Discussing the retirement of ABC‘s Sam Donaldson, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz writes (2/16/09):
Donaldson’s detractors viewed him as a liberal blowhard, and there were certainly times when his mouth outran his brain.
I would certainly count FAIR as being among Donaldson’s detractors, and we viewed him as someone who was frequently mistaken for being liberal because he shouted questions at Ronald Reagan. And the examples Kurtz gives of Donaldson’s reporting–promoting a Colin Powell presidential bid, suggesting that Bill Clinton should resign over the Lewinsky scandal–do not exactly illustrate a progressive crusader. Though Kurtz does report that Donaldson was proud of a report that tracked down a Nazi war criminal; maybe that makes him a liberal in Kurtz’s book.
