Howie Kurtz, one of the country’s best-known media scribes, is out as Washington bureau chief of Newsweek and the Daily Beast.
The news came a day after Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone detailed a long trail of promotional tweets and joint appearances that Kurtz has been making in conjunction with the Daily Download, a rival media website founded by Lauren Ashburn.
It also came a day after the Daily Beast had retracted one of the blog posts Kurtz had written regarding NBA player Jason Collins admitting in a Sports Illustrated interview that he was gay.
Kurtz had criticized Collins for not saying he (Collins) was engaged to be married at one point in his life. In fact, Collins had addressed that issue in the article. The blog made it appear that Kurtz had not read or had misread the article.
But sources said that his close relationship with Ashburn that had more to do with his downfall.
Kurtz, in addition to his Daily Beast work, which started in 2010 when he jumped ship from the Washington Post, has been host of a long-running CNN Sunday morning show, “Reliable Sources,” which debuted in 1998.
Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown said yesterday that the publication and Howard Kurtz have “parted company.”
Kurtz tweeted, “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.”
Although the move caught most by surprise, Kurtz said in another tweet, “This was in the works for some time, but want to wish all my colleagues continued success with a terrific website.”
Huffington Post’s Calderone noted, “Kurtz has been promoting Daily Download content on Twitter significantly more than content from his two primary employers combined.”
Kurtz is on the “advisory board” of the Daily Download. Founder Ashburn is frequently a guest on Kurtz’s CNN show, and he makes frequent appearances with Ashburn on Daily Download videos, including one on the Collins controversy earlier in the week.
Huffington Post said that in the past month, Kurtz tweeted 120 links to the Daily Download to his 125,000 Twitter followers. During the same time, he tweeted only 20 links to Daily Beast content.
He told Huffington Post that his relationship with Daily Download started “long before the site went public.” It debuted in February 2012.
The Daily Beast said it has never had a content-sharing deal with the site.
kkelly@nypost.com