On his Fox News Media Buzz program,
Howard Kurtz suggested that Anderson Cooper's coverage of the Orlando
gay nightclub massacre was biased because he's openly gay.
“Do gay journalists feel a special
anguish over the senseless slaughter of 49 mostly-gay Americans?”
Kurtz rhetorically asked, pointing out that Cooper had “choked up”
while reading the names of the victims and had “grilled” Florida
Attorney General Pam Bondi over her newfound support of the LGBT
community.
Bondi turned to Fox News to complain
that she was unfairly treated during the recent interview.
“[H]e just flipped on me. You know,
there's a time and place for everything. If he wants to ask me about
doing my job defending the constitution, but to incite anger and
hatred was not the time nor the place in front of a hospital,”
Bondi said. “[T]hat's a time for us to come together.”
“He basically mocked me for saying”
that we should “just focus on unity and love,” she added.
Cooper wanted to know how Bondi could
claim to be a “champion of the gay community” after arguing in
court that allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry would “impose
significant public harm.”
Kurtz, who left CNN in 2013, asked Fox
News contributor Guy Benson whether he thought Cooper “was acting
as more than just an aggressive journalist?”
“He seemed like an activist,”
Benson
agreed. “I thought the line of questioning for the attorney
general of Florida under the circumstances and given the context of
what had just happened in that state – it was a bizarre non
sequitur.”
“It seemed like he was browbeating
her for unrelated political thought crimes in her past, which did
not relate to the task at hand, which is roundly condemning the
horrific atrocity that happened,” he added.
Kurtz defended Bondi, arguing that he's
“not going to assume that because she defended the state's gay
marriage ban, she herself is hateful.”