz addresses … dodges the issue. Press critics have a tough row to hoe. In theory, they should be slightly separate from the operation they work for; when they time comes they need to be able to take a step back and treat their own institutions with dispassion. (I know from experience it sometimes involved getting the cold shoulder from—or getting yelled at by—one’s bosses.) Kurtz is hopelessly compromised in any case. As a prominent figure at both the Post and CNN, via his weekly media show, Reliable Sources, it’s hard to trust his writing on any national newspaper (competitors of the Post) or the cable news channels (competitors of CNN); now we can see he can’t even do basic coverage of issues involving his employers.

With the cable channels endlessly interested in all sorts of tawdry nonstories it’s hard to believe they were living up to some moral standard by covering up the delectably rococo Edwards story. Beyond that its political ramifications were plain—that a presidential candidate had cheated on a cancer-stricken wife is a story whether he was in the campaign any more or not.

To me, only the most obvious public interest these stories have is the politician’s susceptibility to blackmail; you could argue that, say, Bill Clinton might have been somewhat protected from this because it would barely tarnish his already compromised reputation, but Edwards, particularly, since he campaigned as a family man and had made political appearances based on his wife’s illness, was certainly vulnerable.

And in both case, the cover-ups—utterly desperate and feckless—show to what extremes the politicians would go to not let the truth out. Any honest media observer would at least air these matters as a counterbalance to the timidity of the mainstream media. Kurtz didn’t.

He did, however, have time to pat himself on the back for an entirely spurious observance he made of Hunter’s videos at the beginning of the campaign, some 18 months ago:

One small irony: Early last year, I wrote a column about the behind-the-scenes video that Hunter produced for Edwards’s presidential run, a self-absorbed episode in which he said he would campaign “based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll.” After watching the smooth-talking candidate preen for the camera, I questioned whether he was engaged in “carefully choreographed candor.” I didn’t know how right I was.

And on his CNN show, in a burst of esprit de l’escalier:

Right. Well, here’s my two cents.

I mean, news organizations were clinging to a very important standard: Don’t run allegations that you can’t prove. But it became a ludicrous situation.

It was all over the North Carolina press in the past week, over the Internet, radio, FOX News. And there was the politics that we just talked about, the question about Edwards speaking at the Democratic convention. It almost became a conspiracy of silence by the media.

And Edwards, meanwhile, would not give interviews. He was not acting like a man who didn’t have something to hide.

I think at that point we should have earlier than we did told readers, told viewers what we knew and what we didn’t know.

p.s. No one on his show or in his column talked about how the affair damaged again the big media’s reputation. And Kurtz and his cohorts—including the NYT’s Carr—did not discuss the internal discussions they had in their respective newsrooms. I don’t mean they should have revealed the internal comments people made. But they should have identified the person in charge who did make the decision, and get them on the record saying why, and then gotten a quote from someone like Slate’s Mickey Kaus, who had followed the story for some time, explaining why that decision was incorrect.

p.p.s.  David Carr glancingly brings up the Ick Factor:

I think there is also a thing with John Edwards where people didn’t really want to believe that about him, didn’t want to believe the circumstances, and stayed away from it.

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Previously in Hitsville:

John Edwards: Now it’s a story—And Howard Kurtz is on it!
The John Edwards missed-story list grows!
The John Edwards story: Down the media rabbit hole